Managing a workforce requires a lot of “back office” administrative work, like staff scheduling, task management, attendance management, time keeping, labor compliance, onboarding, and more. It’s no surprise then that workforce management software is becoming increasingly popular for HR departments. Not only does it allow managers to optimize their human capital management (HCM), it also allows employees to streamline their own time tracking.
Whether you’re a small business or large corporation, you can leverage workforce management (WFM) solutions to increase productivity, stay compliant with relevant labor laws, and ultimately save on labor costs. After all, WFM software allows you to more efficiently create and manage employee schedules, track attendance and leave requests, and get insight into your own workforce efficiency. It can also help with forecasting headcount needs, but that’s more of a task for the best workforce planning software.
Ready to get started? In this guide, we’re breaking down everything you need to know about workforce management software, including why you might need it, what features you can expect, and how to find the right solution for your human resource needs.
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We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
After surveying the landscape, we came up with a short list of top workforce management software vendors for you to talk to. This is per our research and expert council as of 2022.
Why we love it
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Quinyx is a workforce management software solution that takes a data-driven approach to staffing, budgeting and scheduling, all done with an eye towards improving your recruitment strategy.
Quinyx
Review:
Quinyx strives to provide the most up-to-date and significant insights when it comes to your recruitment needs. You can use their solution to calculate and visualize various what-if scenarios and the impact that they could have on your workforce.
Their platform is able to make hiring recommendations based on these forecasts. It can also help with proactive planning when it comes to training, outsourcing, or reallocating people. To do all this, Quinyx takes multiple sources of data and factors them into consideration. Some of these include resource constraints, costs, current attrition level, and efficiency rates.
Quinyx
Customers:
Quinyx’s offering is used in one way or another by companies like McDonald’s, Hilton, Starbucks, Domino’s, DHL, London City Airport, and Elysium Healthcare.
Quinyx
Stats:
Best For
Quinyx can work for companies of varying sizes, but it’s best used by businesses with storefronts that need to do workforce planning to address in-person client demand.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Sling is an employee scheduling tool with workforce management capabilities that’s used by some of the biggest companies in the world.
Sling
Review:
With a product that’s free (for scheduling and internal communication) and very reasonably-priced (for all the other WM features), Sling is saving countless hours of work for thousands of teams.
Although they are mainly a cloud-based scheduling tool (with a mobile app), they also offer a task management module, a labor costs calculator, a time clock, and more.
Sling
Customers:
Sling
Stats:
Sling
Pricing:
Sling’s basic scheduling and internal communication tool is completely free for unlimited users and locations. After that, the Premium plan starts at $2 user/month and Business is $4 per user per month. Sling also offers a free trial for the paid plans and you can downgrade to the free one at any time.
Best For
Sling is used mainly by businesses with multiple locations. Within this distinction, they help businesses of many types and sizes, in industries like restaurants, retail, call centers, non-profits, education, hospitality, health care, and more.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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As the all-in-one platform for deskless employees, Connecteam covers communication, scheduling, task management, core HR, and more. It works to connect unanchored workers at small and large companies alike with an extremely easy-to-use mobile app.
Connecteam
Review:
Connecteam is a true one-stop-shop for all things HR for deskless workers. Managers can handle administrative work, like staff scheduling, task management, attendance management, time keeping, training, onboarding, and much more.
Non-desk workers then interact with all of this via a mobile app. For instance, Connecteam lets you set up schedules for deskless workers and send them to the palm of their hand in real time. You can track progress, see when each shift is completed, and get instant updates for status changes or even location.
Connecteam
Customers:
Nike, Herbalife, Billabong, Footlocker, Mason Construction, American Eagle, McDonald’s, and many more.
Connecteam
Stats:
Connecteam
Pricing:
Connecteam’s pricing can range from free-for-life to up to $159 per month. Final numbers will vary depending on the number of users and modules you choose. To give you an idea, here’s an overview of each plan within the operations module:
Connecteam’s payment structure is fixed for the first 50 employees you add. Once you add more, there would be an extra payment of $1.5 per additional employee per month.
These pricing options are yearly, where you save 18%, but you can also opt for month-to-month payments. They also offer enterprise pricing with more features and a personal account manager. Each paid plan also has the option of a 14-day free trial.
Best For
Connecteam is used by SMBs with up to 200 employees, as well as Mid-market business with up to 3,000 team members. What all these clients of theirs have in common is that they want a workforce management tool for their low-tech, deskless employees, without needing IT intervention. Industries served span from healthcare, manufacturing, and security to dog walkers and fitness services.
