An optimised workforce is like the beating heart of a business. 

It takes sophisticated technology and data to ensure that staffing levels meet the demands of customers, meet task deadlines and stay within budget.

Fleet managers need workforce workforce solutions to help them manage their drivers and activities at any time of the day.

Let’s dive into how workforce management software can help you optimise your workforce and get the most out of your fleet. 

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What is workforce management?

This involves optimising and tracking your organisation’s most important resource - people.

To achieve successful workforce management, employers should strive to strategically allocate their people and resources, track staff attendance and comply with workplace laws and regulations that change. This will optimise the productivity of their workforce and reduce various risks, such as paying employees less than what they should be paid due to mismanagement.

In addition, businesses can improve customer service and overall turnover, because they are not hiring unnecessarily, but rather optimising the processes for retaining their existing employees, saving them extra money on recruitment costs. This will also save them time spent on admin so they can free up time to focus on better ways to meet their customer’s needs and grow their business. 

In addition, Workforce management contains processes that are well-integrated, especially if an organisation has multiple departments with many employees, which could make it more difficult and complex to manage these employees. They need to be in sync and communicate well together to get the work done. 

This is where a good work management software solution comes into play but how can we apply this to a business? 

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What is an example of effective workforce management software?

In the fleet management industry, a software solution that offers work log reports and driver ID tags, such as Cartrack’s, can help a fleet manager improve his workforce and easily manage his drivers on the road.

The technology makes it compulsory for drivers to tap the tag sensor in the vehicle or machine in order to start or stop operating it. This unique tag can, in turn, indicate their actual working hours. These times are then fed through to the fleet platform where a fleet manager can pull up a report with all the vehicle activity data, and even receive alerts letting them know when drivers clock in or out. This gives them full visibility of driver attendance and fleet activity, which helps them pay wages more accurately, and improves employee accountability.

Another reason fleet managers love Driver ID tags is the control it gives them. They can assign drivers certain tags that only work for certain vehicles. This helps them prevent any unauthorised usage of vehicles or equipment, helping them protect and manage their fleet. It's also a great time saver. All this data and activity is recorded so managers don't need to manually do this, which frees them up to focus on more pressing tasks.

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Why is workforce management important?

If you choose a workforce software solution, there are many ways it can benefit your business. Here are just a couple of key examples why it is important and how it can make your operations more productive, cost-effective and compliance-friendly.

• Reduced compliance violations: Easy tracking of employee attendance ensures that companies are on top of their payroll and are complying with the state labour laws.
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• Less workplace safety incidents: More safety violation alerts will ensure that you manage environmental health and safety incidents more effectively.
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• No staffing shortages: Processes for existing staff allow them to be more productive, reducing the costly need to hire new staff.
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• Cost management: With a workforce more optimised, businesses can retain their staff better, and they won’t incur additional costs hiring new staff, helping them reduce unnecessary recruitment costs.
  
  
• Efficient processes and workforce: Staff will naturally be more productive as business tasks are organised and allocated more strategically.

Most businesses need a quick and easy solution that include these basic examples, which is why workforce management software is a great option, no matter what industry you’re in.

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Here are the top eight benefits of workforce management solutions

Now that you know some common pitfalls in workforce management, here’s how a software solution can help address those challenges.

1. Control staffing costs
   
   Software technology will enable employers to know exactly how much labour is needed to complete all their tasks. It will give them a better overview of tasks to meet business demands and will help them easily pinpoint where staff is over and under-resourced, so they allocate staff accordingly. If there’s overstaffing and excessive overtime is being used, businesses can incur major unnecessary costs in cases where staff and overtime are excessive, so just being able to identify and rectify this can save a business money.
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2. Effective payroll
   
   There’s a way for you to have a more reliable payroll system in place, with the right software, which will automatically analyse hours worked, pick up overtime and will then calculate how much employees need to be remunerated. This will eliminate repetitive data entry and manual calculations, in turn minimising human errors and payroll inefficiencies.
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3. Easily compare with competitors
   
   Software helps businesses create benchmarks against other competitors in a similar industry or size, especially when it comes to attendance data and productivity levels of their employees. If their workforce isn’t measuring up to competitors, a business has the tools to take action. This is important because if they don’t, competitors can provide better service and dominate the market by being more efficient.
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4. Measure the productivity of your workforce
   
   A software platform will help you create key performance indicators and task schedules for your staff. You can also analyse their progress with tasks, using reports from the platform. This will help you see if they are being productive. You can also analyse if schedules are effective and see if changes are needed for your workforce to meet business objectives.
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5. Create smarter schedules
   
   With real-time data, employers can easily see which shifts need to be filled, so they can immediately fill them before they face a staff shortage. They can also create schedules by location, department or job for improved scheduling in the company.
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6. Minimise compliance risks
   
   Easily manage leave balances and employee benefits that comply with state laws, using a software system that has automated workflows that track this data. A system can also have integrated online recordkeeping and documentation for compliance. This is helpful if there’s ever an audit by a government agency or if there is a potential breach of compliance as your business will have the data to mitigate the situation and avoid putting the company’s reputation at risk.
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7. Empower your employees
   
   Use workforce software to improve communication with your employees, so you can make them feel more informed and help them reach your business standards easily. This will make them feel more empowered and motivated at work. You can also empower your employees further, by creating fair schedules that help them also meet their personal obligations, while still meeting the demands of the business. For example, they can have a say in their schedules with self-service features to update availability, swap shifts, request time off, and pick up extra shifts.
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8. Fewer errors and less admin
   
   Automate the attendance of your employees to minimise any human errors. A system can accurately calculate how many hours an employee has worked and automatically send that through to payroll. This creates less admin for HR because they won’t need to manually call the employees regarding hours worked or if there are any changes in the system.

