Workforce Management - What is WFM?

Workforce management (WFM) is the process of planning, scheduling, and tracking employees to ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time. It includes forecasting staffing needs, managing schedules and attendance, and optimizing performance.

WFM is important because it helps businesses balance labor costs with service quality. By improving efficiency and ensuring proper staffing, organizations can reduce waste, boost productivity, and enhance both customer and employee satisfaction.

Here, we look at the importance of WFM and how the right field service management software can help set your business up for success.

• What does workforce management mean?
• Who uses workforce management?
• Why is workforce management important?
• What are the benefits of workforce management?
• What are some challenges of workforce management?
• Workforce management best practices and tips
• Workforce management examples
• How to choose the right workforce management software
• Why Salesforce Field Service for workforce management

Workforce management (WFM) is the practice of efficiently planning, deploying, and overseeing a company’s workforce to ensure optimal productivity and service delivery. It involves forecasting labor needs, scheduling shifts, tracking time and attendance, and monitoring performance. The primary goal is to have the right number of workers with the right skills available at the right time to meet demand while controlling costs.

Effective WFM ensures compliance with labor laws, enhances scheduling transparency, and provides valuable insights through performance data. This leads to better decision-making, increased productivity, and a more engaged workforce — key components for maintaining a competitive edge and retaining employees.

Workforce management is critical because it helps businesses operate efficiently, control labor costs, and deliver consistent service. By aligning staffing levels with actual demand, organizations can avoid overstaffing, which wastes resources, and understaffing, which can hurt customer satisfaction (CSAT) and contribute to employee burnout.

Workforce management is particularly important in field service management. It helps organizations coordinate mobile workers, such as field service technicians, inspectors, or delivery drivers. 

Field service management software like Salesforce Field Service enable real-time scheduling, intelligent dispatching, and route optimization. Field service managers can track the locations of their mobile workforce, monitor progress, and reassign jobs in real-time. AI agents built with Agentforce support these tasks by autonomously making smart scheduling and optimization decisions, all while operating within the trusted guardrails set by your business.

The benefits of effective WFM include:

• Improved efficiency: Workforce management automates routine tasks like scheduling, attendance tracking, and shift changes, reducing administrative burden and human error. This allows managers to focus more on strategic planning and less on manual coordination, resulting in smoother day-to-day operations.
• Cost control: By forecasting demand and aligning labor resources accordingly, workforce management helps eliminate unnecessary overtime, overstaffing, and underutilization. This not only reduces labor costs but also improves budget accuracy and resource allocation.
• Better service quality: WFM ensures that the right number of qualified employees are available when and where they’re needed, helping meet customer expectations consistently. Faster response times, reduced wait periods, and better-prepared staff all contribute to higher service standards.
• Increased employee productivity: Clear schedules, defined tasks, and real-time performance feedback empower employees to stay focused and accountable. Managers can also identify and address productivity gaps more quickly, leading to improved individual and team performance.
• Regulatory compliance: Workforce management systems track work hours, break periods, and labor regulations automatically, helping organizations avoid legal issues and penalties. They also maintain accurate records that can be easily accessed during audits or disputes.
• Data-driven decisions: With detailed analytics on staffing trends, attendance, and performance, businesses can make informed decisions about hiring, training, and operational changes. This strategic use of data leads to continuous improvement in workforce planning.
• Higher employee engagement: When employees have access to their schedules, can request time off easily, and feel their time is being used efficiently, overall job satisfaction improves. Fair scheduling practices and workload distribution also help reduce burnout and turnover.

Overall, workforce management helps organizations align their workforce with business goals while maintaining agility, efficiency, and compliance.

Workforce management comes with several challenges that can affect both operational efficiency and employee satisfaction. Here are some common ones:

• Forecasting accuracy: Predicting future staffing needs can be particularly challenging, especially in industries with seasonal demand, such as retail, or those with unpredictable workloads, like utilities. Inaccurate forecasts can result in overstaffing, leading to higher costs, or understaffing, which can degrade service levels and customer satisfaction.
• Scheduling complexity: Creating fair and efficient schedules that meet business needs while respecting employee preferences, availability, and labor laws is a constant balancing act.
• Real-time adaptability: Unexpected absences due to illness, last-minute changes, or urgent jobs can derail even the best-laid plans. Quickly reallocating resources without disrupting operations is a key challenge.
• Compliance and labor regulations: Staying up to date with labor laws, union agreements, and industry-specific regulations can be complex, especially for companies operating in multiple geographies.
• Employee engagement and retention: Poor workforce management practices — like inconsistent scheduling or lack of flexibility — can lead to burnout, low morale, and high turnover.
• Technology integration: Many organizations struggle to integrate WFM systems with other tools (like HR, payroll, or CRM), resulting in siloed data and inefficient processes.
• Data quality and visibility: Workforce decisions rely on accurate, up-to-date data. Inconsistent data capture or limited visibility into performance metrics can impact effective planning.

