Workforce Management Software

You’ve got rosters to publish, hours to approve, payroll to close, and a hundred quiet rules to enforce. Workforce management software is the layer that helps you plan, schedule, track, and pay people—without living in spreadsheets. The tricky bit is choosing the right stack for India, where compliance (PF, ESI, PT, TDS, Form 16/24Q) and multi-location realities demand local muscles, not just glossy dashboards.

Below is an explainer of what WFM covers, how the tools break into four practical categories so you can shortlist with confidence.

What “workforce management software” really means

In day-to-day terms, it’s the systems that keep promises to employees and regulators:

• Time & attendance: who worked, where, and for how long.
• Scheduling: who’s on, who’s off, who can swap.
• HR management: hiring, onboarding, records, reviews, and policies.
• Payroll: gross-to-net, filings, payments, and statutory reports.

You don’t have to buy all four from one vendor. Many Indian teams mix and match—just make sure data flows cleanly (native integrations or clean exports) from time → payroll.

The four categories

1) Time & attendance

This is your hour-truth. Expect clock-ins (mobile/biometric), geo controls, overtime and leave rules, audit trails, and clean exports to payroll.

2) Employee scheduling

If you live on shifts, this is home base. Build rosters, manage availability, enable swaps, and prevent under/over-staffing before it happens.

3) HR management (HRM)

The people-data hub: applicant tracking, onboarding, employee records, performance, and policy workflows. It’s the system that remembers everything you shouldn’t have to.

4) Payroll

Where compliance meets payday. Hours in, taxes calculated, returns generated, money lands where it should. When this hums, everything else feels calmer.

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Not rankings—just credible starting points with Indian features and compliance depth.

Time & attendance

• Keka — Real-time attendance with biometric/GPS options and deep shift controls; built for Indian policies and multi-location setups.
• greytHR — Mature attendance + overtime configuration, audit trails, and policy controls that reflect Indian shift patterns.
• Zoho People — Shift scheduling/rotation inside a broader HRMS; handy if you want time/attendance plus reviews and records in one place.
• Darwinbox — Enterprise-grade time & attendance with geofencing/facial recognition options and mobile-first workflows.
• factoHR — Mobile-first attendance with auto-shift selection from punches; tidy hand-off to payroll.

Employee scheduling

• Zoho Shifts — Dedicated scheduling + time clock; templates, availability, and compliance-aware rostering.‍
• Keka (Shift Management) — Shift boards tied to attendance/biometrics; useful when rosters and policy rules evolve together.
• factoHR (Scheduling) — Auto-assigns the nearest eligible shift based on punches; reduces manual edits at month-end.
• greytHR — Practical roster + split-shift setups for multi-site teams.
• PeopleStrong (Leave & Attendance) — Scheduling/attendance that ties neatly into leave and payroll in an APAC-first suite.

HR management (HRM)

• Darwinbox — Full-stack HCM with India payroll option, strong mobile UX, and enterprise deployments across the region.
• PeopleStrong — APAC-first suite (ATS → performance) with on-ground Indian implementations.
• Keka HR — Popular with growing Indian companies for hiring → attendance → reviews under one roof.
• Zoho People — Modular HRMS at SMB-friendly pricing, with shift/leave, files, reviews, and workflows.
• Zimyo — HR + payroll with compliance knobs (PF/ESI/PT/TDS) and employee self-service.‍

Payroll (statutory compliance, filings, