Combat Rising Labor Costs in Europe: How Data-Driven WFM Protects Your Margins
In industries where labor accounts for a large portion of the operational budget (like retail, logistics, and manufacturing), it’s crucial to optimize labor costs – and data-driven decisions based on smart workforce management software.
This article examines the growing importance of data-driven labor management, why businesses often fall short in using their data effectively, and how our workforce management software assists.
2026 Labor Costs Surge in Europe: How Data-Driven WFM Protects Your Margins
Eurostat data shows that in Q3 2025, hourly labor costs rose by 3.3% in the euro area and 3.7% in the EU compared to Q3 2024. Wages and salaries increased by 3.0% in the euro area and 3.5% in the EU. Non-wage costs in the euro area rose by 4.0% and in the EU, 4.2%.
Some of the highest increases in recent years were seen in Central and Eastern European (CEE) nations. In Poland, the average hourly wage rose by 19%, in 2024, the fastest rate in the EU (the EU wide average was 5.1%). Other countries seeing significant wage growth are Bulgaria, Lithuania and Croatia.
High inflation across CEE countries in 2021 outpaced wage growth, increasing the real wage gap compared to the West. However, over time, the continued acceleration of labor costs may impact the already-thin operating margins that characterize labor-intensive sectors.
Tight margins leave little room for error. Unplanned overtime, inefficient scheduling, or rising absence rates can quickly erode profitability. This makes close, continuous monitoring of labor spend essential.
The Data-Gap: Why Traditional Teporting Fails
Many organizations recognize the value of data-driven decision-making yet struggle to execute it. It’s not due to a lack of data, since companies generate huge volumes of information on hours worked, sales versus staffing, employee productivity, and so on. The problem is that this data stays untapped or is leveraged when it’s too late to be useful.
For example, an HR team might collect data on absenteeism and lateness, but if that report
is reviewed only at the end of the quarter, the opportunity to intervene on an emerging absenteeism issue is lost. A warehouse might track overtime hours, but if managers only see the associated costs after the pay period, they can’t adjust staffing strategies in advance and prevent budget overruns.
Why is it difficult to tap into this abundance of data? Here are several reasons.
Breaking Down Silos: Centralizing Workforce Data
No real-time Insight
Personeelsdata staat vaak verspreid over meerdere systemen. Urenregistratie hier, planning daar en omzet- of productiedata weer ergens anders.
In many organizations, workforce data is fragmented across multiple systems. Time and attendance data may sit in one platform, shift planning in another, and sales or production data somewhere else entirely.
Without a consolidated, real-time view of labor data, it becomes very difficult to cross-reference staffing levels with demand, absence patterns with overtime, productivity with labor costs, etc. Trends can go undetected as a result.
Silos also create delays. Data often has to be manually exported and reconciled before it can be analyzed. By the time reports are produced, they reflect what’s already happened rather than what’s developing right now, limiting their value for decision-making.
Visualizing the Invisible: Dashboards & Graphical Assistants
Even when data is available, its quality can undermine meaningful analysis. Common issues include inconsistent data definitions, missing records, duplicate entries, and manual input errors. If different departments measure the same metric in different ways, comparing or aggregating data becomes unreliable.
In workforce management specifically, data quality issues can stem from incorrect or missing clock-ins, unapproved or poorly documented schedule changes, or incomplete or inconsistent absence coding.
Small inaccuracies can cumulatively distort key metrics, leading managers to make the wrong conclusions.
Data Management Issues
Beyond data quality, many organizations struggle with how data is stored, processed, and presented. Large volumes of raw data are difficult to handle without clear structures, relevant filters, and role-based views. Reports may be excessively complex, static, or disconnected from day-to-day decision-making, making it hard for managers to quickly understand what matters.
In a WFM context, this often results in dashboards that show historical totals but lack context and fail to explain trends. Managers may see that overtime has increased, for example, but not where it’s emerging, why it’s happening, or whether it requires immediate action.
How Using a Workforce Management System Helps
Cloud based workforce management tools address these challenges by centralizing workforce data into a single platform. Time, attendance, scheduling, employee availability, absences, and labor costs are aggregated in real time.
