Volatile growth in particular is rarely accompanied by a mix of internal and external manpower resources which correctly reflect actual needs. Expensive overtime is necessary due to personnel shortages, and this drives costs through the roof. The use of temporary staff, consultants, and interim managers can cause ­trouble if the contracts are based on a fixed term rather than on the actual working time. But decisions concerning the use of these flexible resources often have little to do with the overall needs of the company as a whole as there is no central resource to carry out real-time controlling. “Total Workforce Management” can help here: by using it, manpower allocation is ­continuously optimized, standardized, and automated according to momentary needs. In addition it can help improve the flexibility of the workforce and reduce the related personnel costs.  

Overtime, spare capacity, and unused potential are all commonplace during periods of growth 

Thanks to the use of improved workforce management, person­nel capacity planning has recently become more professional in production, service, and trade organizations. One example is the optimization of the call center workforce at peak times. In times of increased demand, e.g. during an advertising campaign for new consumer products, an increased number of telephone positions are occupied here. Implementation uses IT-based tools to avoid overtime, unproductive idle time, poor customer ­service, and unused potential in the service or sales forces.  The definition of workforce management is really the provision of the right number of employees with the right qualifications in the right place at the right time. The focus here is on internal resources. It is just a small step from this definition to total workforce management – i.e. the targeted and intelligent application of all manpower options available to the organization. Total Workforce Management is the permanent optimizing task of ensuring the flexible and needs-orientated allocation of staff within the organization. This covers not only employees with limited term or permanent contracts, but includes interns, temps, consultants, and interim managers as well as customer or supplier support staff for (development) projects  (see Figure).