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13 Best Workforce Management Software Solutions of 2023

Discover the top workforce management software solutions of 2023 to streamline your processes, boost productivity, and manage your team more effectively.

By ActivTrak

Aug. 30, 2023 / 9 min read

Recently, workforce management has become a major aspect of running a successful business. With technology always advancing, companies are turning to workforce management software solutions to automate and streamline their HR processes. If you’re looking for the best workforce management software solutions of 2023, keep reading!

What is Workforce Management Software?

Workforce management software is a tool that helps organizations make their human resources processes more efficient and less labor-intensive. The software will generally automate processes like employee timekeeping and payroll services as well as schedules and workforce load balancing. Most workforce management tools include self-service options for employees and managers, as well as document storage and integrations with other software, including accounting and financial services.

What Should You Look for in Workforce Management Software?

The right workforce management solution for your organization will depend on your business’s individual needs and goals. In general, however, you should look for software that will help you better manage your workforce, including key features such as:

An easy-to-use user interface: Any new software program should be easy to use for the team to ensure quick implementation and regular use.
Employee time management: From scheduling employees to tracking their time clocked, your workforce management system should automate the process for you, including absence management.
Task management: Managing employee schedules and rosters is also a process that your workforce management software should do for you.
Compliance monitoring: Regulatory compliance is an important part of keeping a business running, and your workforce management system should handle tracking employee compliance through training and digital signatures, including employee onboarding.
Labor costs and payroll management: Your software system should integrate with your payroll and accounting systems to handle the financial aspects of paying employees.
Budgeting features: Again, by integrating with your accounting system, your workforce management software should be able to help you with budget forecasting and planning based on trends and outlooks.
Analytics: A good workforce management software system will provide you with analytics to help you get a holistic view of your workforce and internal processes.
Service and support: Depending on how complex your software system is, you may want more robust customer support services, such as 24/7 phone or chat support as opposed to a ticketing system.

Top Workforce Management Software Solutions by Category

Managing a workforce is a complex task that requires a lot of time and effort, whether you’re running a small business or an enterprise organization. Fortunately, there are many workforce management software solutions available on the market that can help organizations streamline their HR processes and improve their overall efficiency.

However, with so many options to choose from, it can be challenging to know which software will be the best fit for your business. We’ve broken our top picks for 2023 down into a few subcategories:

Task and project management solutions

Task and project management solutions help teams assign work, track project status and collaborate to improve employee productivity. These software platforms should be cloud-based and accessible from anywhere to enable teams to work in real-time. A good task management tool will help employees prioritize tasks with a complete view of due dates and statuses to make team collaboration seamless.

Communication is another important aspect of collaboration, and project management tools need to make it easy for teams to discuss roadblocks and progress. The right tools will integrate with existing systems such as employee chat services, email notification tools and more. Reporting can also help teams see important aspects of their processes, such as where slowdowns occur, what timeframes they can expect each project type to take, and what teams may need more support.

Kanban boards are a popular project management tool, allowing project managers to assign tasks and track progress on projects in a visual manner. Other visualization tools that can help teams include Gantt charts, calendar views, agendas or timelines. A great project management tool will provide customization for your team as well as opportunities for individuals to see their assignments and tasks in whatever method works best for them.

Many teams use simple spreadsheets for project management, but new software solutions can add more flexibility and collaboration capabilities. Automation, like assignment rules or notifications, can save project managers and project workers time. Reporting features can help leadership and managers see how work is progressing and where there may need to be tweaks to processes.

Our top picks include:

Asana
Monday.com
Smartsheet

HR management solutions

HR management software solutions should manage employee onboarding, document management, training, compliance, benefits management, and employee engagement and retention. A good system will integrate with recruiting services and job boards to help your team hire the right people at the right payscale by matching your job descriptions with current market rates.

Because these solutions often act as the document tracking system for sensitive employee information like Social Security numbers, I-9 authorizations and identification documents, these systems need to be able to provide employees the ability to provide documents themselves while maintaining data security and integrity.

