Because the global response to COVID-19 has strained systems and processes like never before, organizations are reassessing internal strategies across their workforces to optimize operational agility. As 2021 commenced, you may have been one of those organizations still waiting to migrate to the cloud. The rationale to wait may have been related to sunk costs, compliance concerns, or it may have been cultural. Whatever the reason, operational agility can only be fully optimized and maintained with a cloud system that supports the needs of the entire workforce from any location.

With very few certainties on the horizon for 2021, cloud migration is simply a necessity for managing and supporting diverse, simultaneous, or asynchronous employee groups—from those working onsite or from home, to those who are in the field or stationed at any number of locations across a wide geographic footprint. From HR to IT and beyond, the following are four ways in which a cloud-based workforce management solution will help you thrive in the year ahead and ease any unexpected challenges or burdens across your business.

1. Immediacy and Flexibility of Anywhere, Anytime Access

After sending your staff to work from home earlier this year, your organization may have quickly noticed the limitations of its on-premise software. There’s no doubt that these limitations will persist post-pandemic, and the future implications could be detrimental. Aside from dampening employee engagement and productivity, a lack of immediacy in employee self-service significantly increases the administrative load for your HR and administration staff, potentially ballooning labor spend and increasing the risk of noncompliance in the process.

Here’s how the immediacy and flexibility of a cloud-based workforce management solution benefits your entire workforce:  

• Employees are equipped with immediate mobile access to view schedules, receive instant notifications of schedule changes or leave approval, swap shifts, request time off, review gross pay, capture time, and more.
• Scheduling managers are able to manage flexible work arrangements, ensure coverage, manage an increase in absences, and comply with everchanging regulations and guidelines.
• Business leaders are empowered to make smarter decisions with anywhere, anytime access to performance data and strategic insights.
• Customizable features and a mobile-first, responsive design allow each user to tailor their experience in a way that is meaningful and personalized.

2. Scalability to Support a Quick Response to Fluctuations

With all of the disruption in the wake of COVID-19, new opportunities are rising too quickly for your organization to be bound by clunky, slow, poorly integrated software. In order to maximize operational agility, you need a solution that will allow your organization to scale quickly in response to these new opportunities. Suppose your organization is responding to an increase in demand for pandemic-critical products and needs to rapidly open a new warehouse or store location. Cloud-based workforce management solutions grow with your company in response to changing scenarios and support scale for a suddenly expanded organization—due to the rapid opening of a new location or facility, a merger or acquisition, or organic growth.  

3. Reduced Burden on Your IT Team

Work-from-home arrangements have added an additional burden on IT teams, who may find themselves attempting to remotely update on-premise solutions or, worse, foregoing updates that are critical toward ensuring compliance—especially given the flood of legislation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Migrating your workforce management system to the cloud avoids the cumbersome task of remote updates while eliminating the high cost and complexity of maintaining multiple niche workforce management systems.

4. Mitigation of Data Security Risks

The trend in fast-mounting regulations will undoubtedly continue throughout 2021, and without an automatically updating, single solution in the cloud, your organization will struggle to track changes and navigate security and data compliance—exposing itself to significant risk. A cloud-based workforce management solution helps you save on the maintenance of technological infrastructure in order to stay compliant with continually shifting regulations, which differ greatly across regions. Many software companies also employ subject matter experts dedicated solely to data privacy, compliance, and proving compliance with independent third-party evidence. These experts act as an extension of your IT team, which can free up your IT staff to focus on requests that support your business goals.  

Thriving in 2021 with a Cloud-Based Workforce Management Solution

With workforce management technology being one of the most high-touch, high-transaction business critical systems, migrating your workforce management system to the cloud should be a top consideration when it comes to thriving now and post-pandemic. To discover more initiatives that will empower your organization to thrive in the year ahead, download our free eBook, 5 Workforce Management Secrets to Thrive in 2021 and Beyond.