Metasys Blog Total Cost of Workforce Provides Insights Beyond Expense

With labor costs approaching two-thirds of the budget in some companies, there is a growing movement to fully understand the expenses and benefits associated with spending on all types of worker compensation and management. While the primary goal of total cost of workforce (TCOW) analysis has been to optimize the costs of payroll and contingent talent against productivity and profit, this has led to overreliance on head count. In most organizations, investment in talent - through additional workers, higher wages, better benefits, or more training - results in a positive return on investment up to a point. Whether to add talent, therefore, is not the important question. TCOW's real value comes from the significant insights it can deliver into the composition of an enterprise's workforce, the efficacy of its recruitment methods, the effects of salary on turnover, the relationship between training and productivity, and a host of other variables that contribute to (or detract from) the bottom line.