Why Integrating a Dynamic Scheduling Solution with Your HCM Software Is a Necessity, Not a Nicety

Relying on Human Capital Management software to manage workforce is the norm for leading enterprises. According to a recent executive IBM report, these HCM solutions are becoming more powerful and will move from basic functionalities of benefits management and attendance tracking to manage issues such as real-time feedback and augmented reality at work.

Most HCM solutions support a vast range of functionalities, including payroll, onboarding, compliance management, performance and benefits management, as well as workforce management aspects such as time and attendance and budgeting. However, despite their tremendous data processing capabilities, some leading HCM platforms still grapple with the core issue of workforce management—scheduling.

Scheduling is still bare-bones in leading HCM software

Many leading HCM solutions have a scheduling component built-in, but are most often incomplete in feature set, are difficult to use for both managers and employees, and aren’t mobile-first in their user experience. Companies typically improve the scheduling capabilities of their HCM platforms by integrating a feature-rich scheduling solution with their existing HCM software.

The key problem is that existing HCM platforms support basic, fixed, and recurring shift scheduling, but in today’s real-time world, leading companies require a skill-based, mobile-first scheduling platform to manage their staff. Without dynamic scheduling, enterprises are forced to manage HCM software and scheduling platforms as two separate solutions, each with its own data source.

But the issues don’t end there. The lack of alignment between employee scheduling and workforce management processes is detrimental for enterprise operation as it leads to a number of issues, including double data entry, lack of a single source of truth for all employee data, incorrect employee and shift information, and desynchronized business data.

Instead of having an HCM platform that doesn’t handle scheduling, or doesn’t handle it very well, the integration allows companies to leverage the best features from both software packages. These business systems don’t sync easily—let alone integrate—which results in connectivity barriers that can hurt the business and cause a ripple effect that has both short and long-term ramifications for businesses in all industries—missed shifts, dissatisfied customers, loss of profit, and damaged reputation. According to the Global Mobile Workforce Forecast Update, this issue is even more pronounced given that hourly workers will account for 42.5% of the global workforce by 2022.

As a result of these fundamental issues, companies face a risk of scheduling employees with inadequate skills and certification, failing to identify a potential schedule conflict, or ending up with an empty shift at the last minute.

The solution is to blend the workforce and human capital management platform

To remove these challenges from everyday operations, enterprises should seek ways to streamline their scheduling efforts—by finding and integrating a scheduling platform that adds the much-needed scheduling functionality to their existing HCM solution. This solution needs to support three key functionalities:

1. Flexible scheduling that meets the needs of dynamic industries, such as retail, healthcare, and manufacturing. Companies in industries that have a large shift-based workforce require an employee shift scheduling platform that can adapt dynamically due to changes in work practices, sales forecasting, seasonality, employee availability and skills, and other unforeseen circumstances.

2. Sync easily and eliminate the needs for double data entry. It is crucial to find a solution that ensures real-time data syncing across platforms, including data on employee availability, schedules, leave requests, skills, and certification.

3. A scalable workforce management platform built specifically for the needs of the enterprise, which feeds schedule data into the HCM platform, and allows managers and scheduling professionals complete access to all vital employee data from a single solution, while employees can access data on their upcoming shifts right from their mobile devices.

By integrating a platform specialized in scheduling with the existing HCM capabilities, enterprises can tremendously improve their overall workforce management. The integration would leverage the best functionalities from both software packages and create a decisive impact on the efficiency of an enterprise’s human capital management processes.