Whitepaper

Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

The Future of Strategic Mobile Workforce & Expense Management

Its not science fiction or a futuristic technology plan. Organizations need to manage a rapid transition to work environments that support a global, mobile and remote workforce, making the best of their skills and maintaining their identification with the organization, its culture and goals.

Mobile Workforce & Expense Management Strategies

Its no surprise that workforce mobility has increased dramatically over the past several years. It touches each of us directly or indirectly. You or someone you know probably works as a mobile, remote or at-home worker with little time spent in a corporate office. The by-product of a changing economy, increasingly mobile and remote workforces are fueled by the proliferation of high-speed networks, Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technology and mobile convergence evidenced by devices including BlackBerry smartphones, the Apple iPhone and iPad, the Droid and others. Worker demands for a better work/life balance add to the rising number of at-home workers seeking flexible work arrangements. According to industry predictions, nearly a quarter of the worlds working population will not have a corporate supplied workplace or home base. Leading IT market research and advisory firm IDC issued a report suggesting that 75% of the US workforce will be mobile by the end of 2011 and this trend will continue to escalate. IDC estimates that the increase from year to year of mobile workers spending 20% or more away from their desk will grow more than 15% annually.1 This trend confirms that organizations need to manage a rapid transition to work environments that support a global, mobile and remote workforce, making the best use of their skills and maintaining their identification with the organization, its culture and goals. With frequent business travelers taking to the skies, rails and roads in increasing numbers, field workers, telecommuters, remote branch office and multi-site workers need mobile enterprise applications to support existing business processes, increase productivity, reduce costs and enable them to rapidly respond to business needs that help them remain competitive - anytime, anywhere. In addition, the rise of the service economy has made face time between people in one physical location more crucial than ever and a differentiating component to business success. Mobile technology supports both managers and the organization by equipping remote and mobile workers with the right tools needed to comply with corporate business practices, policy regulations and workflow requirements. It allows them

The by-product of a changing economy, increasingly mobile and remote workforces are fueled by the proliferation of high-speed networks.

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Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

to accomplish this during times that might otherwise represent lost productivity (i.e. while waiting to board an airplane, in between customer meetings, while they are in a taxi), turning downtime into uptime. As a result, they capture what would have previously been considered lost time to accomplish administrative tasks that free up people to focus on core activities and drive revenue, productivity and company performance. While the trend toward a more mobile workforce offers significant business opportunities, it also presents challenges as managers struggle to keep track of their employees. Human Resources, Accounts Payable and Corporate Travel departments must keep mobile employees synchronized with corporate policies and practices while providing always on connectivity that enable employees to take critical business applications with them. Mobile workers have the same obligations as onsite employees to comply with existing corporate polices, approvals and business processes. Whether it is a day trip for the sales professional or an extended engagement at a customers site, business travel has long been recognized as a critical enabler to advancing customer relationships, including creating new initiatives and maintaining existing relationships.

Mobile Workforce ROI

The increased pace of business in the digital world has no mercy and waits for no one. IDCs Mobile Enterprise Software Survey2 of 309 enterprise mobility decision makers in the United States and the United Kingdom reveals the strategic importance of mobile enterprise solutions in North America and Western Europe. Key findings from the survey include the following expected benefits to be gained from mobile solutions deployments:

31.1% improved/enhanced worker productivity 14.2% increased sales/revenue 12.3% improved competitive advantage/market share 5.8% improved field service response time
Research indicates there are three key areas in which a business can expect a return on investment (ROI) in a mobile workforce: increased revenue, decreased costs and improved services.3 The right mobile workforce strategy can deliver a strong return on investment. With the correct mobile devices, management support, appropriate applications and a mobile workforce that accepts the charge that business takes place around the clock, fostering a mobile workforce environment can result in tremendous productivity gains. With a mobile workforce management solution, including mobile travel and expense reporting solutions, employees can leverage realtime information and software to make smart decisions and process requests faster. This ability translates to improvements in productivity as employees can use the extra time to create more business opportunities. In addition, improvements in mobile technology have been shown to decrease costs by reducing workflow volumes and streamlining business processes.

The increased pace of business in the digital world has no mercy and waits for no one.

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Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

Customers have also come to expect immediate service responses and access to information that mobile solutions offer. Customers rely on the ability to track the status of their order, or even have an online dialogue with the provider representatives at any time. Providing this ability enhances the customer experience and reinforces loyalty, making repeat business more likely.

