Working Smarter Means Organizations Need to Personalize Work

(Editor’s Note: T oday’s
article is brought to you by  our friends at Kronos , a
leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud
solutions. Managing your workforce just got a lot smarter with Workforce
Dimensions, a solution designed to provide both a world-class employee
experience and unprecedented levels of operational insight .
Enjoy the article!)

When
I go to conferences, I hear a lot of speakers say that organizations need to
work smarter. But what does that really mean? Well, during our annual Workforce
Institute at Kronos board meeting, we spent some time working on the answer to
that question. Here’s what we came up with:

“Working Smarter represents freeing up employees from the challenges of everyday business, such as shifting consumer demands, evolving labor laws, and an increasingly competitive landscape, so they can contribute to the strategic outcomes of the organization. The solutions include automation, streamlined processes, and actionable data and insights. By working smarter, employees are able to amplify their capabilities to deliver better outcomes.”

Obviously,
organizations want employees to work smarter. It has a direct bottom-line
impact to the business. But frankly, employees want to work smarter too.
Because working smarter means better results with (hopefully) less work. Or at
least that the work happens a faster, more efficient way.

Working Smarter Means Working Differently

There’s an
old quote attributed to Albert Einstein about how insanity means doing the same
thing over and over while expecting different results. Organizations that want
“smarter” work and better results are going to have to look for new ways for
the work to be completed. This is where modern technologies, such
as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, can bring value (and dare I say “smartness”) to
work. Here are just a couple of examples:

EXAMPLE #1: Building resiliency and agility creates individual and organizational success

Two
of the traits that I’m constantly hearing associated with business smarts and
organizational success are resilience and agility. Our
friends at Kronos have partnered with the science-based training company meQuilibrium to help organizations bring these skills to
employees through its next gen solution, Workforce Dimensions.

As
you know, resilience is the ability to maintain a state of calm, focus, and
confidence in the face of adversity and change. According to meQulibrium,
emotional well-being enables resilience and their tools allow employees to
focus on that through the use of a set of employee engagement tools. In
addition, meQ Empower takes that same concept to the team environment and helps
employees focuses their skills on those
attributes needed to effectively work in a constantly changing team environment
like empathy, emotion control, and positivity.

I know some of you might be thinking, “This
sounds great, but how do I justify the expense of soft skills development that
can be hard to measure. Well, this is where Kronos and their time and
attendance data comes in. Workforce Dimensions marries the Kronos data with the
meQ science – in real-time. The results are evidence-based insights on a daily
basis into those activities that challenge organizations every day, like absenteeism
and turnover. This positions HR to make recommendations for improvements that will
only further drive business success.

Mercer’s Global Talent Trends Report 2019 finds 99% (yes, that’s not a typo) are taking action to prepare the future workforce. That includes upskilling employees, so they are prepared for the next big thing.

EXAMPLE #2: Being ready allows employees and companies to leverage opportunities

Speaking
of agility, one of the biggest challenges that managers have to deal with is
finding people to do the work after an employee calls in late or sick. While this
is a specific example, it’s also one that shows potential for many industries. Passport
is an artificial intelligence tool
used in the trucking and delivery industries. The tool automatically reroutes
drivers – with the skills and the time – when someone calls in sick.

With
the Passport tool, Workforce Dimensions can
create a “public” listing of unscheduled routes that employees can accept –
again, if they have the skills and time. During a time when recruitment and
retention is on everyone’s mind, having tools like “Passport” can help
employers quickly fill scheduling gaps, allowing customer satisfaction to
remain a priority.

In addition, employees might appreciate having
the opportunity to pick up an extra shift here or there. Especially around a
holiday or when they’re trying to save up for something special. It’s a bonus
that employees can complete all of these actions in a single application
instead of fumbling around between solutions while literally “on the road”.  

This same Passport intelligence is being
applied beyond trucking and delivery, in industries where timing can have a big
impact on wellness or safety, such as home healthcare and social services.  In those roles, intelligent routing and visit
assignments and assuring that open assignments are filled quickly with
qualified personnel not only saves money, it can save lives.

Smarter
Work Means Building a Personalized Technology Solution for Employees

The good news about solutions
like meQ and Passport is that these tools can be used in concert with Workforce
Dimensions. So, we’re not talking about adding another new system. Workforce
Dimensions provides a foundation that allows organizations to personalize the
work experience for employees using these AI and
machine learning components.

For
employees, this means they can get all of their work information in one place.
They can view their vacation balance, sick balance, and paid time off (PTO).
Plus, using Passport, employees can possibly pick up an extra shift or route.
And then, they can also spend time developing “softer” skills like resiliency
and agility using meQ. These are skills that will benefit the employee
throughout their entire career.

Organizations
that use AI and analytics to crunch their workforce management data will have
the clear advantage to measure if their plans for the future are working long
before the future actually arrives. These activities benefit the organization
through reduced administration, more effective scheduling and staffing, and
better employee knowledge and skills. I continue to be impressed with the
Workforce Dimensions solution and how it can help organizations and employees
work smarter, if you want to learn more (and I know you do), visit the
Kronos website and request a demo.

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