Workforce Management Satisfaction

Assembled Capacity Planning Template Aug 2024 box

Workforce Management Satisfaction
When planners meet, they often debate the merits or frustrations of their
workforce management systems. It is often clear that personal perception
and experience of alternative systems in the past is a key factor in this
frustration. This is a view supported by the results of the Planning Forum’s
2010 benchmark research.

Calculating Netpromoter scores gives a pretty damning overview of the
industry, with an industry average of -11 points and only 2 systems scoring
positively (one of which achieved +41).

Only 15% state they are fully confident in using their WFM tool.
Only 27% are fully satisfied with vendor support
Only 12% feel their WFM tool is fully integrated with other technology

Why are the scores so low?

Analysis of other questions in this section of the survey suggests that users are mainly concerned about their personal ability to use functionality and the level of support or training they receive from their vendor.
When coupled with evidence that 56% of planners have not received any training or development and that 47% of training provided by software vendors provided little or no usefulness to the company, it is evident that training and development could change the perceptions very quickly.
One other factor is internal politics and policies. Buy-in and support of the planning team is low for team leaders and even with senior managers almost 20% have issues with the planning team – as the WFM system is the main tool, this leads to requests for items not necessarily core to WFM, bringing a level of distrust into the centre.
There is evidence that managers outside the planning team do not fully understand what can be provided, putting stress on the planners to deliver and allowing expectations to grow that the systems can deliver more than they were designed for.

Typical problems

“Problems with integration are not with the product but internal policies.”
“Always ensure that business and MI requirements drive the design of the solution, otherwise there will be a chunk of rebuild work required.”
“There are some basic glitches still and the training for the team appears to have been extremely poor.”
“Support has been lacking. Cost to train staff was unrealistic in this climate.”
“Calculation for required staffing does not support needs of a call centre.”
“My frustration is around operational inflexibility created by project delivery. This is a long-term challenge to IT.”