What is Workforce Management? A Complete Guide for UK Businesses

Benefits of workforce management

Workforce Management (WFM) is the formal process by which an organisation ensures it has the right size, shape, and functional capability to respond to current, future, and changing needs.

Without an effective workforce management system, an organisation is effectively flying blind, reacting to problems as they arise, being caught off guard by change, and forced into sudden, often costly adjustments. Workforce management replaces this reactive approach with foresight, planned flexibility, and built-in agility.

There are five key benefits of workforce management:

1. Better workforce planning and control

An effective workforce management system provides clear visibility of current capacity and future needs, enabling proactive headcount and skills planning. AI functionality can extend these capabilities into automated scheduling and headcount planning, saving time and money.

2. Improved cost management

Accurate forecasting and scheduling reduces unnecessary overtime, overstaffing, and reliance on costly short-term fixes such as agency staff. For example, in 2023–24, NHS trusts faced 113,000 vacancies and spent £3 billion on agency staff, with some nursing shifts costing up to £2,000 once agency fees were costed in. The government wanted to change this, and they urged their workforce management unit, NHS Professionals (a bank of flexible NHS staff) to reduce spend on agency staff through increased and targeted utilisation of NHS Bank professionals. As a result, spending on agency staff fell by £1 billion between 2024 and 2025. This is one of the NHS’s most successful UK workforce management solutions; it boosted productivity and significantly reduced costs in this organisation.

3. Greater agility and resilience

Organisations with an effective workforce management system can respond quickly to peaks in demand, downturns, and structural changes without disruptive last-minute decisions. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this advantage: organisations with agile UK workforce management solutions were able to shift rapidly to remote working, maintaining continuity and productivity while less prepared competitors struggled to adapt.

Also, consider this example from Phoenix Group published by the CIPD; they implemented a new evidence-based  workforce management programme called Phoenix Flex. Following implementation Phoenix Group employees can work a wide variety of different contractual hours and working patterns. They can even work abroad 20 days a year, amongst other flexible initiatives. Phoenix Flex, which was the name of Phoenix Group’s UK workforce management solution, led to improvements across multiple business metrics including organisational resilience, employee engagement and sustainability.

4. Stronger employee experience and sustainability

Effective workforce planning helps organisations move away from a long-hours culture by matching workload to available capacity and distributing work more evenly. By planning staffing levels in advance and scheduling work fairly, employees are less likely to experience chronic overload or last-minute pressure, reducing the risk of burnout. This enables people to work at their optimum level, improving wellbeing, engagement, and long-term workforce sustainability.

5. More informed strategic decision-making

AI powered workforce management systems produce data-driven insights to support better decisions around job design, investment, automation, and long-term HR strategy, making this another one of the key benefits of workforce management.

Core components of workforce management

Effective Workforce Management enables an organisation to construct an agile and flexible workforce that meets both present and future demands, and which can also adapt to fluctuating demand and market uncertainty. Modern workforce management is built on the following principles known as the 7rs.

1. Right size: Maintaining appropriate staffing levels to meet operational demand while avoiding under-resourcing, excessive overtime, or unnecessary redundancies.
2. Right shape: Structuring roles, grades, and reporting lines so work is organised fairly, efficiently, and in line with business priorities and job evaluation principles.
3. Right skills: Ensuring employees have the skills and competence required to perform their roles safely and effectively, now and as organisational needs evolve.
4. Right site: Determining where work is best performed, across offices, remote settings, or geographies, to optimise access to talent, cost, and effectiveness.
5. Right spending: Managing pay, benefits, and wider workforce costs responsibly to remain affordable, equitable, and compliant with UK pay and employment regulations.
6. Right sustainability: Supporting a workforce model that promotes wellbeing, equality, and retention while reducing burnout, absence, and long-term skills risk.
7. Right change: Managing workforce transition, growth, restructuring, automation, or reduction, in a controlled, transparent, and legally sound manner.

Of course, these guiding principles must be put into practice and are usually incorporated into the following 4 software-driven workforce management systems. These are as follows:

1. Workforce planning
   This process involves analysing business strategy to determine the number of people and skills needed, and when they are required, to meet business demand, now and in the future.
2. Forecasting and demand management
   This software-driven process involves anticipating future workload, staffing requirements, and labour costs using data, trends, and assumptions.
3. Scheduling and deployment
   Again using internal HR data and external trends data workforce management systems can allocate, (in some cases automatically) people to shifts, roles, or locations to balance coverage, cost, and availability.
4. Time, attendance, and performance tracking. Recording working hours, absence, and productivity to maintain compliance with the Working Time Regulations, support fair pay practices, and provide a reliable data baseline for workforce planning and deployment decisions.

How SenseHR supports workforce management

SenseHR is a modern, agile HR platform that delivers core HR functionality while also supporting effective workforce management.

It includes a sophisticated attendance management system that gives workforce planners real-time visibility of absence across teams and departments. This improves human resource planning by providing a robust data baseline that supports more accurate sickness and capacity forecasting.

SenseHR also integrates easily with leading time-tracking tools or can be used with its own SensePresence Time and Attendance solution. Organisations using SenseHR can therefore build a reliable data baseline covering working hours and overtime; key indicators for workforce planning, wellbeing, and Working Time Regulations compliance.

In addition, SenseHR includes a performance management module that allows organisations to track and report on individual and team performance. These productivity insights can then be incorporated into workforce planning, role design, and skills planning decisions.

SenseHR’s core employment records functionality tracks tenure across the full range of contract types, locations, and pay rates in real time. This data can be used to support employee turnover forecasting, a key element of effective workforce management.

SenseHR’s smart organisation chart module also enables organisations to rapidly build, model, adjust, and optimise reporting lines and organisational structures, supporting Right Shape, one of the seven core ‘Rs’ of effective workforce management.

SenseHR’s capability extends beyond data capture. Its advanced reporting and analytics module brings attendance, time, and performance data together through highly customisable reports and digital dashboards, enabling HR and business leaders to identify trends, spot risks early, and make informed, evidence-based workforce decisions.

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