Implementing a comprehensive workforce planning framework can help organizations address the various issues that arise when dealing with the pandemic. It is essential that shifts are appropriately managed during times of crisis while ensuring that the employees’ health and welfare are protected.

Nowadays, it is increasingly common for many organizations to introduce shift patterns to maintain a safe and productive working environment. In this scenario, many legacy systems designed to manage day-based working will no longer be viable. So, many businesses and organizations opt for configuring and maintaining a more specialized workforce management system and approach.

During This Time, Visibility and Control Are Key Factors

As the coronavirus crisis has left a great impact on workforce management, it is essential that employees are appropriately scheduled to meet labor demand for business continuity and productivity. COVID-19 has created huge volatility both in terms of labor demand and supply that caused high absence rates due to workers getting infected and self-isolation. Also, new guidelines for social distancing measures and staggered processes require businesses to manage shift patterns closely.

HR staff has been at the center of the organization’s response to this global crisis. They have been playing a critical role in helping the workforce remain resilient and productive. As the recovery process begins, it is time for workforce leaders to step up and prepare their organizations for sustained growth. So, this will require extraordinary attention and coordination – both the HR managers and the workers involved.

So, during these challenging times, it is essential to take note of the following important factors:

• Take note of the critical roles and skills interdependencies, then effectively transpose this into group-based rosters to ensure that the right combination of workers is available according to the demand while factoring in resilience and regulations on working time requirements.
• Make sure to maintain the updated view of demand, labor availability, and cover requirements.
• It is advisable to explore opportunities for optimizing shift patterns to lessen the pressure on available employees, or you can find ways to increase workers’ capacity.
• It is important to keep accurate records of workers on the shift, when, what period, and how many hours they have worked.

The factors mentioned above can help businesses and organizations keep their business running smoothly with productivity in mind. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the business sector due to lockdowns and quarantine, with the right approach to workforce management, businesses and organization can recover successfully.

Implement Workforce Management Solutions

If your business or organization struggles to manage your workforce even after the post-pandemic situation, you really need to consider implementing a workforce management solution that will help you in the recovery phase. With Novo Workforce Management, your business can expect increased efficiency, streamlined employee management, ensures compliance, automated involved processes, and allows you to create work and shift schedules with ease. So, you would not mind the COVID effects as Novo Workforce Management will specialize your employee management and shift scheduling with an intuitive user interface and advanced features.