As the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a grim era of unemployment, financial instability, and business interruptions and shutdowns, it also led to the emergence of The Great Resignation.
Created by Texas A&M University’s professor — Anthony Klotz — the Great Resignation served as a wake-up call to employees who were unsatisfied with their jobs or desired a better work-life balance, leading them to resign from their positions.
Then, the Great Resignation evolved into The Great Reshuffle. This movement describes employees who jump into another industry for higher pay and a more fulfilling career path. Inevitably, The Great Reshuffle has forced businesses to redefine their company culture, hiring processes, and workforce budgets.
While this article focuses on workforce budget optimization, it will also tackle the factors behind The Great Reshuffle to help companies recalibrate their budgeting processes for the post-pandemic workplace.
3 Factors That Drive The Great Reshuffle
Understanding the drivers behind The Great Reshuffle is a critical aspect of optimizing your workforce planning and budgeting processes for success. Let’s explore these three factors below.
1. Employees Carving A New Beginning
For many employees, The Great Reshuffle marks the end of an era of enduring unfulfilling jobs. Quitting a job is more than just walking away from underappreciation, poor career growth opportunities, and low salaries; it’s a declaration of freedom and self-worth.
Thus, employees venture into different industries (or, for some, pursue entrepreneurship) in search of a higher and more livable paycheck, a deeper sense of purpose, and greater alignment of personal and company values.
2. The Desire for Flexibility
According to Future Forum Pulse, an overwhelming majority of employees (93%) have expressed their desire for flexible schedules. This desire stems from employees wanting to spend more time with their families and personal endeavors as well as avoid the hassle of commuting.
That’s why The Great Reshuffle has made flexible work arrangements a standard, not just the bare minimum to attract talent.
3. Technological Advancement
AI is everywhere, and it’s revolutionizing the way humans work. Companies employ this technology to supplement human employees, or worse, replace them with AI. As AI becomes sophisticated over time, employers must keep up the pace — or risk getting left behind.
5 Reasons Why Companies Are Optimizing Workforce Budgets
Workforce budgeting is not always about how much a company spends on resources. Sometimes, it’s about how well a business redistributes manpower for maximum productivity, efficiency, and cost savings. Here’s why you should optimize your workforce budgets.
1. Reduce Costs
Workforce budgeting is a strategic effort. By optimizing workforce budgets, companies can avoid overspending on labor and other resources, helping them achieve higher productivity levels and maintain financial stability.
2. Improve Productivity and Performance
Employee productivity and performance drive success. Companies that effectively plan their workforce budgets and manpower can allocate optimal headcount across various assignments and projects, so employees can complete their deliverables on time while meeting quality standards.
This also contributes to higher employee satisfaction and lower turnover, as staff members are no longer overworked or burdened with tasks that don’t suit their current role and skill sets.
3. Maximizes the Skills of Employees
Effective workforce budgeting involves accounting for the skills and qualifications of each employee. By optimizing staffing budgets and manpower, employees can focus on their core competencies, preventing dips in quality and productivity.
4. Unlocks Potential for Scalability
Scaling a business entails optimizing workforce budgets for long-term growth. When budgeting is done right, scalability becomes less of an intimidating endeavor. As a result, companies can grow their team headcount according to shifting demand and workload.
5. Ensures Higher ROI
Workforce planning and budgeting are grounded in adaptability and efficiency. From team distribution to employee performance, everything is tied to a company’s ability to maximize its manpower — which contributes to a higher return on investment (ROI).
4 Steps In Creating A Workforce Budget
Optimizing workforce budgets boils down to one thing: A realistic budget. Here are four steps on how to draw up a feasible and adaptable workforce budget.
1. Identify Your Goals
Think of workforce budget planning as your roadmap to success. But to achieve success, what are your goals and priorities?
Whether it’s slashing employee turnover rates or improving performance, having clear goals can help departments — especially human resources and finance departments — prepare budgets that align with the organization’s future vision and the needs of its employees.
2. Get A Clearer Picture of Your Workforce
From the highlights to the lowlights, this step functions as a reality check of your organization’s workforce. How many employees, including new hires, are in the company’s departments? Is there room for growth?
By extracting workforce data, identifying skill gaps, and assessing organizational structures, departments and executives can draw up a realistic manpower budget that supports effective decision-making, long-term growth, and operational efficiency.
3. Anticipate Disruptions and Future Employee Needs
Businesses must not only identify current workforce needs, but also anticipate future needs and unforeseen circumstances. This means monitoring current trends, discerning shifts in the market, forecasting organizational changes, and preparing for economic or health crises.
By preparing for challenges — whether good or bad — your company has ample budget to handle dire situations without significantly affecting your workforce.
4. Use the Most Appropriate Budgeting Method
Links International’s Country Director for Recruitment, Keith Wong, says there are two ways of drawing up a workforce budget: Zero-based budgeting and incremental budgeting.
In zero-based budgeting, companies don’t use previous budgets as their point of reference, meaning their labor budget is drawn from zero — a blank slate. Aimed at companies in fast-evolving industries, this method involves justifying expenses in each period, demanding a higher level of accountability and financial management.
Alternatively, incremental budgeting involves reviewing previous budgets and using them as your base of reference. Workforce budgets are adjusted in increments, taking into account market dynamics and other conditions. Incremental budgeting is appropriate for companies in more predictable and stable markets.
Of course, there’s no “right” or “wrong” workforce budgeting method. Existing factors like your company’s industry influence your decision between zero-based budgeting and incremental budgeting. You can even incorporate elements of both budgeting methods!
