Imagine you have the opportunity to increase your productivity and lower your labor costs with a workforce management system. For many organizations there is the issue of no budget, but not all hope is lost. For a fraction of the cost, you could implement a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) workforce management system. But, what is SaaS? SaaS gives you all the benefits of using a system to automate your complex processes and manage your compliance concerns without the added cost of buying a system, hardware, new resources, etc. The vendor takes on the responsibility of implementing and maintaining the system, and you only pay for the service.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the popularity of SaaS was a result of the economy, with the use of SaaS nearly doubling from 2007 to 2008. According to THINKstrategies/Cutter Consortium 2008, companies using a SaaS system went from 32-percent in 2007 to 63-percent in 2008, with another 28-percent genuinely considering SaaS to get achieve the benefits of automation at a lower cost with a quick ROI.

Workforce management SaaS solutions are a cost effective solution for today’s organization. Unlike the hosted systems, SaaS solutions can be configurable to automate 100-percent of an organization’s complex labor policies and compliance processes. Because organizational workforce policies differ so widely, it would be unrealistic for a vendor to pre-configure those rules based on assumptions, as was the case with many hosted systems. There are also interfaces to payroll, work order, and project management systems that must be configured so organizations can fully leverage their existing systems.

The popularity of SaaS has gained more traction in workforce management, as it can support simple to complex requirements. Not all workforce management vendors can offer a true SaaS solution that can be configured to each organization’s requirements, so it critical to be sure of your selection.

SaaS is Better Tailored for Today’s Workforce Environment
Today, employees rely on technology to accomplish their daily responsibilities, and with today’s trend there will be more and more employees who expect their employers to offer an on-demand culture to perform their duties. However, this expectation offers employers many benefits by adopting a SaaS workplace, including:

• Reassigning the responsibility of a successful deployment and system management from the customer to the vendor
• Eliminating the need for additional hardware and staff
• Increasing the time to value by getting employees on the system quickly
• Learning new and efficient ways of doing business
• Providing lower cost of ownership
• Gaining higher ROI quicker

In today’s competitive and economically-challenged environment, many HR professionals recognize the SaaS model is a more economic and effective method to increasing value and lowering labor costs.

WorkForce Software’s EmpCenter Delivered is the only enterprise workforce management vendor to offer a configured and scalable solution with zero up-front investment. Due to the complexity of workforce management solutions, the implementation services are usually paid at the onset of the software subscription. With EmpCenter Delivered, customers have the option to have these implementation fees embedded into the cost of the subscription. The result is that the organization realizes ROI day one -- without a capital expenditure.

WorkForce Software’s EmpCenter Delivered solution offers an extensive range of product functionality to meet the specific requirements of large organizations with complex policies and compliance concerns. These include Time and Attendance, Activity Based Costing, Multiple Assignments, Absence Manager, and Advanced Scheduler. WorkForce Software also has extensive industry experience in solving complexity and compliance.