When every minute counts, having an efficient workforce management tool is important for organizations of all sizes. The right tool empowers you to streamline operations, improve productivity and enhance employee satisfaction. But not all workforce management tools are created equal.
Learn about the must-have features of workforce management software when comparing options.
What are workforce management tools?
Workforce management tools are software applications or programs designed to simplify how companies manage and assess daily productivity, scheduling, compliance and team utilization. These tools help ensure team workloads remain balanced. The data and analytics also help managers gain insight into work habits, allowing them to identify any potential issues before they cause workflow bottlenecks.
In addition, workforce management tools aid organizations in mitigating potential security threats. Leaders use tools to assess websites or apps used by employees that violate company policies. Platforms like ActivTrak alert managers to alarming online behaviors.
When used effectively, workforce management tools provide organizations with real-time insights, streamline processes and optimize resources.
Workforce management tool benefits
Workforce management tools provide a number of benefits for teams, managers, individual contributors and the whole organization.
- Track productivity: See when, where and how work gets done to determine the best policies and processes for your teams.
- See availability: Balance workloads and create schedules more effectively with a broad overview of when employees are available or when they’re overworked or underutilized.
- Identify areas for improvement: Find common distractions and track daily progress toward goals or uncover opportunities to provide training.
- Streamline workflows and processes: Automate critical processes or repetitive tasks to free employees to focus on important work, or streamline processes by removing bottlenecks.
- Improve employee well-being: Quickly identify signs of overwork or burnout and empower employees to schedule time and tasks efficiently based on the different ways they work and manage well-being best.
- Enhance cybersecurity: Equip IT and data security teams with tools to stop possible breaches and ensure confidential information stays private.
- Track policy compliance: Ensure employees are following your policy when using company equipment or technology.
- Improve communication: Empower managers to have meaningful conversations around employee productivity solutions with real-time insight into how employees spend their time.
- Save money: Quickly spot resource misallocation to reduce costs, whether it’s time, equipment or even office space.
- Build trust: Provide transparency between employees and managers by demonstrating everyone is on the same page and working toward the same goals.
Comparing workforce management tools for small teams vs. enterprise teams
Small teams need simple, fast tools that provide visibility into work processes and time utilization, while enterprise teams need tools that provide scalability and that integrate with other project management tools (like Asana, Monday, etc.). In addition, enterprise teams need to assess data and insights across different departments, which may not matter as much to smaller teams and companies.
| Criteria | Small teams | Enterprise teams |
| Scalability | Used by a single team | Must allow for cross-functional usage, providing detailed insights for individual teams. May be necessary for multiple locations, departments, etc. |
| Implementation | Simplistic DIY setup that can be implemented quickly | Company-wide implementation with IT, legal, HR and other management teams fully vested in the launch |
| Pricing | A basic streamlined monthly plan priced per seat | A tiered plan that allows access for multiple stakeholders, with expansive data access/retrieval options |
| Customization | Minimal customization needs; simple dashboard customization only | Expansive customization options that allow for specific data retrieval and analysis; multiple dashboard configurations are required |
| Integrations | Basic integrations to common apps | More expansive integrations that include the company’s full tech stack |
| Compliance and privacy | Basic compliance and privacy policies and safeguards | More specialized privacy and compliance that simplify audits (or legal issues/review) |
| Support | Email or online customer support may be acceptable | Dedicated support teams ensure issues are remediated quickly |
| Reporting scope | Simple team data analysis to understand workflow, utilization, productivity, etc. | Comprehensive departmental data analytics; enterprise clients need insights into all teams and the employees within each team. Goals, team benchmarks and headcount analysis are key needs. |
Workforce management tools: 13 must-have features
Your organization will have specific needs for a workforce management tool depending on your goals, industry and workforce. To ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness, watch for these key features.
1. Headcount & Capacity planning
Understanding how much work people are available to do is crucial for determining employee schedules and future planning. ActivTrak’s workforce planning capabilities enable you to right-size your headcount by showing the data that indicates when to bring on new full-time employees or reassign team members. See who’s underutilized or overworked and make decisions to balance workload and ensure everyone is at capacity.
