VISION 2023: Essentials Conference Recap Day 1

Taking place in the heart of Music City, VISION 2023: Essentials brought together like-minded global employers, experienced system integrators, HCM thought leaders, workforce management technologist, practitioners, and business leaders to meet, collaborate, and discuss how to make smart investments in workforce efficiency and engagement. This served as a gathering place for those passionate about building a stronger, happier, and more productive workforce—now and as business needs continue to evolve. 

For the first time since the pandemic, VISION 2023: Essentials conference was completely in-person. Beginning with an energised welcome reception the night prior at the Country Music Hall of Fame, the first day of VISION 2023 featured a spectacular lineup of global breakout sessions led by customer speakers, WorkForce Software experts, and experienced global partners. 

Here are just a few highlights: 

Mike Morini, CEO of WorkForce Software Kicks Off VISION 2023

Future success relies on how we prioritise employee wellbeing and innovation. Mike Morini CEO of WorkForce Software emphasised that future success relies on how we prioritise employee well-being and innovation today. 

The evolving needs of the modern workforce have challenged the traditional employer/employee relationship and there’s no returning to the ‘normal’ that existed before 2020. “The only direction is forward,” declared Mike Morini in his opening address. In the face of labour shortages, changing employee demographics, inflation, supply chain risks (the list goes on), organisations need to prioritise their ultimate competitive advantage—their people. 

Keynote Speech—Engagement Is the Key to Achievement

Rusty Lindquist, CEO and Founder of Life Engineering, claimed that we are in the most competitive economic landscape in history. Amidst other waves of disruption, the commoditisation and competitive abundance of innovation means that an organisation can no longer sustainably differentiate themselves based on what they do. “Success is more about who you are,” Rusty stated. In this climate, how organisations manage people and culture directly impacts the performance they can achieve. “Businesses don’t create value, people do.” Rusty identified strategies to unleash the value of an organisation’s workforce noting that most efforts to improve performance focused on time and talent.  

What Year Is It Inside Your Organisation? 

Farhan Khan, Co-CEO at GroupeX highlighted the importance of digitisation protocols and the utilisation of back-end data as tools that enable big picture building. Farhan demonstrated how a commitment to digitisation can impact an organisation in terms of empowerment, efficiency, and optimisation, all whilst noting how automation can change systemic problems. He then provided best practices for overcoming barriers and building engagement by strengthening visibility measures that create flexibility for employees to deliver work in the best way. “The organisation becomes empowered with all this combined data to make better decisions looking at the big picture, getting in front of issues, expanding and being able to wipe out the competition.”  

Customer Success Stories

Ben Wooding, CEO of Red Badge, described the challenges their organisation faced in managing rostering through manual process. Errors, back-end processing procedures, along with the challenges of a competitive labor force all contributed to high turnover and low employee engagement. Ben stated that their decision to leverage WorkForce Software was motivated by the desire to achieve better outcomes for customers and staff alike and encouraged other organisations to fight for similar standards. “The first job is to make sure that the basics are taken care of.” Further, he talked about the benefits of moving to a centralised system that could quickly share information, enabling flexibility and trust with their employees. 

Are You Ahead of Your Time?

We joined Mark Bryner, Product Director, HR and Payroll and Raquel Simpson, Managing Architect for Time and Attendance to learn how CONA (Coke One North America) achieved success with a multi-tenant complex configuration—and the strategies used when making changes to policies. As part of the broader Coca-Cola ecosystem, CONA looked for the best ways to leverage WorkForce Software solutions to stay compliant across a complex network of bottlers. They also discussed best practices on optimising value across organisational functions. Mark shared, “WorkForce Software cares deeply about their customers and their success.”

Session Highlights 

The first day of VISION 2023 was jam-packed with sessions covering a variety of workforce management topics, customer stories, implementation best practices, and product overviews.   

Here are key takeaways: 

Maximise Your Investment: Meet the New Select and Signature Tiers

In this session, we explored WorkForce Software’s updated support structure, including new Select and Signature Tiers, created with customer feedback and industry analysis in mind. Molly Gapp, SVP, Continuous Service at WorkForce Software, and Annwar Miah, Global Support Senior Manager at WorkForce Software, discussed how these new tiers are helping customers receive the most value from their modern workforce management investments.
 

Air Canada’s WorkForce Software Win: Automating Pay & Boosting Crew Engagement

Ryan Hoffman, Delivery Manager at WorkForce Software and Shantelle Hector, Manager, Crew Pay and Brankica Segota, Senior Manager Crew Admin of Air Canada dove into their unique WorkForce Software journey, discovering how they tackled union rule challenges and automated complex pay calculations using WorkForce Software. We discovered how WorkForce Software streamlined and optimised crew payroll processes, minimising manual work and reducing pay errors, demonstrating the power of improved data management, analytics, and reporting tools that enhanced business requirements and financial results analysis and forecasting. Brankica noted that these implementations were made possible through an extended testing period. Moreover, we heard about Air Canada’s collaboration with the dedicated Managed Services team, committed to understanding their requirements and configuration, enabling continuous application improvement. 

Scaling Your WorkForce Software Solutions for Sustainable Growth

Together, Niels van Amerom, Director of Professional Services, Lani Davis, Director of Professional Services, and Kathy James, Sr. Director Professional Services at GroupeX discussed post-go live strategies to optimise their solution using WorkForce Software Account Managed Services. We also learned how to leverage various governance models and different methodologies from agile to traditional ticketing. Our experts defined best approaches to realisation going value from the WorkForce Software solution.  

Engaging Front-Line Workers through Operational Communications: A Comprehensive Strategy for Driving Organisational Maturity

Angelina Sun, Director, Product Marketing and Virginia Wear, Solution Consultant at WorkForce Software explored the advantages of operational communications for engaging front-line workers and driving organisational maturity. This involved learning how best practices and comprehensive communications strategies can drive organisational maturity, including top-down communication, team collaboration, and bottom-up feedback loops to empower your workforce and enhance productivity. Further, we learned how to gain insights on why effectively engaging and empowering modern workforces can boost productivity and drive positive business outcomes.  

See why WorkForce Software has been rated the #1 workforce management solution provider by Nucleus Research in their WFM Value Matrix for the ninth year in a row.