Effective Mobile Applications: Workforce Management and Expense Management

Companies that deploy integrated mobile business applications for workforce and expense management can improve productivity, create efficiencies and deliverer better resource accessibility to their mobile workforce. For business travelers and mobile employees, travel and expense reporting and time and attendance workforce management related functions are two of the most commonly required applications. This includes alerts to management related to scheduling, absences, trip alerts and other workforce issues that require quick responses. With mobile workforce and expense management applications, managers on the road are able to approve, authorize and makes changes in real-time to attendance, scheduling, expenses and related transactions. Data can be entered into their smartphone, via their web browser, telephone through Interactive Voice Responses (IVR) and Point of Sale (POS) systems, through time clocks, kiosks and, if the employee is forced to work offline for some time, the data can be stored locally and later uploaded the next time a connection is established with their server. Effective mobile workforce management solutions enable employees and managers to:

An effective mobile expense management solution allows business travelers to work either on or off-line using a familiar smartphone interface.

Capture time, attendance and labor distribution

information for individuals or groups

Submit and approve absence requests to be routed

to the appropriate supervisor(s)

View individual employee schedule information in real-time View employee accrual information in real-time
for each user

Approve time sheets remotely with access to key

information

Review employee information through key,

real-time reports Using a mobile expense management application, expense reports can be submitted and approved while out of the office and reimbursements can be paid more quickly. An effective mobile expense management solution allows business travelers to work either on or off-line to create expense reports using a familiar smartphone interface. With this technology, employees can also review details of corporate charge card transactions including Level III and Hotel Folio data add out-of-pocket transactions such as entertainment and mileage to their expense reports and submit their completed reports to the system for compliance and policy review.

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Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

Expense reports can even be reviewed, approved and rejected from the managers own mobile device. Because employees can enter expenses as they incur them, the process can be completed more quickly and more accurately.

Develop a Mobile Workforce Strategy

When initiating and developing a mobile workforce strategy, there are typically three phases that should occur to ensure the best results. No two mobile workforces are alike; every organization planning to implement a mobile strategy must first assess the data requirement needs of their workforce and determine the companys readiness to support that type of environment. Once the organization understands their requirements and is ready, they can then evaluate possible mobile integration points and move forward with implementation.

Phase I. Assessing Data Requirements

To plan for the support of a mobile workforce, an organization must first consider what the mobile workforce needs to best serve the company. The development team should ask critical questions of the organization and those employees who will be affected to determine both employee needs and the technology required to support those specific functions. For example, would a sales executive be more effective if they could access a clients purchasing records and credit information before an onsite sales meeting? Additional questions an organization may consider are shown below.

Questions to Consider When Assessing Data Requirements

Where is a remote or mobile employees work typically performed? Is Wi-Fi access or an alternative access method readily available when needed? Would it be helpful to access the Internet to be prepared to answer any questions that might arise? Would access to customer service records help field employees better diagnose customer problems? Does your workforce travel by air or rail regularly and need to make travel arrangements quickly? Does your remote or mobile workforce fully understand corporate travel and communication policies? When finalizing a deal or amending a scope of work with a client, would the process run more smoothly if your employees had an automated, electronic workflow process to secure approvals? When working at remote sites, will workers need to access or print documents, emails or notes? Will mobile employees need to securely access sensitive company documents to perform their job? Does your workforce require access to shared calendar, Intranet, voicemail or other office functions?

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Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

Phase II. Determine the Companys Readiness to Support a Mobile Workforce

Although more companies support mobile and remote workforces, it is important to understand how the process affects the bottom line. As you explore your companys readiness for a mobile workforce, youll need to evaluate more than just which employees will become mobile. Youll also need to understand such components as how comfortable employees are with mobile devices and applications. Considerations should be made around executive attitudes and support and if implementation strategies will need to include training elements. Many areas of the company are impacted by a mobile workforce implementation. It is a good idea to assemble all the affected departments in your organization with the objective of creating a mobile workforce support team. This will help ensure consistency across the company when addressing mobile needs, as well as alleviate any organizational concerns with the concept. Companies should also realize that traditional employees who will remain in the office will also be impacted. HR, payroll, benefits and accounting departments must understand the needs of the new mobile workforce and be willing and able to support them. Be sure to plan for adequate training for those professionals as well. IT staff will need to understand new responsibilities expected of them, such as what to do if a mobile device is lost or stolen. Next steps involve determining what technology products and services best suit your companys workforce requirements. A companys IT staff holds a deeper understanding of how those products will integrate with the companys current systems and software and should be involved in this step of planning. They may also be able to help determine if standardizing products and devices across the board is best and most cost effective. Once readiness is assessed, the company should be sure the strategy aligns with their budget expectations, if already set.

Evaluate more than just which employees will become mobile.

Phase III. Evaluate Your Organizations Mobile Integration Points

Data-oriented organizations and industries tend to emphasize productivity and efficiency and, as a result, are more likely to promote autonomous working, brief communications and the use of technology, which has a close fit with mobile working styles. When planning to support a mobile and/or remote workforce, companies must evaluate and assess their current application architecture. This architecture review will determine your organizations current mobile integration points and whether or not they require revision. For example, if a company already uses Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 (SP2) or 2007, it likely already has mobile integration points available to support a wide variety of mobile products such as smartphones, PDAs, iPads and notebook PCs, as well as voice and email. Examine the data requirements youve developed and determine how those requirements should be efficiently and effectively delivered to your mobile workers using the mobile integration points your company has in place and what you will need going forward to fully support the mobile initiative.

