eg Drives Work Planning for HR departments with New Generation Forecasting Software

New module enables HR departments to effectively and proactively forecast and plan back office activity                        

Back office workforce optimisation pioneer, eg solutions, has launched a new forecasting and capacity planning software module for its eg operational intelligence® software suite, ideally suited to the needs of HR departments.

The eg forecasting™ module, together with its integrated capacity planning capability, provides a step change in operational forecasting for the back office. It enables HR departments to use eg’s unique back office work management functionality to proactively plan for anticipated workloads, taking into account the complexity of managing a large workforce.

In addition to predicting workloads, eg forecasting has been designed to forecast likely service level achievements, based on current or potential performance levels, as well as the resources and skills required to achieve them. With an ever increasing focus on effective planning to meet customer demand, eg forecasting™ provides the ability to simulate multiple scenarios and provides variance analysis with actual workloads and performance.

Elizabeth Gooch, CEO of eg, commented: “Traditional forecasting software, predominantly developed for use in call centres, generally uses historical data to make its predictions. eg forecasting assists HR departments by incorporating multi-user contributions from many functions; including finance, marketing and operations from across the enterprise, together with our proprietary real-time work management and reporting and analytics modules in a truly collaborative way. It also brings together forecast modelling, capacity planning and simulation into a single product, providing forecasting and planning capability for a wide range of audiences from a single solution.

“Historically, HR forecasting has used a complex array of spreadsheets requiring extensive planning resources to produce and maintain them. This approach is costly and also reduces the level of ownership from the business areas the plans are produced for. Our software enables a more collaborative approach so that everyone owns the challenge of improving employee performance.”

Key features of eg forecasting include:

• Single view of forecasts: eradicating individual or shared spreadsheets
• Collaborative working: accelerates the forecasting process and widens ownership
• Extensive planning horizons – from present day to years ahead
• Scenario modelling: model SLA, process, hierarchical, skills and productivity changes

The development of eg forecasting was part funded by the Smart Scheme from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, which offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology.