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Most nonprofits are experts at doing more with less. Budgets are always tight and employees are often crunched for time, having more work to do than they can reasonably hope to finish each day. Some of the challenges non-profits face can often be addressed by leveraging technology to work smarter and cut expenses. One such technology is a mobile workforce management solution, which is a proven way for nonprofits to streamline time-consuming daily tasks, coordinate activities for staff that are always on the go, and have visibility across the entire organization, including field offices.

The YMCA of Broward County, Fla., (YMCA) and Goodwill Industries of Northwest Carolina (Goodwill) are just a sample of the many nonprofits that are using mobile workforce management solutions to deliver a higher level of services and improve operations, even as budgets shrink.

The YMCA of Broward County
The YMCA has more than 550 mobile employees working at 65 different locations, including several childcare facilities. Making sure that paper timesheets are filled out correctly, handed in on time and transferred to its payroll system without errors was a constant logistical challenge. By using a mobile timesheet application, the YMCA completely automated its payroll processes. Not only can it have a more accurate accounting of the actual time each employee works, the payroll department also can easily calculate the various wages earned for multiple roles a staff member could work during the day, such as before and after-care, full-day teacher or tutoring.

The automated mobile solution gives the YMCA real-time visibility in time worked, and eliminates the need for timesheets to be turned in several days in advance just to provide payroll staff the time to do manual calculations and data entry.

With a mobile workforce management solution in place, the YMCA’s payroll administrator noted that the organization is better able to monitor staffing ratios to help reduce payroll costs through the accuracy and efficiencies the system introduced. As a result, the savings helps the YMCA maximize its donors’ and community partners’ contributions and enables the organization to serve more people.

Goodwill Industries of Northwest Carolina
In addition to using mobile solutions to record employee time across 60 donation centers, Goodwill leverages its mobile app’s capability to optimize distribution logistics. Using a web-based interface at headquarters, Goodwill sends information directly to drivers’ GPS-enabled phones, providing them with their day’s activity plan, complete with job details, addresses and required activities. Because managers can monitor drivers’ locations and identify the one closest to a donation center, they also can more efficiently transfer items to retail stores. By eliminating the need for back and forth phone calls with job updates and details, workers can receive all the pertinent information at once and accurately documented. This all results in better customer service reduced overtime hours and lower fuel costs through more efficient routes.

As YMCA and Goodwill have shown, innovations in mobile workforce management offer a number of benefits that can help nonprofits drive greater efficiencies, reduce expenses and provide better services to their communities while maximizing their supporters contributions.

 

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About the Author

Howard Latham is Vice President of Sales and Customer Success at Xora, a ClickSoftware company (www.xora.com), a leader in mobile workforce management. 

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