Look for a platform like ActivTrak that’s designed to uncover both headcount and capacity planning, allowing you to see untapped labor capacity caused by underutilized employees and unbalanced workloads, and make adjustments so everyone’s doing the same amount of work. A tool with workforce capacity planning capabilities also helps you analyze the impact of changes like a reduction in force or reorganization so you can better support employees and reduce attrition.
2. Productivity trends
It’s important to see how employees get work done and what influences performance. ActivTrak’s productivity management capabilities provide managers with the productivity tracking data they need for goal setting, training and policy setting. By analyzing productivity for individuals and teams, managers can provide better support to help employees do their best work and create more realistic performance goals. Additionally, the insights help managers spot signs of burnout, such as abnormal dips in productivity.
Productivity tracking capabilities also help leaders set policies that are equally beneficial to employees and the organization. Understanding what locations and schedules lead to the highest productivity makes it easy to create or adjust policies such as flexible work arrangements for teams or specific individuals.
3. Workflow visibility
Whether your team is working in-office, hybrid or fully remote, managers need to see the flow of work to accomplish goals. ActivTrak provides a Workforce Management solution that offers visibility into workflows and helps you ensure projects stay on schedule while spotting bottlenecks to eliminate. For example, many managers optimize workflows by moving on from an inefficient tool or providing more training for an employee who’s taking longer than expected.
4. Location adherence
Leaders today face a big question: Are employees more productive in a centralized office or working remotely? Location-based productivity data, such as the information ActivTrak Location Insights provides, answers this question on an individual basis for employees, teams and your organization. The tool helps you see where employees work and how productivity varies by location, making it easy to determine if you should offer remote work or require employees to come into the office. These insights also help you right-size your office, as you may find you can move to a smaller space and save money if employees are equally or more productive remotely.
5. Data privacy and compliance
With the expansion of remote work, data privacy and compliance is a major challenge for organizations. Businesses must ensure employees don’t create risks for the organization by failing to comply with legal regulations for how data is stored, shared and used. Your workforce management tool should include features that help you stay compliant.
For example, ActivTrak offers data privacy and compliance features that allow you to create security alarms for risky actions, customize access to resources, and spot unusual activity that could be a cause for concern. By taking a proactive approach, you help prevent data breaches and maintain compliance with regulations that vary between geographic locations.
6. Personal insights
ActivTrak’s Personal Insights dashboard shows employees how they’re spending their time, along with insights about productivity, workload balance and work-life balance. Giving employees access to this information empowers them to monitor personal habits and make adjustments to perform their best and stay on track for personal goals. For example, employees can use the data to understand the best times for focused work vs. collaborative activities like meetings.
Employees also gain insight into activities that limit productivity, such as multitasking and common distractions. Gaining a better understanding of productivity inhibitors helps employees avoid or limit them.
7. Seamless integration with existing systems
ActivTrak’s ActivConnect API features a comprehensive library of integration capabilities to seamlessly connect to your tech stack. ActivTrak’s integrations include tools used by employees throughout your company — especially human resources systems for attendance tracking, scheduling and hiring. Crucially, the API lets you scale over time.
8. Compatibility with multiple devices
Many organizations allow employees to work on mobile devices alongside computers, and your workforce management tool needs to be able to keep up. Look for a tool that monitors employee activity across devices and operating systems, and that’s usable on both desktop and mobile devices.
9. Real-time user monitoring
ActivTrak’s workforce management tools provide real-time user activity monitoring insights so managers can see what’s happening on a moment-to-moment basis. This type of information is especially useful following a policy change, as the change management data reveals what’s working or quantifies the impact so you can make adjustments as needed. This also helps managers see live availability, which helps prevent disruptions, along with insights about how often employees take breaks and potential signs of burnout. While managers don’t need to check this info every day, it’s valuable to have this feature available for situations that warrant keeping a close eye on employees.
10. Predictive analytics
The right workforce data is useful for more than checking your organization’s performance against benchmarks. ActivTrak’s Workforce Management solution also equips leaders to review historical data and gain context about potential future outcomes. This could mean projecting an individual employee’s performance to help with goal setting and planning, or it could relate to anticipating peak consumer demand so the company can ramp up hiring before a busy season. Using a workforce management tool with this feature helps you stay ahead of the curve year-round.