Creating a consistent and reliable foundation
How MANUS WFM Turns Data Chaos into Management Information
MANUS WFM, our cloud based workforce management solution, provides a unified environment for workforce data, centralizing essential functions like, time tracking solutions, employee scheduling and compliance management within one platform. It also includes specialized tools for interpreting and visualizing data, outlined below.
Dashboards that do what they are supposed to do
MANUS WFM offers user-friendly dashboards that highlight what truly matters, freeing managers from data overload and helping them detect issues before they become truly problematic.
The Graphical Assistant tool displays all the relevant parameters from the planning process
in an easy-to-read format, reducing the cognitive load on managers and allowing them to work efficiently. Meanwhile, the PlusViewer tool displays insights of workforce information and trends within specific timeframes.
The dashboards are configurable to show the metrics that matter most to your business. You can view KPIs by location, department, team, or project, and monitor trends in metrics like labor costs, absenteeism, and workforce availability.
Management-by-Exception
MANUS WFM uses exception-based management, where managers are notified only when something is deviating from your configured rules
The platform continually assesses staff schedules against compliance rules in real time, highlighting only deviations, such as when an employee’s scheduled hours exceed legal or contractual limits, or when a department’s labor costs begin to exceed budget targets. This targeted alerting turns complex workforce data into actionable intelligence.
Integrations: Linking Data to Operational Results
MANUS WFM provides critical insights in the moment and supports the detection of longer-term trends. However, some organizations choose to integrate it with external analytics tools like Afas, ADP, Microsoft Power BI, QlikView and more for deeper, organization-wide analysis.
Our workforce software seamlessly connects with platforms like Microsoft Power BI and QlikView, enabling users to cross-reference workforce management data with other datasets so they can gain a more complete view of how workforce decisions influence business outcomes.
For example, consider performance management. Suppose you analyze attendance data in reference to productivity metrics like units produced per shift, orders processed per hour, or sales per associate. This can reveal possible staffing issues or training needs. It also works the other way; identifying teams or shifts that are exceeding targets provides lessons on what’s working well.
Stakeholder Benefits: Real-time Agility for HR, Operations, and Finance
A data-driven workforce management solution like MANUS WFM benefits multiple stakeholders.
Human Resources: From Signaling to Steering
HR managers get clear insights into absenteeism and overtime, enabling more informed policy decisions. Suppose the data shows a spike in overtime in one particular department; HR can then investigate their workload or hiring needs. If certain shifts consistently have attendance issues, HR can develop targeted employee engagement and retention strategies.
Operations: Real-time Insights and Flexibility
For operations managers, MANUS WFM provides flexibility and real-time control for day-to-day workforce deployment.
The immediate visibility into who’s working where and how that aligns with current demand means operations can be much more agile.
Managers can adjust schedules at short-notice to handle unexpected demand spikes or staff shortages, maintaining service levels.
Over time, data-driven insights help in identifying inefficiencies and continuously improving processes. For example, MANUS WFM supports activity-based tracking, where users can track the time spent on different tasks, projects, or customers. By analyzing this data, a manufacturing operations manager might discover that a certain process is causing bottlenecks (perhaps one specific task always incurs overtime) then take steps to fix it.
Finance: Control over Costs
With a live view into labor costs, finance can see labor expenditures as they accrue, not weeks after
This means budget discipline can be enforced in near-real-time. If labor spending for the month is trending high in one department, finance can collaborate with operations to find ways to make savings.
MANUS WFM also ensures labor cost targets are met by building in checks and warnings; a schedule can’t be finalized if it would cause a department to exceed its labor budget or violate cost guidelines.
Using historical data, finance can forecast labor needs and costs for different scenarios. They can find answers to questions like: “What if we reduce overtime by 20% next quarter?” or “How would hiring five extra staff affect our yearly labor budget?”.
Conclusion: Turning Workforce Data into Competitive Advantage
Labor costs are rising around Europe and stretching budgets thin. Thankfully, all organizations have a resource at their fingertips that can prevent things from getting out of control – data.
Analyzing workforce data reveals trends that are eating into profits over the long-term and help managers detect real-time issues so they can prevent budget overruns.
Advanced workforce management systems centralize and aggregate workforce data, bringing actionable insights within reach
They help organizations overcome data silos, enforce compliance by flagging deviations, and provide data visualization tools that enhance real-time awareness.
To learn more about how MANUS WFM helps you detect labor trends and cut costs by up to 10%, contact us today.
