UKG HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT of providing cutting edge workforce management solutions to manufacturers globally. In an interview with Manufacturing Today, Sumeet Doshi, Sr. Director and Country Manager – India at UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) tells how businesses can better manage their most valuable asset their workforce by using technology to achieve a competitive advantage.

Here are the excerpts:

How has the nature of the workforce changed in the manufacturing Industry? What are some major trends that you are seeing?

One of the major workforce trends we are seeing in the manufacturing sector is the increasing diversity and complexity of the workforce. Manufacturers always had white collared, blue collared and contract workforces to manage their operations. Over the last few years this complexity has only been increasing by the addition of categories like gig, etc. All this complexity adds to greater challenges in managing the workforce like contract workforce compliance, etc.

The pandemic has also added an additional dimension to workforce categorisation. Today manufacturers also need to look at workforce in categories such as hybrid workforce, work from home workforce or work from factory. All these changes cause significantly increased complexity in how manufacturers manage their workforce.

Despite all this complexity manufacturers need to drive better employee engagement. Research continues to show that a well-substantiated relationship exists between employee engagement and business results. However, one size doesn't fit all. This is where workforce management technology can help manufacturing organisations increase employee engagement across categories as it helps absorb the complexity of work policies, compliances etc across categories of employees and drive better outcomes.