Companies with distributed workforces face a common challenge – navigating the complexities of workforce management. Simply put, workforce management is about effective manpower planning so that there is neither surplus nor shortage of talent at any one time.
Scheduling too few employees during busy periods may result in poor customer satisfaction, negative effects on brand reputation, and a drop in employee morale. On the flip side, scheduling too many employees results in increased costs and wasted resources.
Workforce management has a direct impact on employee motivation and productivity, which makes it especially important to customer experiences – happier employees lead to happier customers, and happy customers are the biggest advantage a business can have in today’s highly competitive landscape.
Tackling customer engagement and staffing challenges at scale
A good workforce management system combines the right technology, processes, and procedures to accurately forecast staffing needs for minimal waste. At the same time, the system should allow for real-time adjustments to be made should unforeseen circumstances arise.
As the world’s top search engine, Google manages a team that spans over 50 locations worldwide, handling hundreds of millions of customer conversations a year, across multiple communication channels.
Over the last year, with the pandemic, Google was pushed to pivot to remote work as quickly as possible without losing too much in terms of customer engagement quality and employee productivity.
Also Read: Managing a global workforce with Toby Zhang
New workforce dynamics, ever-expanding customer engagement channels, and increasingly complex and numerous online consumer interactions meant that Google needed a trusted partner that could help them exercise better workforce management, quickly and effectively.
A secure, integrated, and intelligent solution
Google chose Verint, a company with deep industry knowledge, and 25 years’ experience in workforce management; the world leader in workforce engagement solutions as named by Gartner in 2021.
Specifically, Google implemented Verint’s Workforce Management (WFM) solution, a cloud-based system that streamlines the staff scheduling process by consolidating all necessary information onto a single platform. The solution also forecasts manpower needs based on a dynamic and robust labour modelling algorithm that combines factors like customer demand and activity, individual employee productivity, and more.
With Verint’s WFM solution, Google was able to easily manage their team schedules across all locations and channels, while implementing more flexible work arrangements that improved employee engagement, productivity, and work-life balance.
Most importantly, Verint’s solution fit seamlessly into Google’s existing operations platform and met the company’s exacting standards.
“Verint was keen and willing to bring their solution to Google Cloud, which was an important requirement,” said Rajeev Shrivastava, co-lead and General Manager of Google’s Customer Conversations Platform. “Verint was also able to meet our security and privacy standards, which has become a key priority for us as custodians of our customers’ information.”
With Verint, Google is now empowered to ensure that it has the right people, in the right places, at the right times, to deliver the best possible experiences for its customers.
Also read: How I manage my time and a team of 130 employees
Accessing the full potential of a distributed workforce
The future of work will see hybrid workplaces become the new norm. Access to global talent will result in increasingly distributed workforces. Future employment models may even evolve to see more elastic hiring trends, where companies may choose to have a number of contingent workers hired on a non-permanent or seasonal basis to meet sudden surges in demand. Employees themselves are also seeking more flexibility in their employment.
The ‘work from anywhere’ culture is here to stay, and a more decentralised workforce can be a huge boon to businesses. However, challenges related to communication, coordination, or employee engagement may pose certain barriers that hold companies back from accessing the full potential of a hybrid workforce.
That is why business leaders need solutions that will streamline and optimise workforce management for more significant outcomes, whether that is improved CX, better business continuity, or reduced costs.
Workforce management is not limited to big corporations with large global teams – small and medium businesses can also benefit from cloud-based solutions that improve operational efficiencies while driving higher-quality customer engagement.
With strategic use of the right technologies, companies can build a workforce of the future that thrives in the face of tomorrow’s challenges – to the benefit of all, from the business, to employees, to end consumers.
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