Following yesterday’s energizing ignition, VISION 2024 attendees were ready to blaze into Day 2 with a packed schedule of keynotes, breakout sessions, roundtables, solution demos, and campfire chats led by WorkForce Software experts, customers, and global implementation partners. 

Here’s a look at Day 2 highlights! 

Breakfast of Champions

In this interactive session, Getting to Yes: How You Can Drive Stakeholder Consensus Across Your Organization, an impressive panel of experts, including a multinational tech company, shared strategies for successfully gaining stakeholder and employee buy-in during workforce management implementations. Key points included:  

•  Understanding the motivations of all stakeholders (leaders, managers, employees)  
•  Building trust through relationships and clear communication  
•  Focusing on the “why” behind the changes and how it benefits everyone  
•  Utilizing prototypes and data to demonstrate value  
•  Involving employees throughout the process and empowering them with the new tools  
•  Addressing fear of the unknown with clear communication and ongoing learning  
•  Viewing implementation as a program, not a project, to foster continuous improvement  
•  Establishing a cross-departmental workforce management office for broader ownership 

Insights from the Third Annual Global Employee Experience Study 

Sandra Moran, Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer at WorkForce Software and Rusty Lindquist, Chief Executive Officer of Life Engineering, had an urgent call to action for large employers—it’s time to tackle employee engagement with the same discipline as other strategic efforts. Sandra and Rusty unpacked the insights from our Third Annual Global Employee Experience Study. They emphasized the importance of investing in modern workforce management solutions to meet evolving employee expectations. They also revealed a direct correlation between the employee experience and customer satisfaction and provided a checklist for operational leaders to help elevate the employee experience.  

Session Highlights

Evolving Through the Cloud: A Technical Journey Toward AI and Advanced Analytics with Oracle 

Sam Farraj, Master Principal Cloud Architect and Prashanth Pinninti, Cloud Solutions Senior Manager at Oracle, discussed how effective workforce management is critical for organizational success. Yet, it poses numerous challenges for managers in today’s complex business environment. They examined the challenges workforce managers face and explored how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can revolutionize modern workforce management practices. By harnessing the advanced capabilities of Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC), organizations can leverage AI and ML algorithms to streamline workforce operations and drive business outcomes. Sam and Prashanth discussed the following use cases where AI can significantly make an impact:  

• Employee Experience—Fast-track the design and analyze employee sentiment and feedback with pulse surveys 
• Universal Compliance—Automate tasks and improve accuracy 
• Workload Planning and Labor Forecasting—Self-learning algorithms can analyze historical data for better planning 
• Self-Service—Digital assistant for employees to get fast answers to questions and process requests 
• Talent Management—Analyze existing employees’ inventory of skills and help them find new opportunities in the company 

Total WorkForce Management—A Journey of Evolution  

Soumen Chowdhury, Global Head of Time Service Delivery at Novartis shared his approach to mastering corporate transformation. As a continuation of his session on Wednesday on Smart Automation in Workforce Management, Soumen spoke about the art of effective change management, emphasizing the need for clear communication and trust-building with service partners for seamless transitions. He shared insights into a strategy that enhances technology implementation through comprehensive discovery and learning. The session provided actionable strategies to steer organizations toward successful transformations and a resilient future through change management, training, communication, and adoption.  

Mastering Time Attestation—Strategies for the WTA Classic Environment  

Robaire Warren, HRIS Manager at Castle & Cooke discussed how they successfully implemented timesheet attestations to improve timekeeping accuracy across their diverse workforce. Robaire discussed overcoming challenges like multiple data collection methods, language barriers, and accommodation needs for employees in California and exempt vs. non-exempt.

They tackled time clock attestations first, then web and mobile versions, focusing on user-friendliness for both employees and administrators. Despite standardization efforts, Robaire acknowledged the need for clear and concise on-screen messaging tailored to each platform’s limitations. Overall, the process resulted in improved timekeeping accuracy and provided an opportunity to educate employees and managers on the importance of accurate clocking. The lessons learned, and the template they’ve created will streamline future implementations for other companies ready to master time attestation. 

Navigating Growth and Transformation—Jefferson’s Workforce Management Evolution 

Dorothy Arroyo, AVP, Time and Attendance and Resource Scheduling at Jefferson, reviewed the transformative journey of workforce management at Jefferson Health, where strategic planning and technological integration have revolutionized time and attendance operations for over 43k employees across 17 different paid time off programs.

Dorothy talked about how Jefferson undertook a comprehensive overhaul of its workforce software systems which resulted in significant operational efficiencies, cost savings, and heightened compliance measures. She also talked about how Jefferson was one of the first organizations with WorkForce Software to need multi-assignment for employees who served different functions like nursing and teaching.  

APIs in WorkForce—The Future Vision 

Iain Shearer, Senior Product Manager at WorkForce Software, discussed the vision for APIs, exploring current achievements and future plans. Iain offered practical examples of API utilization, clarifying how they serve as a foundation for custom integrations and extensions and revealed the power of APIs to enhance your WorkForce Software experience. 

Industry Roundtable Roundup

Public Sector

Industry leaders from government services and education discussed innovative strategies, familiar challenges, and useful insights, and shared similar situations. This public sector roundtable focused on challenges. They covered topics like:  

• Leave management and payroll challenges  
• Handling retroactive adjustments for leave requests using WorkForce Software event codes  
• Streamlining data integration between systems to cut manual processes like file exports for payroll  
• Sharing best practices for managing sick leave, time off banks, and ensuring employees have access to their data to understand their leave balances 
• Balancing the need for accurate payroll with the desire of employees to be paid on time and enjoy their time off effectively 

Logistics and Distribution  

Scheduling and forecasting were hot topics of discussion in this industry roundtable. Experts in transportation, logistics, distribution, and warehousing shared invaluable practices and brainstormed on shared obstacles.  

For many, frontline supervisors have unique visibility into forecasting labor levels.

VISION 24: Ignite Conference Takeaways

After two days packed with informative sessions and engaging roundtable discussions covering topics from the importance of the employee experience, the future of work, workforce management optimization, implementation strategies, and change management, WorkForce Software hopes you found VISION 24 to be the ignition point to unlocking the value of your workforce.   

The conference wrapped with a closing session with one last exciting announcement—the location for VISION 2025. We can’t wait to see you in Phoenix, Arizona next year!  

Keep the Vision 2024: Ignite page bookmarked to see details on Vision 2025 and curated highlights from Vision 2024 that are coming soon!