5 Best Practices for Optimizing Workforce Budgets
Workforce budget optimization equates to productivity and retention. We rounded up the best tips for optimizing workforce budgets.
1. Invest In Workforce Development
Picture this: You hire a new employee, train them in your processes, and after some time, that same employee is handing in their resignation letter. Employees come and go — but in the first place — why are they leaving your company?
Employees quit because they’re underpaid and undervalued, thus justifying their desire to find better job opportunities. Some also leave because of toxic workplaces, or they no longer find meaning in their work. In some cases, employees resign due to a lack of opportunities for professional development.
Workforce development programs not only open doors for promotion, but also keep employees for a lot longer as they feel a sense of achievement. Workforce programs can involve mentoring, seminars, and workshops held either online or in the workplace.
By dedicating a portion of your budget to professional training, employees can acquire new skills, hone existing ones, and develop self-confidence. They’ll be more productive, too. All these contribute to higher employee satisfaction and a deeper sense of purpose, not to mention you’re also future-proofing your employees’ careers.
2. Provide Flexible Working Options
Long commutes and lack of work-life balance? Employees are no longer settling for additional stress. They don’t want their lives to revolve around work, and they want companies to offer flexible work arrangements for greater work-life balance and autonomy. These arrangements include remote work, hybrid setups, and flexible working hours (i.e. employees choosing their start and end times).
By providing flexible work arrangements, employees have more say in when and how they work. Some individuals feel more comfortable working remotely at night, while others prefer hybrid work for the right balance of in-person interactions.
This flexibility affords more benefits beyond autonomy — it also bolsters productivity and enhances job satisfaction, leading to improved performance and retention rates. Additionally, such arrangements also help your recruitment team cast a wider net in the hiring pool, allowing them to hire candidates outside of the country, or even those with disabilities.
3. Implement Technology Into Business Operations
Technology is the norm, and we can’t deny its profound effects on business operations. AI, for example, can optimize customer service channels with human-like, personalized responses to questions. Computer programs have also evolved to become more advanced, with features that automate routine tasks and streamline workflow with just a few clicks.
When it comes to workforce budgeting, doing things manually sets your finance and human resources departments up for failure. For instance, if your HR and finance employees are getting or inputting data on multiple spreadsheets, they’re more likely to make errors that can hinder effective workforce planning.
But with the right software, manpower budgeting becomes more efficient and data-driven, as HR and finance employees can extract work data from a central database. This, in turn, supports staffing decisions that benefit both employees and the organization’s goals.
4. Spearhead DEI Efforts
Short for “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion,” DEI encompasses initiatives that promote a more inclusive workplace culture. Employees can be of any gender, sexual orientation, race, or socio-economic background. Hence, companies must ensure that minority groups are given a platform — a voice — where they can participate in decision-making, share ideas, and drive change in the workplace without prejudice.
Nurturing DEI begins with education and awareness. For example, you can initiate workforce development programs that focus on using gender-neutral language in correspondence and promoting workplace inclusivity and cultural sensitivity. Workplace policies can also be updated to protect minority groups from racial or gender-based harassment and accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities.
Furthermore, as much as possible, recruitment strategies should involve being open to hiring minorities, so they can bring in fresh and diverse perspectives at every level — which helps overcome blind spots.
Likewise, AI biases should be minimized to prevent loss of trust. By employing AI specialists from diverse backgrounds, they can detect biased data and train AI systems on diverse data sets.
When you champion DEI in the workplace, you create a culture where every employee feels respected and valued. This translates to enhanced collaboration that promotes growth, innovation, and retention — signaling a positive ROI in DEI investment.
5. Enlist the Help of An Outsourcing Company
Outsourcing powers up the business world, allowing companies to collaborate with the best BPOs for top-tier efficiency. Aside from efficiency, outsourcing offers more benefits:
- Access to Talent: Outsourcing means going global on hiring. By working with staff from an overseas BPO partner, your in-house team will be exposed to new perspectives and cultures — which also support DEI efforts. Overseas talent is also as qualified as local hires, so you’re getting the best of both worlds: cost-effective labor and specialized expertise.
- Cost Savings: Office rent, equipment, cost of hiring, employee turnover — these expenses add up over time. Outsourcing shifts the financial burden of these expenses to the service provider, meaning the BPO company itself covers the cost of overhead, training, and turnover.
- Scalability: Outsourcing shortens time-to-hire, hastening your scalability initiatives so you can grow your team as needed.
However, always remember that your motivation for outsourcing should not always center around cutting costs. When evaluating a potential outsourcing partner, consider the company’s expertise, core values, culture, and target audience as your benchmark of choice, so you can achieve a higher ROI and forge a long-lasting partnership with your service provider.
If you’re outsourcing to the Philippines, consider comparing KDCI Outsourcing with other BPO providers, such as Accenture and TaskUs, to help you make the right choice.
Optimize Workforce Budgets By Outsourcing to KDCI
Outsourcing goes beyond optimizing workforce costs — it streamlines operations for faster turnaround times and higher performance.
At KDCI Outsourcing, we transform your goals into reality by tailoring our offshore staffing solutions to your needs. From outsourced accounting to content creation, we've got your bases covered. With our knowledge and expertise in the latest technologies, rest assured that your operations will be equipped for precision, efficiency, and innovation.
Elevate your workforce management efforts today! Get in touch with KDCI Outsourcing and let our offshore services drive real results.
