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Part 1: Why optimising your manufacturing workforce is more important than ever
A few years ago, workforce management strategies and solutions were nice-to-haves, but now they are the vanguard of people planning and management. This is because, like many other industries, the manufacturing industry has had a real shake-up in the wake of COVID-19.
Three common challenges are shaping the way Australian manufacturers are approaching payroll and workforce management. The future-focused solutions are designed to overcome these challenges in ways that optimise efficiency, reduce costs, improve employee safety and experience, and improve recruitment and retention.
Are you facing these common challenges?
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that between February 2021 and February 2022, Australia experienced its highest annual job mobility rate since 2012. The manufacturing industry alone experienced 9.4 per cent mobility.
It is no surprise that Australian manufacturers have always understood that their people are their most important assets. Following the Great Resignation and post-pandemic, manufacturers are pressured with greater workforce challenges and the need to find the right solution is crucial.
The top three challenges for manufacturers are:
- The struggle to deal with the rising costs of the operations reduced profits margins and understanding of where the costs are being absorbed.
- Manufacturing organisations are unable to keep up with the capacity or the need to prevent disruptions in operations due to workplace incidents and injuries.
- The challenge is to recruit and retain quality staff with the right technological and administrative skillsets.
Better insights and decision-making with integrated smart technology solutions
Digital, online and smart technology platforms are starting to appear in almost every aspect of people management. Integrating them into your operations helps make your organisational processes more data, ultimately reducing error, driving efficiency, and cutting costs.
“To remain competitive and attract top talent in today’s business climate, companies cannot ignore the added value that digital transformation brings,” says Roy Mellon, Managing Director – Access Definitiv, pointing out that all these capabilities are activated in Access Group’s cloud-based people management platform, Definitiv.
“Today’s leading companies are evaluating ways to simplify their people procedures, manage costs and compliance, and optimise the employee experience. This makes them an attractive employer, which aids with recruiting quality employees, and sets them up for growth and scale.”
Optimising payroll solutions and workforce management
An effective, customisable workforce management solution enables you to make improvements across all areas of your operations to drive efficiency, increase safety and compliance, and reduce costs.
“Exactly which improvements you’ll choose to implement will depend on what the data shows you. We often recommend organisations start by integrating payroll into their workforce management solutions, as it is related to so many other functions,” says Mellon.
Manufacturers who implement Access Group Definitiv solution are able to draw on data-driven insights, such as reporting with multi-level job costing, to price jobs more effectively in the future, or identify areas to cut margins. They report finding it easier to create and maintain a safe, compliant, and productive work environment, lower labour costs due to less costly interruptions, improved data accuracy and reduced administration costs.
Definitiv’s TimeClock module, for example, enables employees to tap in and out of the workplace with a card, automatically logging accurate start and finish data, which can be informed by configurable rules (to stop an employee working over or under their agreed hours, for example) and feed into reporting.
Getting the right payroll and workforce management solutions in place is an important part of increasing your organisation’s operational and cost efficiency. Of benefit to operators of all sizes, it can also improve your payroll team’s processes and lays the foundation for future growth and scale.
