Workforce Management Market Research Report - Forecast till 2030

Impact of COVID-19 on Global Workforce Management Market

The COVID-19 outbreak is causing widespread concern and economic hardships for consumers and business communities across the globe. The pandemic has affected the lives of the people in more than 119 countries worldwide, including Italy, Iran, South Korea, France, Spain, Germany, the US, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, and India. As the governments make significant interventions in response to the pandemic, businesses are rapidly adjusting to the changing needs of their employees, customers, and suppliers, while navigating the financial and operational challenges. Throughout January and February, a majority of the companies continued their business operations on-premises. However, March saw the industry take rigorous action to promote work from home, in sync with government advisories, to keep the working personnel safe, thereby accelerating the adoption of the remote working culture. The outbreak of the pandemic has caused a slowdown in the business, which might lead to recession and reduced IT spending. Furthermore, it also caused many of the businesses to close down their doors leading to an increase in the national unemployment rate. According to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the increase in the unemployment rate during the COVID-19 pandemic is the largest over-the-month increase in the rate since January 1975.

For businesses that are still operating, there is plenty of stress as they are coping with difficult situations such as operating from remote locations, confirmation of business continuity and employee productivity, and protection of front-line employees who may still need to come into the workplace. The small and medium-sized enterprises and the non-IT companies in India are some of the most affected during the pandemic due to the lack of knowledge and awareness related to collaboration and communication tools. Workforce management solutions and services are expected to gain opportunities from the remote workforce as the organizations strive to keep track of employee productivity and business performance. During periods of remote working, workforce management solutions help enterprise management and HR to track and optimize the productivity of the employees and maximize employee performance. Furthermore, it helps in forecasting employee requirements, creating and managing the work schedules, and analyzing performance. The solution collects real-time data about employee performance, manages the company’s resources from a remote location, helps in carrying out employee training, recruitment, management, and scheduling, and analyzes and forecasts the productivity and business outcomes. The enterprises that opted for on-premises software deployment have witnessed a dip in the adoption as remote working results in restricted solution use. However, cloud-based workforce management solutions are expected to witness an increased demand during the forecast period owing to their scalable, flexible, and cost-effective features.

The ongoing spread and reaction to the COVID-19 virus in various countries across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific are expected to cause a delay in the economic restart. However, the interest in workforce management solutions is expected to increase as a few corporate giants are planning to continue this work from home trend even after the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced. For instance, Tata Consultancy Services, one of the largest IT firms based in India is planning to continue its new work model which is called the 25/ 25 model wherein, 25% of the project team of any project may not be in a single location. The firm has asked nearly 90% of its 4.5 lakh employees to work from home through a secure borderless workplace. Also, HR heads of some of the other companies in India such as Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Cognizant, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, Whirlpool, Paytm, and Saint-Gobain India have agreed that work from home is here to stay. Thus, COVID-19 is expected to shift the working patterns permanently as companies are forced to embrace remote working thereby increasing the demand for workforce management solutions.