Self-service tools can help save time for HR teams and employees, too. This is particularly important for benefits administration, payroll and tax documents. For instance, in many HR software solutions, employees can update their mailing address, beneficiaries or other personal information in an app so that their information is correct and HR employees won’t need to hunt down the info for tax time.

Managers and leadership teams can use these solutions to determine career development activities and training, tracking compliance, work history information, certifications and more. With good reporting, managers can see in a glance how many employees have completed required training or signed required documents and easily follow up with those who may have missed a deadline.

Many HR software solutions include payroll and time tracking systems as well, and integrate with other systems to help departments across organizations speed up HR processes. These software solutions should integrate with financial systems as well to streamline payroll, tax reporting and budgeting.

Our top picks include:

BambooHR
Workday
UKG
Paylocity

Payroll, invoicing and time tracking solutions

Paying employees and managing invoicing is monotonous, error-prone work for most teams, and software automation can remove a lot of the headaches from the process. By taking the manual data entry out of payroll and invoicing, these solutions can help your HR department get payroll out on time and with fewer errors. Using manual time entry or automated time tracking tools, these software platforms can bill your clients correctly and pay employees accurately.

Attendance and time tracking are another important aspect of these workforce management solutions. By automatically calculating paid time off and sick time accruals and allowing team members to request time off, these programs are big time savers for HR departments and managers. Self-service portals with automated notification and communication systems can help keep managers and employees on top of common time issues.

Employees should also be able to access their tax forms, paystubs and other information on their own, including updating information when it changes. Many of these solutions also integrate with financial services to help HR departments set up direct deposit, tax withholding and other financial aspects of pay.

One important aspect of payroll and invoicing software is its ability to ensure automated compliance with state and federal regulations, especially tax reporting. Many tax regulations change frequently, and it can be hard for HR teams to keep up with implementing changes, especially on small teams.

Our top picks include:

ADP
Paycom
Time Doctor

Productivity monitoring solutions

With more and more workforces being digitally based, productivity monitoring software is becoming increasingly popular. While many may associate employee monitoring with paranoid managers who are looking to catch employees being unproductive, most organizations find much more benefit in how productivity monitoring can inform their policies and processes to improve productivity and office culture for their employees.

Whether your workforce is fully remote, hybrid, in-office full time or spread across a number of offices, productivity monitoring can provide leadership with insights into how employees are working and how much. Beyond simple time tracking, employee productivity monitoring solutions can help leaders make data-informed decisions about what technology to implement, which employees may need more training, and whether or not return-to-office policies are a good investment.

For real-time insights on employee behavior – including spotting burnout before it strikes – ActivTrak is a top pick for employee productivity monitoring. The platform can track app usage, employee time, productivity scoring and analytics. ActivTrak helps leadership get a full picture of capacity, allowing teams to better manage workloads and quickly stop disengagement in its tracks. Teams can also improve processes and analyze technology usage to see what’s working and what isn’t.

The best employee monitoring software solutions will balance leadership’s need for insight into employee work habits with employee privacy. At the same time, these solutions can help IT teams prevent phishing and other security threats by monitoring specific URLs or email categories.

An employee monitoring solution is only as good as its reporting, and analytics are a big part of what these services offer. Easy-to-read reports and dashboards are a must-have when considering which solution to implement.

Our top picks include:

ActivTrak
Prodoscore
Insightful

Try ActivTrak’s workforce management software

Get a free two-minute demo of ActivTrak’s workforce management software to see if it’s right for your organization. Find out how we can help you manage hybrid or remote teams, pinpoint productivity issues for your employees, mitigate burnout risk, track technology usage and give you insight into employee engagement and experience. ActivTrak’s reporting can help you spot trends in workforce time and workload, inefficient processes and even show you where employees may be struggling, before they recognize it themselves. Increase productivity through better training, data-based reward systems and more with ActivTrak’s holistic view.