Labor is one of the largest costs for most organizations, yet work schedules and overtime are often set with little visibility into their impact on the bottom line. By the time you see the numbers, the overtime shift has been worked and the premium paid. CFOs increasingly want HR to close that gap and influence next week, rather than explain last month.
This challenge is particularly acute for frontline-heavy organizations, like healthcare, where, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA), the workforce remains a hospital’s largest expense.1
Community Health System, which employs about 11,500 people in California’s Central Valley, experienced this kind of gap. Until recently, HR lacked central visibility into its employees across its hospitals and clinics. “We didn’t know when or where we had people working without having to piece together information from every unit,” said its director of workforce staffing.
The fix for overtime waste
Labor overspend can build through everyday scheduling decisions. Take a common scenario: A manager filling a gap at 6 a.m. approves overtime for whoever answers the ask first, without knowing which employees are already working fewer than their contracted hours that week.
Research from HR and workforce management (WFM) expert UKG shows that, on average, 67% of overtime is unscheduled, and 75% could be covered by employees working below their full-time capacity. With better forecasting, scheduling, and visibility into available labor, managers can fill gaps with existing capacity before resorting to more expensive overtime.
Optimizing workforce labor costs is also a challenge when HR is increasingly being asked to do more with less. A Gartner survey of more than 300 CFOs and finance leaders found HR faces the sharpest budget constraints of any function: Average budget growth fell from 2.4% in 2025 to 0.7% this year, with 22% of CFOs expecting cuts.2
The solution is visibility into your workforce. Workforce management software combines time tracking, scheduling, compliance, and performance in a single operating platform. This unified view of staffing levels, overtime trends, scheduling, and workforce availability means leaders can spot potential gaps and make schedule adjustments earlier, reducing costs.
“When finance asks why labor costs increased, the answer is often buried in the hundreds of decisions managers make every day,” said Amy Brar, UKG general manager, workforce management. “The goal of intelligent workforce management is to help organizations surface those decisions earlier and turn workforce data into action that improves both business performance and employee well-being.”
Menzies Aviation, operating in 65 countries with 65,000 employees, experienced these benefits firsthand when it moved to a single system to manage its complex frontline scheduling and overtime. “We can see when people have worked six consecutive days and step in and say they need a break,” said Kelly Butler, head of people systems. That alert helps control costs, particularly across multiple sites, while supporting staff retention and well-being.
Smart scheduling drives savings
When Community Health System moved to UKG Pro Workforce Management™, Nucleus Research examined the data and calculated a 350% ROI, with a five-month payback and average annual benefits above $2.5 million.3
Replacing manual scheduling meant 113 managers each gained an average of four hours back every week, representing $1.5 million in annual benefits, according to Nucleus. Knowing who was working and when recovered more than $729,000 a year that had been leaking through unused full-time capacity. Reduced absenteeism across the care units, excluding sick time and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, saved a further $172,000. Unplanned overtime and overall turnover figures improved too.
Another reason labor costs are hard for organizations to control is the variation in rules across sites, contracts, and jurisdictions. The State of Indiana, for example, employs more than 30,000 people — including hospital staff and correctional officers — across 75 agencies, each with its own compliance requirements.
“From a payroll perspective, having accurate punches ensures we’re paying people correctly and reporting accurate data,” said Brent Plunkett, deputy comptroller for the Indiana State Comptroller’s Office.
Instant, informed decisions
The ability to manage complex workforce needs across a single system is where specialized workforce management platforms come in. In its 2026 Workforce Management Technology Value Matrix, Nucleus Research named UKG Pro Workforce Management a leader, describing the suite as one that handles hourly, salaried, field service, part-time, gig, and contingent workers, with AI drawing on workforce data from more than 40 million frontline workers.4
But that data is only useful if it reaches the person holding the workforce schedule.
The real test is what an HR leader can answer on the spot when finance comes with a question. How much of last month’s premium pay could have been covered by someone already on the payroll? How long after a shift is filled does the finance team learn what it cost? And what are managers deciding right now without the right data in front of them?
The answers sit in the schedule. So do the savings.
Learn how UKG helps HR leaders turn workforce data into smarter labor-cost decisions that protect the bottom line.
This sponsored post was created by BI Studios with UKG.
1. American Hospital Association, The Cost of Caring, April 2025; www.aha.org/system/files/media/file/2025/04/The-Cost-of-Caring-April-2025.pdf
2. Gartner, “Gartner Research Reveals CFOs’ Budget Plans Prioritize Growth Functions, Technology and AI in 2026,” February 2026; www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-02-10-gartner-research-reveals-cfos-budget-plans-prioritize-grotwth-functions-tech-and-ai-in-2026
3. Nucleus Research, ROI Case Study: UKG Pro WFM at Community Health System, April 2026; https://www.ukg.com/learn/resources/analyst-report/nucleus-research-roi-case-study-community-health-system
4. Nucleus Research, WFM Technology Value Matrix 2026, April 2026; https://www.ukg.com/learn/resources/analyst-report/nucleus-research-wfm-technology-value-matrix-2026
