Guide to Labour Forecasting

When your business depends on customer demand, it’s not always easy to get your staffing levels right. If you run a business that’s dependent on a certain time of year – whether you’re an ice cream maker or toy manufacturer – it’s obvious that seasonal fluctuations will affect staffing requirements. However, for other industries, for example construction, it’s a different matter and the fluctuations in staffing demands aren’t as predictable, with many external factors into account. This is where labour forecasting comes into its own.

If you leave your staffing needs to pure guesswork, you could end up creating problems for yourself. Underestimating the workload could result in some shifts being under-staffed – in which case it will adversely affect production levels or customer service. On the other hand, overestimating the workload will lead to too many staff members turning up for the shift, which means you’ll waste your budget by paying your workforce to, essentially, do nothing, or risk affecting staff morale by sending some of them home, unpaid. Add to this the rising costs of hiring labour, and it’s easy to show how not getting staffing right can really eat into your profits. 

And that’s where labour forecasting and demand rostering will help. 

What is labour forecasting? 

Labour forecasting helps you determine when there will be fluctuations in labour demand so you can more accurately predict your staffing needs. With the ability to predict future demands on your business, you can schedule your rotas more realistically, making sure you’re covered in terms of numbers as well as the skill requirements needed to help you stay compliant, allowing you to create more accurate schedules. 

Benefits of labour forecasting

Demand rostering software will enable you to streamline your staff rota, helping you to cover every shift perfectly and keep staffing costs to a minimum with no loss of productivity or service. Labour forecasting has many business benefits: 

• You’ll save money, directly in terms of over-staffing, and indirectly in terms of admin time – one client saved 94% of staff time after installing our software. 
• It will help you prevent under-staffing, which can put too much pressure on the staff on the affected shift and be damaging to your brand if this affects the quality of your products or customer service. 
• It reduces the pressure on your office staff who may be required to source cover for short-staffed shifts at extremely short notice. Having the correct level of staffing also decreases the need for unplanned overtime. 
• It will ensure you have the correct number of workers on duty with the right skills, training and certification needed to cover the shift and keep you compliant.  
• With no last minute shift changes, staff will be happier and feel more secure in their roles, helping them to be more engaged and productive… and less likely to leave. 

Using Nextra technology for accurate demand forecasts

Our demand rostering software has been designed to help you with accurate labour forecasting, enabling you to manage your staff rotas more intelligently and more effectively, and keep your staffing costs to a minimum. Integrating with your existing systems, the software will use machine learning, historical data, industry trends, API, and advanced algorithms to help it predict workforce demands, creating staff rotas – taking employee availability into account – that ensure every shift and every location is covered by the right number of employees for your business needs. 

In doing so, you will not only save money on unnecessary payroll costs, you could also save hundreds of hours of admin time every year. Your office staff will be less stressed and have more time to devote to other duties, and you’ll make overall cost savings if you always have shifts with optimal staffing levels. 

Contact us for a free demo

Our workforce planning software has been developed to support all aspects of your operations, meet demand, and make life easier for your managers and admin staff, at the same time as ensuring there are no gaps in the rota.

Our workforce software is suitable for all sectors, and has become an essential part of our clients’ operations.

To find out how our workforce planning software can save you time, money and headaches, call us on 01992 939 940 or email info@nextrasoft.co.uk to talk to one of our friendly sales advisers and arrange your free demo.