Traditionally, workforce tools were used by HR teams to manage full-time employees, analyze trends and predict future workforce strategic needs, and sometimes even to manage payroll and benefits, too.
Today, the workforce is in the process of a deep paradigm shift. Simply put, your employees might have traditionally been the core or majority of your workforce, but the use of non-payroll workers continues to rise and by 2025, more than half of the workforce will be freelancers, contractors, consultants, and gig-workers. Not to mention the rise of remote and international workers, even for smaller businesses.
This article is part of our guide on workforce management.
Related content: Read our guide to workforce planning.
Is less really more when it comes to workforce tools?
This means HR teams must refresh and expand their workforce tools in order to be able to properly manage their evolving workforce. They need to realize that looking for a single tool that can manage all of your workforce is a losing battle. What you might gain in simplicity or ease of use, you’re actually missing out on in functionality and competitive edge.
Of course, there’s a balance to be had. Tool sprawl is a real challenge, and having too many tools and technologies can cause stress for employees, make your processes less efficient, and even open you up to digital risk. That’s why it’s so important to streamline the number of workforce tools you onboard and complete your due diligence ahead of time. As you onboard a new tool, ask yourself:
Are there other technologies already performing this task?
Who needs access and visibility to this tool, and how easy will it be to provide that?
Is this tool easy to train employees on, simple to use, and straightforward to collaborate with?
Does this tool fill a real need, or am I simply following a trend?
6 workforce tools your team should consider
To help you to streamline the number of tools you have, we’ve compiled a list of the top workforce tools in the industry (and included our own personal recommendations!) that can help you to manage today’s changing workforce and all without risking tool sprawl.
Starting with the basics – your HRIS
Recommendation: Try BambooHR or HiBob
Your starting point is likely to be your HRIS, which stands for Human Resources Information System. This will be the backbone of your portfolio of workforce tools, managing all of your employee information in a single centralized place, and ensuring that your data is held compliantly across the employee lifecycle.
An HRIS will help you to manage employee details from the point they apply for a role as a candidate, through to onboarding and documentation, vacation days, benefits, internal movement, and offboarding, too.
Remember, not all HRIS systems are created equally. You’ll need to think about the features that you want to be included. Examples for modern HRIS are BambooHR and HiBob, as it places more focus on employee engagement and retention, which is crucial in today’s competitive employment market.
Freelance and independent contractor management
Recommendation: Learn more about Fiverr Enterprise
The freelance revolution is going nowhere fast, and yet most companies do not have one owner responsible to manage freelancers, independent contractors, and consultants, as most HR teams c
ontinue to focus almost exclusively on full-time employees.
If your processes for sourcing freelance talent, tracking their projects, approving budget, and ensuring that compliance and documentation is up to scratch are siloed and ad-hoc across different departments, you’re far from alone!
This is exactly where Fiverr Enterprise thrives – offering a single hub for managing your non-payroll workers. Anything from finding top talent, building company’s talent directory, tracking milestones, allocating budget, and compliantly managing and paying freelancers around the world.
Remote employee management
Recommendation: Look up Any-well
Post-pandemic, remote work, and choice-first workplace cultures are here to stay. Technology is adapting in order to offer flexible and innovative remote workforce management, and we’re not gonna lie – we are here for it! We love Any-well, a great solution for remote workers who don’t have a natural office space at home, which allows workers to find a place they can get the job done anywhere in the world, whether it’s a coffee shop, a hotel room, or a conference space for a larger meeting or event. At all times, you can keep monitoring and managing your employees with a single view.
International employee management
Recommendation: Give Remote.com a Google
Remote working has become the norm since COVID-19 introduced social distancing into our lives, and it is clear that nothing will ever be the same. As a result of remote working, many companies are seeking the best skilled talent not just in their own region, but from all over the globe.
In the past, hiring employees in different countries forced companies to open local entities, which was quite costly, or employ through Employer of Record agencies.
Over the past few years, companies offering EOR solutions have made hiring international employees easier and more affordable. Rather than jump through all the hoops of setting up an entity in a new location, Remote offers automated EoR solutions including payment and compliance for international employees in 150 countries. Your latest hire is employed through the EoR, who signs their name on the monthly payslip, and often deals with local complexities such as benefits, vacation days, and cultural norms. Meanwhile, you focus on the day-to-day tasks and workload. Simple.
Non-desk employees
Recommendation: Why not look at Connecteam?
It can be easy to forget that not everyone is sitting at a desk all day in front of a computer screen! Your desk-free employees also need technology to help them to do their jobs with greater ease, and to keep communication and collaboration happening across different parts of the business. A mobile app is the simplest solution, giving you a direct line to every employee, no matter where they are. Check out Connecteam, which allows you to schedule shifts, dispatch tasks, send notifications and reminders, or live chat between employees. As HR, you can view timesheets and workloads, and offer employees the ability to manage their documentation, plus time and attendance.
Dynamic workforce
Recommendation: A tailor-made solution via NICE IEXAI and machine learning is making waves offering solutions for volatile or dynamic workforces such as call center staff, where there are peaks and dips in needs and requirements. For example, NICE IEX provides accurate forecasting and advanced scheduling through their Journey Orchestration solution. You can benefit from automatic call distribution, predictive dialing, AI routing, and much more, saving you money while ensuring your workforce can scale according to customer needs.