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Have you ever wondered if there’s a way to keep your workforce more engaged? Employee management is the most effective solution to operate your staff right from the onboarding and provide them with an atmosphere that allows them to perform to the best of their abilities and stay productive over time.
Employee management refers to the processes, strategies, or methods used by employers to guarantee their employees perform their job roles at their best. The main objective is to track the different stages and aspects of an employee’s lifecycle, such as onboarding, progress and achievements in the role, and promotions.
Employee management encompasses most of HR’s essential duties, from recruitment to performance reviews; therefore, healthy work relationships between all parts of an organization are a must. When all these aspects are done effectively, employee management makes a company’s goals easier to fulfill and improves workforce retention and satisfaction.
Although both concepts are similar and are closely related, there are some differences that are worth noticing.
Workforce management (also known as WFM) is a set of processes and tools that employers use to direct their staff to certain points according to their timeline. This approach recognizes priorities, anticipates staffing challenges, and reduces risks to maximize efficiency.
So, what’s the difference between the two? Despite how related both concepts are and that they share the final goal of improving productivity, the main difference between employee management and workforce management is accountability.
On the employee management side, employers are responsible for creating a healthy work environment that allows their workforce to perform optimally; nevertheless, workers are held accountable for their day-to-day task planning.
From a workforce management perspective, managers are charged with more organization and scheduling responsibilities, and employees are primarily accountable for just executing these plans.
As mentioned above, employee management allows you to establish a course of action for overseeing your workforce and ultimately reduce turnover. Identifying common issues between employees and creating action plans to tackle them will let you create a workplace that lets every worker get the most out of their time and perform up to their potential.
Here are some key reasons why it’s essential to have proficient employee management.
Having defined processes and coordination between areas sets you on the right path to achieving maximum efficiency. One of the main goals of employee management is to clarify any gaps in your workflows, allowing you to have a workplace in which ideas and work flow smoothly.
If you even want to go one step further, you can side-by-side your employee management and workforce management efforts to increase your employees’ productivity in the short term without getting your long-term goals out of the picture.
If employee disengagement has become a common challenge in your company and you’re curious about how to solve it, consider employee management as a way to go. Being aware of the different stages of a worker’s lifecycle will allow you to keep up the team spirit and minimize employee frustration.
Promoting a motivating atmosphere that keeps your workforce committed is another of the main pillars of employee management. Therefore, it’s essential to acknowledge your workers that you trust them; by doing so you’ll not only have a more confident and engaged workforce, but also set a growth plan to turn your employees into high-performers.
Upskilling programs, career growth plans, welcome kits, and on-the-job training are some aspects of employee management that directly enrich the employee experience to keep your workforce happy and continuously evolving.
For this matter, analyzing your employees’ lifecycle data will become your most powerful tool to keep your employee management strategies effective and current. By tracking your workforce’s performance, achievements, and engagement throughout their time with you, you’ll be able to pinpoint the flaws in the employee experience you provide and make the needed adjustments.
If leveling up your employee management is among your business goals, make sure to evaluate the current state of your workforce: their thoughts of you as an employer, how they feel about their current role at the company and any aspects they’d want to see improved.
Aside from this insight, consider the following employee management challenges in your strategy and be aware of any signs of them in your workplace or among your workforce.
A team’s synergy and effectiveness depends on how proficient their communication is. Due to its importance, it’s essential for your employee management to overcome any challenges that may come up and keep your business communication consistent.
Here are some of the most common obstacles you’ll face as you try to keep your communication efficient.
Workforce resignation and candidate shortage are another two big obstacles for employee management. If your company deals with high employee frustration, personnel rotation, and a poor employee value proposition, then you’ll have to deal with these challenges first.
On the other hand, if you already have proficient talent management you’re preventing your organization from dealing with workforce supply and demand issues. Keeping your employees happy and engaged is the best way to avoid competing for candidates and struggling with other recruitment challenges.
In the end, one of the big goals of employee management is to reduce workforce rotation to the minimum so you reduce hiring costs and other expenses related to workers leaving and candidate search.
This works as a double-edged weapon depending on how your company tackles ongoing trends. If you stay up to date with the current perks candidates and employees are asking, it’s most likely you’ll have effective employee management.
Underestimating the impact of keeping up with the latest workforce trends will come with a high cost. Being up to date with the labor market upgrades can play a pivotal role to avoid having your workers looking for new job opportunities or losing candidates to other companies.
Here are a few workplace and hiring trends that you should keep an eye on.
Now that you’re aware of the importance of employee management, it’s time to find out some specific actions to take to manage your workers. Even though these best practices are meant to ease and improve your employee management, keep in mind their primary goal is to actually make your workforce more comfortable and secure.
One of the cornerstones of employee management is putting your employee’s mental health as one of your priorities. Promoting transparency about every company aspect is the most effective way to turn your workplace into a collaborative environment where employees can speak their minds and feelings.
Remember, all the insight is valuable, even “unpopular opinions.” By fostering discussion and empowering your workers to share their thoughts regarding their projects, processes, or even leadership decisions, you’ll be able to use every opinion as feedback for future planning.
Suppose your employee management approach will focus on covering most aspects related to worker well-being. In that case, there are more practices you should try to cover the physical, mental, and emotional sides of employee wellness.
For this sake, embracing the awareness, upkeep, and promotion of healthy lifestyles, especially within the workplace, will let you positively influence your workforce behavior.
Promoting healthful work relationships, spreading awareness about burnout signs, and providing useful tools to deal with any issue they could face in the workplace is the most effective bet on employee wellness.
Another essential aspect to keep your workforce engaged is offering a growth plan for each one of your roles. Due to artificial intelligence and tech advancements industries are experiencing an ever-changing reality. As the business landscape for most industries is rapidly evolving, employee development has acquired a pivotal role in organizational success.
The more a company keeps its workers current and qualified through training, as well as excels in their roles, will directly influence its success as a whole. Whether it is with mentoring sessions or personalized upskilling and learning programs, it’s essential to include career growth programs in your employee management strategy.
Similar to the workforce management case, complimenting employee management with workplace management can excel in your strategy. Despite how similar they look, workplace management involves handling other elements aside from human talent.
Even though both concepts focus on organizing and coordinating office environments to improve efficiency, workplace management also involves managing the physical aspect of an office and its design to foster a positive work culture.
A well-complemented workplace and employee management strategy can also lead to reduced operational costs, improved employee retention, enhanced business outcomes, and, lastly, a positive impact on your leadership, making it more appealing.
Workforce management tools are another powerful ally of your employee management, and fortunately for you, the market offers a rich range of options, from on-cloud to on-premise solutions.
Even though it requires investing in workforce management software or services, having them translates into taking steps towards automation in the workplace and, ultimately, more streamlined processes. Regardless of the WFM solution you lean to, make sure it features the following key elements:
Bamboo HR, Zendesk, SyncHR, or Workday are some of the most popular WFM solution tools you can check and try for your company’s employee management.
Despite the idea that partnering with a recruiter is only useful to attract and hire new talent, their industry knowledge can give a different perspective on the efforts you can make to have better employee management.
Therefore consider reaching out to a talent acquisition specialist or even associating with a staffing agency, such as gpac, and give your employee management a different approach to excel in your results.
Contributed by Luis Arellano
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