Workforce management (WFM) is a key but often overlooked lever when it comes to driving sustainability across the workplace. Critically, its impact isn’t limited to the environment. With the right approach, WFM can help your organisation deliver positive outcomes against all of them. This makes it an invaluable part of the toolkit for business decision makers. But when it comes to integrating WFM into your company’s sustainability strategy, what do you need to bear in mind?

Start with the sustainable outcomes you want to achieve

Put simply, WFM is the process of making sure your employees are in the right place at the right time and carrying out the right task. Workforce management solutions deployed to keep WFM on track typically coordinate scheduling, forecasting, timekeeping and attendance, as well as day-to-day management. They can also support your employee engagement and empowerment ambitions too.

It’s the multi-layered nature of WFM which lends itself so well to the five capitals of sustainability. To get started, decide what you want to achieve from a sustainability perspective and then track back to how your WFM activities can align to those objectives.

Connecting the dots between WFM and sustainability outcomes

A core component of any sustainable business is Human Capital – nurturing a workforce that’s appropriately sized, with people who are engaged in their roles and are well looked after in terms of the financial compensation they receive and their physical health and safety.

People also require development and career progression opportunities, and organisations are putting increased effort into supporting employees’ mental and emotional wellbeing too. This aligns at an ethos level to two of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular, Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG three) and Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG eight).

The breadth of what’s involved in operating WFM means businesses can easily link it to all five capitals and tangibly demonstrate sustainability progress. For example, upgrading or replacing legacy technology or manufactured capital with authorised remanufactured or refurbished equipment can increase energy efficiency, reduce running costs and reduce emissions (natural and financial capital). Introducing new digital tools to automate administrative tasks in parallel supports human and social capital by streamlining day-to-day tasks, providing staff with greater autonomy over their work and freeing up their time to develop new skills and relationships.

WFM can also support employees who have care-giving responsibilities by matching them to shifts that offer the flexibility they need or identifying more shifts to increase earning. All the improvements, whether technical, financial or environmental, can boost employee engagement, which in turn has a further positive impact in revenue or financial capital by increasing retention and lowering the cost of recruitment.

When it comes to making investment decisions, business leaders need to consider sustainability holistically. If you only look at sustainability through an environmental lens, investing in a new WFM technology platform may not make the cut due to the energy consumption factors impacting scope 2 emissions and increased employee travel adding to scope 3, but it will boost the other four capitals. And using renewable energy, developing with green code and providing employee benefits such as cycle to work and EV schemes, for example, will help to mitigate the impact in support of natural capital.

REPL’s clients typically see higher levels of staff engagement and happiness after a WFM deployment. The cause? Improved scheduling and flexibility. As a result, absenteeism falls, staff attrition reduces by 5% to 15% and productivity increases. In a nutshell, investment in new technology (manufactured capital) increases engagement and productivity and reduces staff turnover (human capital) resulting in a positive financial result (financial capital).

It’s time to adopt a multi-dimensional approach to sustainability

As outlined, the positive effects of WFM on the overall sustainability of any organisation are both far-reaching and interconnected. Business leaders who start analysing decisions in this space using the ‘five capitals model’ will soon begin to see how investment in WFM can benefit the business overall by enabling the company to demonstrate tangible progress on sustainability.