While technology plays a critical role in today’s logistics industry, it’s still people who ultimately power the supply chain. From inventory control officers to forklift operators, your ability to attract, engage, and retain the best workers is critical to the success of your company. And that’s just the beginning. Effective workforce management also plays a key role in managing your labor costs so that you can maximize profitability.
Three steps for success
Making the most of your workforce can give you an important edge – the ability to adapt and respond to changing market conditions faster than your competitors. Here are three steps you can take to make that happen.
1. Develop a workforce that is flexible and agile in the face of a constantly evolving logistics industry.
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, you need to develop a workforce that is both flexible and agile. Flexibility allows your employees to handle uncertainty and change in a variety of ways, while agility means that they can respond quickly to changes – and transform challenges into opportunities. From both an HR and an operational perspective, a flexible and agile workforce means improved productivity and responsiveness.
2. Define and track the right metrics so you understand how your organization is performing.
In order to make the best decisions to support your company’s goals, you need to understand how the organization is performing. Defining and tracking the right set of metrics is one of the keys to that understanding. Choosing which metrics to track and report depends on your company’s specific goals, so it’s important to take the time to define those metrics that most directly impact your success. Commonly tracked workforce metrics include employee turnover, overtime costs, employee mix, and unplanned absences.
Logistics companies who wait to define and track critical measures until they encounter a significant problem may put themselves at risk. A proactive approach to measurement and tracking allows your organization to avoid increased costs, inefficiencies, and disruptions rather than react to them.
3. Leverage real-time data to gain critical insight into your workforce challenges and opportunities.
Workforce metrics are an important tool for assessing your HR practices, and can pinpoint ways to improve them so that they better support your organization’s goal. Workforce management solutions do more than just capture the data surrounding your workforce – they allow you to leverage that data for insight into your critical workforce processes. These data-driven insights can allow your company to build the kind of agile workforce you need to compete in today’s fast-paced logistics market.
Workforce Go! HCM is an automated workforce solution that takes you beyond standard reporting to true workforce analytics. It transforms labor data from multiple sources – including time and attendance, scheduling, payroll, and job activity – into the data visibility and insights you need in today’s competitive and rapidly changing logistics industry. Ready to make the most of your people? Contact us today at [email protected] or 214-800-5575 to find out more.