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Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

Manage the Work

At the present time, many deployed workforce management applications do not natively support mobility initiatives and only recently have organizations started to invest in technology and hardware to provide a stable and secure platform to the mobile population. Since the majority of critical business applications are only available thru a PC connected to the corporate LAN or intranet, many mobile employees remain detached from the information and applications they need to drive business success while they are out of the office. This information gap requires mobile workers to return to the office or use personal hours to complete work. Mobile employees not only lose productivity because they cant access necessary applications remotely, but they also lose productivity when they are in the office and spend time trying to catch up on administrative tasks such as completing time sheets or expense reports rather than driving the business. In addition to being an inefficient use of the employees time, employees that are required to give up personal time for work activities or take time away from core business requirements may be left dissatisfied with their jobs. Because current work environments foster greater acceptance and understanding of the blending of work and personal time, its critical that companies empower their employees to be able to execute their job at any time. If a sale can be made at 8:00 p.m. instead of during the course of a typical workday, it should.

Manage the Workers

When employees are given the freedom to work remotely or more flexibly through mobile arrangements, its understandable that managers are sometimes skeptical of their productivity. Will employees really do the work they are expected to do? Will they be responsive to customers, colleagues and management? While there is no such thing as a typical mobile worker -- mobile workforce needs vary from industry to industry and job to job there are a few practices businesses can employ to ensure their employees stay motivated while mobile. Organizations must ensure that the right tools and resources are made available to mobile workers, giving them the same connectivity as office-based workers. The lack of regular communication can lead to increased levels of stress and feelings of isolation; alternatively, trying to micromanage remote workers can undermine trust. To avoid isolation and demotivation, managers should promote visibility of mobile workers and provide forums for social interaction between colleagues. For example, instant messaging and other presence tools are a good way of building a mobile workers sense of inclusion, while video facilities can reduce feelings of separation by giving them visibility and access to team workers who are working remotely. A companys management style plays a critical role in supporting successful mobile workforce initiatives. Mobile workforce mismanagement in particular can have serious implications on the success of a mobile worker, with both too much and too little communication damaging employee productivity, performance, morale and well-being. Plus, not all employees are comfortable, equipped or capable of working in a mobile environment either by the nature of their work

While there is no such thing as a typical mobile worker there are a few practices businesses can employ to ensure their employees stay motivated while mobile.

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Mobile Workforce Management Strategies

or their personal skills. Those who flourish and succeed within mobile roles are typically self-motivated, resilient, extroverted and independent. So when recruiting, organizations must rigorously test for these attributes. If a company recruits inappropriate employees, establishes poor management and fails to provide adequate communications resources, they can offset the potential benefits of having a mobile workforce.

The New Office Anywhere, Anytime!

A mobile workforce is not a part of a futuristic technology plan; companies are untethering their employees today. Mobility can improve productivity and operations profitability by helping to manage the business processes anytime, anywhere, from any mobile device. Mobile business applications have become more affordable, convenient, secure, productive and reliable. New technologies, such as broadband technology, can combine with Bluetooth technology and wireless air card usage in standard Wi-Fi hotspots in many locations, enabling employees to stay connected from almost anywhere regardless of where they need to work. These mobile technologies, combined with an increasing desire for a greater work/life balance have redefined what it means to be in the office and have financial and environmental impact for the business implementing mobile workforce solutions. Employees who are mobile and enabled with ready access to critical business applications can optimize their productivity by taking care of business whenever and wherever business takes them.

Endnotes
1

IDC Research Market Analysis; Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2009 2013 Forecast; Dec 2009. IDC, The State of Mobile Enterprise Software in 2009: An IDC Survey of Applications and Platforms -- Decisions and Deployments; Doc #219600; August 2009. Improve ROI by investing in a mobile workforce - understand it, 2011 ewlettPackard Development Company, L.P.

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About SumTotal
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is the global leader of strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions that provide organizations with a new level of visibility to help make more informed business decisions and accelerate growth. Recognized by industry analysts as the most complete solution, SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system of record, from a single provider for improved business intelligence. The company offers customers of all sizes and industries the most flexibility and choice with multiple purchase, configuration, and deployment options. We have increased the performance of the worlds largest organizations including Sony Electronics (NYSE: SNE), AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN [ADR]; London: AZN), Amway (KUL:AMWAY), Seagate (NYSE: STX), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). For more information, or to request a demo, please call +1 (866) 768-6825 (US / Canada), +1 (352) 264-2800 (international) or visit www.sumtotalsystems.com

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