Worth Checking Out:
Connecteam is one of the few products of its kind to have a forms & checklists module. Within that, they have templates for the usual HR processes, like W4 forms that are free to use and customize.
Why we love it
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UKG is the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos. As such, it brings over 70 years of experience with HCM tech into the workforce management space.
UKG
Review:
UKG Ready is the new version of Kronos Workforce Ready, part of the workforce central products, which has long been one of the most well-known and used HCM suites for SMBs, focusing on core HR management. Their solution has been tested throughout the years, and built out to the point where they have modules for just about everything you could imagine: payroll, performance management, onboarding, employee scheduling, etc.
UKG
Customers:
UKG
Stats:
UKG
Pricing:
As with most UKG products these days, the price of UKG Ready is not revealed on their website, but you can view various demos for free in their demo center, if you don’t feel ready to book a personal one just yet.
Best For
Smaller teams looking for an HCM-based approach to workforce management.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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stayhome.ai is an AI-powered workforce management platform made specially with remote employees in mind.
stayhome.ai
Review:
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many companies to move to remote work when they weren’t at all prepared or used to it. stayhome.ai was then uniquely-positioned to help companies implement and maintain a flexible work model, where a central concern is letting employees choose where and when to work.
This dynamic is made more efficient and comfortable through a platform that lets you create schedules with the help of AI. Employees can indicate which days they prefer to work from home and when they’d prefer the office, and the platform creates a schedule that’s a starting point for each manager. With some customization, a schedule that everyone’s happy with can be ready quickly.
stayhome.ai
Customers:
stayhome.ai
Stats:
With stayhome.ai, the main source of ROI is what you save from having a portion of your employees work from home when they want or need to. Through this, they claim to have helped their clients achieve wins like:
stayhome.ai
Pricing:
Stayhome.ai starts with a free forever plan that includes all the core features (AI scheduling & reporting) for up to 10 team members. Then they have the ‘Team Pro’ plan, which is between $5 and $12 per user per month, depending on user count.
The Team Pro’ plan is for unlimited members and starts to include modules like time & attendance & KPI, task manager, and any new features as they roll out. Then, the custom-priced Enterprise plan includes all this plus custom feature requests, customized reporting, and a dedicated success manager.
Best For
Companies that want to maintain a hybrid working model (remote & in-office) even after the pandemic.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Homebase is a workforce management tool built specifically for hourly work, currently used by over 100k businesses.
Homebase
Review:
Homebase is on a mission to help the busiest businesses to manage employee scheduling, time clocks, communication, HR compliance, and much more; all without necessarily having an HR department.
The tool has a free version with plenty of workforce management tools, with the paid plans offering more specific features and even access to HR advisors & resources. Their software is notable for its ease-of-use and modern-looking interface.
Homebase
Customers:
Anytime Fitness, Ramada Hotels, D’Amore’s Pizza, The Citizen Supply Co., and many more.
Homebase
Stats:
Homebase
Pricing:
Homebase’s free plan offers scheduling, time tracking, payroll integrations, and team messaging for unlimited employees for one location.
After that, they’re priced per location, having three plans that start out at $14 per month for the essentials and go up to $70 for the all-in-one suite. Every plan is still for unlimited employees, so as your business grows, the price you pay for Homebase doesn’t change until you open another site.
Best For
Homebase is used by businesses in food & beverage, retail, beauty & wellness, medical & veterinary, services, home repair, entertainment, and hospitality.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Workforce.com is a modern and forward-thinking, yet simple workforce management platform built for frontline teams.
Workforce.com
Review:
Specialized in workforce management and planning for frontline workers, Workforce.com is used by companies like Domino’s and Outback Steakhouse. They help with employee scheduling, time & attendance, engagement, and automated labor compliance.
Workforce.com
Customers:
Workforce.com
Stats:
Among the 7,000 companies that use Workforce.com, some of them have seen results like:
Workforce.com
Pricing:
Workforce.com is free for 14 days, no credit card required. After that, their pricing is as follows:
Best For
US-based companies with a mobile workforce
Worth Checking Out:
If you are managing schedules and shifts for a dozen or more people, it might be time to consider a workforce management solution. Investing now will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. At the end of the day, your time should not be spent on tedious HCM activities — instead, it should be spent on improving the customer experience so you can grow your business fast.
If you’re in need of a broader HR solution that helps with workforce planning, recruitment, and more, check out our roundups on the best HR software, the best HR tools for SMBs, or the best free HR software.
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