If you are a fleet manager, optimising your workforce is important to improve the logistics, driver behaviour standards, and bottom-line costs of your fleet. We’ll give you further insight into workforce management software that can help you manage your workforce better so you can improve the processes in your fleet.

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Five core functions of workforce management software

According to Garner Inc, these are five principle functions that are found in a typical workforce management solution. Next time you’re shopping around for a solution to optimise your workforce, make sure you tick these five crucial boxes.

1. Labour scheduling: A software system should give you the insight to see how many employees are required for a particular job at any given time. You will then be able to strategically divide the labour in your workforce and ensure that the workload is evenly spread out, the demands of customers are met and all skill sets are used at optimum.
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2. Data collection: You will need data and detailed information from a platform so you can create reports, compare processes driven by data, and make decisions, to assess if your workforce is working for you, or if there are areas that are lacking.
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3. Leave and absence management: An automated leave management system makes it easy to track, approve, or deny employee leave requests so you comply with leave regulations.
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4. Task and activity management: Maximise productivity with your staff members by giving them the software tools they need to perform duties, which includes task management scheduling, enabling employees to be assigned to the right activities so they are updated on company tasks.
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5. Attendance and payroll: A system will help you ensure attendance data is captured easily and accurately and that staff are paid for the hours they work, ensuring that there are fewer payroll errors.

We could quickly give you all the solutions to help you better manage your workforce but it will be way more beneficial if you understand the challenges first.

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What are the challenges of workforce management?

If you answer “yes, that’s my challenge” to any of these, it is a good indication that you are in need of a software platform that can help in one or more of the following ways.

Employee time attendance and tracking

If your employees have to manually log their hours when signing into work, it could cause more errors when tracking their hours worked, create unnecessary paperwork, and take longer for management to process their working hours. This challenge can easily be solved with an attendance-tracking software solution.

Scheduling and rostering

You might require your employees to work different shifts scheduled for different parts of the day, and you might require more staff depending on project demands during certain periods. Paper-based rostering for this would take up too much time and create inefficiencies, which is why work automation will help managers face the challenge of employee rostering.

Managing absenteeism

Unplanned absences can test a business due to the extra costs of covering the absences and the losses incurred while the absent employee is replaced. It will be challenging for a business if they cannot manage absences, especially with a large workforce, where they will need immediate replacements to fill important roles, such as in a pressurised sales environment.

Employee self-service

Employee Self-Service solutions allow employees to view their rosters, swap shifts, request absence or annual leave, and view their information. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to accommodate everyone’s requests at the same time and it is often necessary to get through these requests to ensure the company still functions fully. If this information is not stored digitally, information can get lost, which can cause issues with labour compliance and create a potential admin crisis.

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Why workforce optimisation and management should be a priority

Fleet optimisation means making the most effective use of your fleet, cutting costs, maximising productivity and ensuring best practices for your operations. It’s also about getting the most out of your vehicles or assets for less.

Basically, better managed and more optimised fleet means more productivity, deliveries, satisfied customers, revenue and profit. And that means, less costs, mileage, fuel usage, emissions released and drivers, and vehicles needed – every fleet manager’s dream.

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How to improve your workforce and fleet with Cartrack’s software 

Here’s how a telematics software platform from Cartrack Kenya can help you take your fleet from good to great.

• Create driver schedules and communicate effectively with your drivers
  
  Schedule drivers to jobs or deliveries easily. Use Cartrack Delivery to view driver statuses and assign jobs in real time to your nearest available drivers. Drivers can also accept or reject tasks and review their schedules ahead of time. This allows them to communicate with managers via the mobile app, and notify them on the progress of deliveries, just by tapping the status buttons on the app. Managers can also view driver statuses to easily assign tasks to their nearest available drivers, and use the magic optimising tool to ensure the quickest and safest routes are taken for faster delivery turn-around times.
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• Enhance driver training with data insights
  
  You can receive detailed, automated driver behaviour reports for each driver from the Cartrack Kenya platform. These reports can show you where your drivers are speeding, braking harshly, idling excessively and cornering fast. You can then use these insights to help grow your workforce by showing drivers where they need to improve, making them more accountable, and creating a safer, more efficient driving culture in your business.
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• Keep your whole workforce connected
  
  Seamlessly connect your drivers on the road with your team in the office, keeping everyone up to date with the latest fleet activities. When your drivers are assigned jobs, they can automatically keep you updated on their progress in real time, allowing your office staff to see the status and progress of every job. If a vehicle breaks down or is delayed, fleet managers can immediately view and use the insights from Cartrack’s GPS tracking software to assist their drivers.
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• Accurate and easy fleet payroll
  
  Give each of your drivers ID tags that require them to tap the sensor on the vehicle or equipment in order to start and stop using it. Fleet managers will receive automated log reports, indicating the exact hours spent on a job. You can use these reports to help accurately pay staff wages – eliminating payroll errors and any wage disputes.
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• Increase driver safety and productivity
  
  Use AI-powered and live-streaming camera technology to track driver behaviour. These cameras are designed to audibly alert drivers in real time when it detects forms of dangerous driving gestures like fatigue, smoking, cell phone use and more, allowing your drivers to quickly rectify their behaviour and prevent a possible collision. This technology makes drivers more aware and accountable for their actions, which in turn makes them more productive and professional when on duty.

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Drive your workforce to optimum success with Cartrack Kenya

When it comes to finding the best workforce management tool for your fleet, Cartrack Kenya is miles ahead of the game. With over 15 years of experience in providing businesses of all sizes with industry-leading telematics software, let Cartrack Kenya take your fleet's workforce from average to optimal.

Chat with Cartrack Kenya today.