UNIT SIX
Project Implementation and Support
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT (WFM) SYSTEMS HAVE tended to come together through the efforts of a diverse group of unrelated specialists. Today, those roles converge into a cross-specialty discipline forming a role that acts upon several sets of established principles, methodologies, and regulations customized to the WFM technology domain. The Workforce Asset Management Professional (WAM-Pro) is a multifaceted role—one that requires a breadth of experience, as well as pinpoint, detail-oriented knowledge. WFM complexities are numerous and intensive; yet, it is the WAM-Pro who masters them appropriately and remains up to date.
The workforce management office (WMO), the central hub of WFM, takes the phases of implementation and support a step further by centralizing the effort and processes. WAM-Pros become collaborators, surrounding themselves with a team of goal-oriented professionals with functional and technology background or experience pertinent to implementation and support. The WAM-Pro's skills are applied to one-time events as well as ongoing projects or responsibilities that have a cyclical, recurring nature. Having consistent representation during the entirety of a full-scale project creates continuity of purpose and accountability. The WAM-Pro has an active presence through the transformative processes of analysis, design, testing, quality assurance, and implementation. Because of the various influencers and inputs that can impact the processes, WAM-Pros must remain vigilant in sustaining a system and business blueprint that continues to meet the requirements, adhere to compliance guidelines, transform people and outcomes, and provide intelligent facts and information about the organization to the organization from top to bottom in real time. The WAM-Pro manages business issues from conception to delivery or resolution.
Even beyond delivery and implementation, the WAM-Pro has an active role in support of people and maintenance of the WFM system. New WFM system adoption can be a slow and sticky process, met with frustrations and reluctance. Training and the help desk are crucial elements to fast adoption and overall project effectiveness. Training is not just about learning how to use the technology, but also about how to use that technology to move the organization forward on the WFM Maturity Curve. Education and communication plans present an opportunity for the WAM-Pro to evangelize the immediate usability and time-saving functionality, as well as the long-term, strategic return on investment (ROI) savings and better organizational effectiveness over time.
Some examples of short-term benefits are: organizing workload to accommodate personal constraints on shift; or task assignments or no more having to wait for payroll reports to determine if a business unit is over budget on labor expense; or experiencing low productivity or increases in store sales or production outputs because supervisors can react instantly when cashiers; or line workers do not return from their lunch break at the scheduled time. Long-term examples include: effectively managing fatigue, reducing work-related accidents, or more accurate bottom-line costs resulting in end-of-year bonuses for those employees who showed exceptional productivity, attendance, sales, and so on, instead of going to those who used and abused the system to inflate their pay. The WAM-Pro recognizes that maturity involves an understanding of cultural, process, and policy changes that should be made to enhance the utilization of WFM systems and so the organization and its people enjoy greater benefits in the end.
When WAM-Pros provide assistance to the help desk or work as help desk staff, they relieve others of unnecessary interruption and runaround handling business and technology issues. Well-run projects, systems designed using the A.C.T.I.V.E. principles, and WFM analytics and the staff that supports them can save the organization man hours and payroll dollars. The WMO and the WAM-Pros are the appropriate sources to resolve and react to WFM questions and needs. Once again, the WMO acts as a filter, organizing and responding to requests, while also storing and using these issues to guide further reassessment or enhancement. Their support often extends to optimizing the system so that it achieves its mission and sustains its relevance to current operational challenges. The WAM-Pro's involvement keeps day-to-day issues top of mind so that problems do not hinder the achievement of system goals from the unit level to the C level. Achieving organizational integrity and WFM system workability means that WAM-Pros remain vigilant through each phase of the system life cycle from project inception to design, build, and deploy to go live with ongoing support and optimization. WAM-Pros are not project oriented; they are performance—operational, strategic, and financial—oriented, and that role is never over.