11. Intuitive user interface
ActivTrak’s simplistic user interface and user-friendly dashboards enable managers and leadership to quickly understand the key daily metrics of each team. These dashboards also offer a quick reference point for employees who want to check personal insights. Of course, it’s still a good idea to provide training to ensure everyone knows how to use these features. Ideally, the tool should come with detailed walkthroughs and videos to guide new users.
12. Customization
ActivTrak’s Customizable Dashboards are a crucial example of how and why workforce management solutions need to offer personalization to ensure every company has the data they need and can assess it in the easiest way possible. You should be able to customize your tool to your needs by creating reports with the insights you care about most and displaying them the way you prefer. The best platforms let you customize settings like what data you collect and what websites or applications you restrict for employees.
No two organizations are alike and no out-of-the-box workforce management tool will fit perfectly without customizations.
13. Schedule adherence
ActivTrak’s schedule adherence capabilities make it easier for executives to track schedules, assess staffing across time zones and ensure compliance for attendance policies. When attendance violations occur, leadership can take action immediately.
By integrating with calendars and workforce analytics, ActivTrak’s schedule adherence capabilities allow real-time adjustments as priorities shift. This reduces the hassle of manual scheduling, supporting a more coordinated workflow for teams no matter where they work.
Get a demo of ActivTrak’s workforce management tool
Selecting the right workforce management tool is a strategic decision that will significantly impact your organization. Leverage ActivTrak’s comprehensive workforce management tool for immediate access to all of the essential features — and more — to empower your employees. Contact our sales team today to learn how ActivTrak helps you streamline workforce management.
FAQ
Why do some workforce management tools hurt productivity instead of improving it?
The wrong workforce management platform can contribute to tool bloat. Platforms must meet a company’s needs, otherwise it becomes another unnecessary subscription on the tech stack. ActivTrak’s State of the Workplace report revealed that in 2025, companies used an average of 7 AI tools, with 83% or companies stating they use 6 or more. Taking advantage of a demo option or a free trial helps companies assess how well the platform fits their needs.
How does workforce management software improve productivity in a hybrid team?
Workforce management software improves productivity in hybrid teams by surfacing crucial data related to individual employee utilization and provides visibility into how these team members work, when they work and where they work. Understanding patterns enables managers to identify any utilization gaps or address any concerns blocking productivity. ActivTrak’s State of the Workplace noted that hybrid workers clocked the longest day (9 hours 45 minutes) but had the lowest amount of focus and productive time. Companies that use a workforce management tool can assess how that time is used, where blockers may reside and how to improve productivity.
Which features should a workforce management platform have for remote and in-office employees?
The workforce management platform features that matter most for remote and in-office teams include:
- Location insights (this highlights where employees work and their productivity at each location)
- Real-time activity (this shows activities throughout the day, as the individual works)
- Schedule adherence (this helps managers understand if all employees are working their scheduled hours)
- Personal insights (shows workplace data for each employee, helping managers spot those who may be overworked or under-utilized)
- Integration across devices (platforms need to work on various devices and computers)
How can a workforce management system track time and attendance without creating extra admin work?
Workforce management systems should simplify processes for executive teams by automating time utilization data; Many of these platforms track the workday, showing employee daily work trends. These tools should be simple to set up and allow for easy reporting. ActivTrak provides dashboard data for all productivity and time tracking, allowing managers to pull reports quickly.
What should you look for in a tool that supports headcount, capacity planning and workload balancing?
Tools supporting capacity planning and workload balancing should provide dashboards and insights related to employee utilization, ensuring managers can assess who’s over-utilized or who may need more projects. In addition, location-based insights help teams gain more insight about remote vs. hybrid vs. in-office employees. While industry-wide data shows hybrid workers have long days but lower productivity, each company may find data unique to their own teams. Analyzing team data helps leaders balance workloads or reassess in-office or hybrid schedules.
How does labor forecasting work in workforce management software?
ActivTrak’s labor forecasting assesses behavioral data, which includes hours worked, schedule adherence and an employee’s app usage. Leaders have access to deep insights about each individual’s current capacity, as ActivTrak’s dashboards highlight who’s under-utilized and who may be at risk for burnout. Using analytics versus guesswork enables executives to take decisive actions, aligning workflows and maximizing each employee’s daily capacity.
This article was originally published on Sep 11, 2024, then updated on Sep 3, 2026
