As per a report from Strategy Analytics, the international mobile workforce is expected to make up 43.3 percent of the international workforce in 2023, specifically 1.88 billion, from 39.3 percent and 1.52 billion workers in 2017.
Challenging as managing an increasingly away-from-office workforce may seem, with the right Mobile Workforce Management (MWM) app in hand, it can actually be easier than you think. Yes, it is just as easy as tracking time is on hubstaff.
Benefits to Employee Management from Using an MWM App
Mobile workforce management software makes it possible to seamlessly record, measure and store task-associated information thereby boosting productivity. Below is an in-depth look at how the software makes employee management easier and better.
1. Less Travel
A mobile workforce app enables job site logging and mobile timekeeping. So that means, your employees do not have to come to the office to clock in before proceeding to a job site. Similarly, after their day’s field work is over, they don’t have to come back to the office again to clock out. This gives them more time to work and so, productivity increases. Similarly, managers can adjust rosters, review holiday requests and complete similar tasks even when on the move. Consider checking out the timekeeping software available at https://www.tsheets.com, https://hubstaff.com/ or https://www.timedoctor.com/.
2. Always Be Up-to-date on Employee Location
The GPS location tracking feature will enable you to know exactly what route a single staff or team of staff are following to arrive at a location, and whether or not there were any pit-stops. Then, with the help of saved-up GPS tracker routes to different customer locations, you can start developing pre-planned schedules for your team. The only thing you must keep in mind is to maintain a sufficient contingency time span.
3. Real-Time Information on Job Progress
When a particular employee(s) is at the job site, he can log in his activity there including document findings and status updates. If required or relevant, the employee(s) can also take photos (before and after) of the job site. Annotation and photo capture from a field staff can help you understand why a particular job required or requires more time or resources than perhaps originally expected. In software that has a customer signature field, the feature can be tapped into to confirm job completion.
4. Payrolls Become Easier to Manage
While some workers are entitled to a monthly salary, some must be paid hourly, and some others have to be paid per assignment. A mobile workforce management app will enable automatic calculation of payrolls as per the payment structure for the particular employee. Many MWM apps also carry a reminder or pop-up feature for upcoming payments.
- Better Task Allocation
One of the great benefits of a workforce management application is that task allocation becomes fully automatic. Taking location data into account, the cloud-based software can assign tasks on the basis of which resource is nearest to the task location. This ensures better work coordination and more effective use of time than achievable by a manual process.
An MWM software further saves time by enabling details of the job to be done to be keyed in and ready for the employee’s perusal. So the employee is well-informed of the nature of the problem, the location of the customer he is serving and the routing to get there. The customer will be satisfied too when she doesn’t have to repeat to the field staff all that she already conveyed to customer support.
- Administrative Workload Can Be Reduced
A mobile workforce management app can considerably bring down the need for tedious paperwork. It can also make HR processes faster which in turn means some of the time originally meant for HR can be streamlined towards other tasks.
- Instead of using paper forms, field staff can use the forms on their mobile to provide work information and job status
- HR staffs do not have to struggle to interpret difficult handwriting, or scramble to fill in the gaps in incomplete forms
- Invoice information can be submitted instantaneously. Additionally, mobile workers utilizing their vehicles for tasks can quickly and easily submit requests for mileage reimbursements. Consequently, administrative staffs are able to tackle invoices/reimbursement requests as and when they arrive rather than as a big pile later.
Better Managed Employees Means Happier Customers and More ROI
When you get real-time information about your field workforce, there is more effective management of their workday. Rerouting on the basis of whether they are in proximity to a customer means faster response to customer requirements. This translates to happier customers and potentially an increased number of service calls which in turn means better top line growth.
A mobile workforce management app is a single application that enables task force management, reporting, data analytics, performance monitoring and customer communication. Thus, can do away with using multiple applications and thereby cut costs. Why wait any longer to use it and to reap the benefits for your business, big or small?
