CONSULTING · WFM / TIME & ATTENDANCE / SCHEDULING / OPTIMISATION
Aligning activity, resources and rules.
Workforce Management (WFM) covers time and attendance, demand forecasting, staffing requirements and optimised scheduling. We start from how your operations actually run to identify the levers for improvement, optimise what is already in place or prepare a new WFM project.
We connect operational needs, business rules and technology choices so the system truly serves the way work is organised.
FIELD BENCHMARKS
Tangible, measurable benefits.
Optimising and automating scheduling and time management delivers substantial value. These orders of magnitude have been observed after WFM deployments and vary from one organisation to another.
Additional revenue. With teams available according to demand, more present and more engaged, fewer sales are lost. A customer who cannot find anyone to serve them leaves without buying: this is the opportunity cost that WFM reduces.
Fewer payroll errors. Applying rules rigorously and feeding payroll automatically significantly reduces the cost of errors. With a manual process, the risk of error increases: employees report the errors that work against them, and more rarely those in their favour. These can go unnoticed for a long time, at the company’s expense.
What would this represent for your organisation? Let’s talk →
- more than 5%
- reduction in labour costs
- 95%
- reduction in unwanted overtime costs
- 75%
- less time, on average, to build schedules
- less than 12 months
- to achieve return on investment (ROI)
Nucleus Research · Zebra · Forrester Consulting · Horoquartz · UKG
View sources
Nucleus Research’s 2022 WFM Satisfaction Survey reports an average reduction of over 5% in labour costs among organisations using workforce optimisation capabilities. A study published in late 2025 identifies potential savings exceeding 6%. Zebra also reports 6% annual payroll savings in a customer deployment.
Zebra reports a 95% reduction in avoidable overtime costs. In a separate study commissioned by Quinyx, Forrester Consulting reports a 50% reduction in overtime hours at one of the retailers interviewed. The two results measure different outcomes.
Nucleus Research’s 2022 survey reports an average 75% reduction in the time spent creating and adjusting schedules through automation. A 2025 analysis identifies an 80% reduction in manager scheduling time.
Horoquartz reports a payback period of less than one year for a time and attendance and workforce scheduling deployment. UKG documents a customer investment recovered within 10 months. A 2026 Nucleus Research case study reports a five-month payback with UKG, while its 2021 review of WFM deployments found an average payback period of less than five months. A separate Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Legion estimates payback in under six months for a modelled composite organisation.
WFM CHALLENGES
From activity to resources, then to the schedule.
Sizing from activity
Forecasts, volumes, events or other drivers: sizing starts with understanding what really creates the workload. We look at how this activity translates into resource requirements, and whether the assumptions in use still match how things actually work.
Details
- Forecasts and drivers
- Workload or productivity standards
- Resource requirements
- Skills and constraints
Improving coverage and scheduling
Scheduling is not just about building shifts. It has to bring together the workload to cover, the resources available, skills and the organisation’s constraints.
We aim to make trade-offs more objective and to reduce manual adjustments when the schedule does not match the activity.
Details
- Demand coverage
- Workforce scheduling
- Skills and availability
- Scenarios and trade-offs
Simplifying time management
Time and attendance and WFM environments accumulate exceptions: legacy rules, successive agreements, local practices and workarounds. The point is not just to reproduce them in the tool, but to understand which ones are still needed and where simplification is possible.
Details
- Time and activities
- Absences and balances
- Rules and exceptions
- Payroll interfaces
HOW WE HELP
We support you at every stage.
- BEFORE THE PROJECT
Scope and choose
We analyse the organisation, processes and the solution in place with operational, HR and IT teams. We translate activity and data into WFM requirements: drivers, productivity standards and rules. For a new tool, we structure the requirements, the scenarios and the business case.
OUTCOMEThe Value Engineering methodShared priorities, an explicit target model and a well-argued decision.
- DURING THE PROJECT
Design and secure
Target processes, business rules, scheduling, interfaces, data and testing: we connect business, HR and IT teams with the vendor and the integrator. We challenge the choices that commit the system for the long term and make sure the situations actually met on the ground are tested.
OUTCOMEDocumented design choices, risks identified early and a project tested on the issues that really matter.
- ONCE LIVE
Optimise and evolve
We analyse actual usage and results: coverage, schedule adjustments, manual interventions or rule complexity. We help prioritise enhancements. When the standard product covers a specific need poorly, we design the additional component required.
OUTCOMEA roadmap based on actual usage, with prioritised and costed improvements.
When the standard product does not properly cover a specific need, we add what is missing: an interface with the HR system, payroll or an operational system, targeted automation, a simulation tool or automated testing of business rules.
HR AND WFM
Bringing business or HR KPIs into scheduling.
The solution sometimes has to schedule additional resources to absorb higher demand: the end-of-year holidays, weather, a promotion or other criteria. Why not schedule your best-performing employees first?
Making this information available to the scheduling engine allows coverage needs, skills, availability and performance to be combined. In activities where the quality of assignment directly affects service or sales, this choice can have a measurable impact.
Workforce Management does not work in isolation. Employee data comes from the HR system, time data feeds payroll, and schedule optimisation can incorporate data from operational systems.
Our expertise covers the entire chain.
Let’s discuss your project
A WFM or time and attendance project to prepare?
Describe how work is organised and the tools in place, for time and attendance as well as scheduling. Together we will find the levers to examine first.