By now, we’re certainly no strangers to change. Whether positive or disruptive, it’s safe to say we’ve been thrown a few curve balls these past few years, including how we do business. From the COVID-19 pandemic to ongoing economic uncertainty and turbulent workforce conditions, the list seems endless. While leaders around the globe have faced these turbulent challenges head on, one thing has remained certain: organizational adaptability is pivotal. As we prepare to enter 2023, adaptability and agility will be an even more vital business practice.
With the new year right around the corner, our Human Insights team at UKG published their 2023 trends report, highlighting three mega trends that businesses should keep top of mind in the upcoming year. You can review and access these key trends on the UKG 2023 Megatrends page.
As you browse the page, you’ll see that organizational plasticity is crucial, meaning (spoiler alert) it’s time to ensure your organization is as adaptable as possible to face this ever-changing landscape.
But First — What Is Organizational Plasticity?
As stated in the 2023 Megatrends report: “The COVID-19 pandemic was a huge wake-up call for businesses to realize that they needed more adaptable business structures in place to withstand the amount of turbulence we face today, but this isn’t new information. Did you know that the average lifespan of S&P 500 companies has been shrinking for decades (from 61 years in 1958, to 20 years in 1990, to 14 by 2026)? This further proves that organizations must be continuously rewiring and adapting —or become extinct.”
With that said, now is the time to double down on forming agile business structures to ensure organizational plasticity. When we say “organizational plasticity,” we mean a combination of flexibility and adaptability that makes internal organizational processes and networks malleable and open to change. It’s about flexibility, adaptability, resilience, and easy responsiveness to deal with unpredictable events.
One of the ways we’ve identified to help foster organizational plasticity is (by no surprise) to invest in technology. Not only that, but investing in the right technology can also make your business more transparent, more flexible, and more efficient. What better way to start that initiative than by utilizing your UKG Dimensions® solution to its fullest potential? So, we want to share a few workforce management features that will help you and your company remain agile in 2023.
Flex Your Plasticity with These Dimensions Features
Scheduling with ease
Your Dimensions solution offers robust scheduling capabilities that have been built with you and your people in mind. Using our scheduling feature, you’ll have the luxury of real-time visibility into your employees’ availability, skills, and certifications — all in one space. With real-time staffing visibility, you’ll be able to optimize your workforce by avoiding over- and understaffing your teams. You’ll be building, maintaining, and viewing employee schedules with confidence in no time.
The perks don’t stop there! Utilizing Dimensions Scheduling with the mobile app puts benefits directly in the palms of your employees’ hands. Your people will be empowered by being able to swap shifts, request time off, and upload and/or review important documentation, and more directly from their mobile device. Investing in smart scheduling features is a win-win, from the manager to the employee.
Did you know? UKG Dimensions also offers Advanced Scheduling, which takes the schedule builder to the next level. Backed by the power of AI, the advanced scheduler provides intelligence, rule checking, and shift coverage functionality. You’ll also find that by leveraging algorithms, managers and employees will have optimized schedules that will help balance resources and people efficiently — all while remaining compliant with the multitude of labor laws.
Check out all the scheduling capabilities you have at your disposal here.
Forecasting isn’t just for the weather
Weather forecasts help you prepare for those winter storms and heat waves, but UKG Dimensions Forecasting helps you prepare your workforce schedule by making accurate and timely predictions. Our self-tuning and patented Machine Learning (ML) algorithm automatically learns from trends and data unique to you and your workforce. By infusing the forecasting feature with your solution, it will identify patterns and create optimal schedules for your staff, all while establishing more accurate forecasts through collected data via machine learning. Leveraging this data will help you predict future trends by past employee actions, giving you a glimpse into what the future may hold.
See everything else that Forecasting has to offer here.
Proactively guide employees
Using AI — DSaaS (Data Science as a Service), we developed the Proactive Guidance feature to drive employee behavior improvement by sending informed notifications. Proactive Guidance detects punching and sends reminders to employees to try to change negative punching patterns. Through these notifications, you will be able to proactively guide employees to better habits when it comes to punching in/out. There are various behaviors that this feature will track and send notifications for, such as absenteeism, missed punches, late in/out, and break times. As an example, with Proactive Guidance, you can have an automated notification sent to your employees letting them know their break is ending soon, thus reminding them to punch back in when they finish. With this level of automated notifications, you’ll be promoting efficient habits throughout your workforce for more accurate timekeeping!
Interested in reading more about Proactive Guidance? Go here.
Putting the AI in Auditor
Save time and avoid frustration with the UKG Dimensions Auditor feature. Auditor leverages AI to identify, discover, report, and track potential compliance risks and unwanted behaviors related to timekeeping and scheduling. Auditor provides valuable insight into labor productivity, compliance, and governance — especially for administrators, analysts, and officers in your organization. It delivers a simplified way for you to identify high-risk locations and high-risk employees that are acting differently from other parts of the organization and that could represent potential compliance risk. Investing in a feature like Auditor keeps you in-the-know of how your organization and teams are operating without having to habitually check in.
Learn more about Auditor and how the feature can benefit you here.
When it comes to investing in technology to remain agile in today’s fluctuating business climate, you’re halfway there by already using UKG Dimensions! Now that you have the solution in hand, it’s just a matter of knowing how to maximize it and understanding everything it has to offer. We have a ton of resources and solution inspiration waiting for you on the UKG Community. Peer-to-peer conversations are always flowing, and we strongly encourage you to chime in with questions and ideas! And don’t forget to check out the two other 2023 megatrends that will prepare you for what 2023 has in store. Looking for more mega trends resources? Download the e-book for free here!