Set up for success with these workforce management best practices and tips:

• Forecast with data: Use historical data, seasonal trends, and predictive analytics to accurately forecast staffing needs. This ensures the right number of people are scheduled at the right time, helping to avoid overstaffing or understaffing.
• Automate scheduling: Implement WFM tools that automate scheduling based on employee skills, availability, and labor laws. Automation saves time, reduces manual errors, and promotes fairness across the workforce.
• Enable real-time visibility: Monitor workforce activity in real time to quickly identify and respond to issues like absenteeism or unexpected workload spikes. This helps maintain service levels and prevents small disruptions from becoming larger problems.
• Stay compliant: Ensure schedules follow labor regulations, union rules, and company policies to avoid penalties or employee dissatisfaction. Compliance also builds trust and helps create a fair, legally sound work environment.
• Empower with self-service: Give employees tools to manage their own schedules, request time off, and swap shifts. This improves engagement, reduces HR overhead, and promotes accountability.
• Match staffing to demand: Align labor resources with forecasted demand to reduce costs and improve service outcomes. Doing so ensures the business isn’t paying for idle time or leaving customers waiting.
• Track and act on KPIs: Measure key performance indicators like productivity, absenteeism, and schedule adherence. These metrics help identify trends and inform better workforce strategies.
• Support and communicate: Maintain open communication with employees about scheduling, expectations, and feedback. Listening to frontline input leads to more practical decisions and higher morale.
• Continuously optimize: Regularly review your WFM processes and software performance to find areas for improvement. As business needs evolve, ongoing optimization ensures your workforce strategy remains effective and efficient.

Choosing the right workforce management software like Salesforce Field Service is key to improving efficiency, compliance, and employee satisfaction. Here’s a practical guide to help you make the right decision:

1. Understand your business needs: Identify your goals — whether it’s automating scheduling, improving forecasting, managing compliance, or boosting productivity. The software you choose should directly support these objectives.
2. Prioritize key features: Look for essential capabilities like scheduling, time tracking, forecasting, mobile access, compliance management, and real-time analytics. Make sure it also supports self-service for employees and contractors and integrates with payroll, HR, and CRM systems.
3. Ensure scalability: Choose a solution that can grow with your business — across teams, locations, and functions. Whether you're a small business or an enterprise, scalability ensures long-term value.
4. Check for integration capabilities: Your WFM tool should integrate easily with your existing systems, like CRM, ERP, or HRIS platforms. This ensures smoother workflows, better data accuracy, and less manual work.
5. Evaluate usability and UX: A user-friendly interface is essential for adoption — both by managers and employees. Request demos or trials to assess ease of use and customization options.
6. Consider industry-specific needs: Some WFM tools are tailored to specific industries. If your workforce is mobile — like utilities, telecommunications, or manufacturing — look for features like GPS tracking, work order management, and asset service management.
7. Review vendor support and training: Strong onboarding, training resources, and responsive customer support are critical to long-term success. Look for a provider like Salesforce with a good reputation for helping customers get the most out of the software. Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, is a great resource for your team to learn valuable technical skills in Salesforce Field Service.
8. Compare total cost of ownership: Beyond licensing fees, consider implementation, training, support, upgrades, and hidden costs. A higher upfront cost may pay off if it reduces manual work or improves efficiency long-term.
9. Check reviews and references: Look at customer reviews on G2, Gartner, or Capterra, and ask the vendor for case studies or references. Real-world feedback gives insight into product reliability and vendor credibility. Check out the thousands of positive reviews for Salesforce Field Service on G2.

Equip your service reps and field service technicians with workforce management software that helps them work more efficiently and productively — not harder. With features like intelligent scheduling, mobile access, and real-time updates, they can stay productive, informed, and responsive wherever the job takes them.

Salesforce Field Service gives your team exactly that:

• AI-powered scheduling to reduce downtime: Automatically assign the right technician to the right job based on skills, location, availability, and priority. This helps eliminate idle time, minimize travel, and ensure faster response times for customers.
• Mobile tools for job details, navigation, and offline access: Give your field service technicians a mobile app that provides everything they need on the go — including work orders, asset history, directions, and step-by-step instructions. This keeps them focused and effective in the field — even if they don’t have an internet connection.
• Real-time updates and coordination between dispatch, reps, and customers: Stay agile with instant communication between your dispatch center, service reps, and customers with Slack for Field Service. Whether it’s an urgent job, reschedule, or delay, everyone stays in sync to improve transparency and trust.
• Dashboards to track performance and identify improvements: Monitor key metrics like job completion rates, first-time fix rates, and technician utilization. Use these insights to optimize operations, reward top performers, and continuously improve service delivery.

When you use the right workforce management tool, your team can deliver fast, efficient, and reliable service — every time.