What’s the point in all this documentation? Wouldn’t it be easier to achieve goals and ???objectives without all our time being sapped keeping capacity reports up to date? Unfortunately documentation is entirely essential, since tracking the progress of a project without this data is impossible. Imagine if a manager left; how would a replacement manager be able to pick up the project unless its status was accurately recorded? Mobile workforce management services mean that this data is always up to date, that staff can update their timesheet, capacity report or change log on the go, with all relevant parties updated immediately.
Efficient workforce management is all about co-ordinating the logistics of a project or business through a single channel or application. This can include planned and scheduled activities, project milestones, goals, objectives, resource allocation, revenue, capacity and costs. Mobile workforce management means more accurate, up-to-date records and improved communications. Historically businesses have relied heavily on reams and reams of paperwork and unwieldy spread sheets, but this is an unscalable system that could lead to a business becoming simply swamped in paperwork when business picks up.
Mobile workforce management applications mean that data is instantly updated and available to all. It means that top level monitoring is much easier to do, and the data provided is always up-to-date.
Staff might not enjoy filling out time sheets, but they are an essential way of managers tracking and reporting on capacity, completed tasks, milestones and the like. Time tracking is also an important way of staff accounting for their time at work, but entering data manually can be tedious, especially when it needs to be duplicated for other managers, departments or customers. Managing this data digitally means the most recently updated version can be viewed by all. Mobile workforce management means that everyone is up to date regardless of whether they are working from home, another office, out on secondment or even on a train or plane. Data records can be viewed, edited and copied instantly. It means progress and capacity reports are more accurate than ever, and the data itself is versatile and easy to obtain, edit, analyse and manage.
Mobile workforce management isn’t just about keeping track of resources and monitoring planned activities, it can also improve workforce communications. Mobile workforce management services can help to schedule and manage workload, report results instantly, perform safety check calls to remote workers and can help them to report incidents instantly.
If there’s no better reason to switch to mobile workforce management services it’s to save paper. Once again it’s a question of scalability. If you currently have two filing cabinets for existing customers, how will they cope with twice the number of customers? Workforce management procedures need to scalable and able to cope with these changes.
Alan Cairns writes on a number of subjects including mobile workforce management and mobile facilities management for GoMobilize.
