The WFC Group Blog

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Deskbound managers are absent managers, especially in retail and hospitality where GMs are responsible for a seemingly insurmountable number of administrative duties. While important, these tedious tasks, such as scheduling, time-off approvals and payroll oversight, can get in the way of effectively managing and engaging employees. That's why restaurants and stores are recognizing the benefits of workforce management technologies that can help managers' actively ensure employees are delivering the best customer experience possible.

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There are more benefits to having a highly engaged workforce than just increased productivity. Employees actually hold a lot of influence over the perception of a business or brand. When they are engaged in their work—those who feel valued and have a sense of purpose—they are far more likely to speak out about their jobs. And when your own employees speak positively, people listen—accomplishing a whole lot more for your brand than painstakingly crafted PR statements lacking humanity.

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The influx of new devices into the workplace is a constant concern. Releases and sales of the hottest new phones, tablets and more are staggered throughout the year, but the weeks after the holidays is a big time for people to fire up their newest gadgets, making it an important time as ever for businesses and IT departments to evaluate their device policy and make key decisions about which personal mobile devices (and apps therein) serve your purpose securely. Unlike enterprise devices, you may not have control over what OS versions and software patches are in use (that’s often up to the cellular provider), but here are two worthwhile considerations in allowing your employees this flexibility.

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As 2017 draws to a close, we're taking a moment to look back on the important developments in workforce management. At the start of the year, we identified several trends we expected would define workforce management for the industry and the businesses who rely on the latest in workforce management solutions. Altogether, our expectations aligned pretty well with how the year played out. Here are three topics that aligned with our early year predictions.

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There’s not a business around that wouldn’t love to improve its workforce performance and productivity. These are certainly common goals that guide many of our workforce management solution implementations for our clients. But while the tools best suited to specific businesses may vary, the approach to how they are used may be the real secret to a more productive workforce. In a new report, Gallup digs into the pitfalls of traditional performance management on employee engagement and makes a convincing case for a developmental approach to cultivating great performance.

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There's a lot of truth in the saying "showing up is half the battle." As human resources and workforce managers, making sure you're achieving peak productivity with proper staffing is a major concern. You need people in the right place at all times and the ability to adjust and adapt quickly for both planned and unplanned absences. At the same time, today's highly capable workforce anticipates personal flexibility, compassion and understanding when it's needed most. Achieving all of this comes down to having the proper tools in place.

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As The WFC Group team gears up to attend KronosWorks next month, we’re covering some important topics of interest around Kronos solutions and how to get the most out of them. Here we’ve identified five issues we’ve observed that prevent businesses from maximizing their benefit, some of which we hope to discuss with managers joining us at the conference.

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Labor laws are getting pretty complex, but with the right tools in hand they can become much easier to navigate. One growing challenge for employers in some states is meeting requirements around timekeeping and break length minimums. Documentation and validation of compliance may seem like a hassle at first, but solutions such as the Kronos Attestation Toolkit can ease the process while benefitting employers and employees alike.

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If there's one thing airports can't get enough of, it's efficiency — moving people from gate to gate and flights in and out safely, with comfort and at a reasonable cost. At the heart of achieving this are many hardworking people nationwide (1.2 million of them across 485 commercial airports) — and someone has the responsibility to keep them all taken care of. Thankfully, workforce management solutions today are well-suited to the large scale needs of these important aviation hubs and the people that serve them.

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It's no secret that manufacturers have already been finding it difficult to fill the skills gap with new generations entering the workforce. But even with the shortage of talent skilled in manufacturing crafts now, the gap is only going to get bigger without some changes across the industry. As the skilled workforce begins to age out, the pull for entry into the field needs to get more innovative. While there's no immediate fix, manufacturers are already finding ways to improve prospects at the present while laying the foundation for future workforce strength, and this recent study by Kronos for The Manufacturer has some great highlights.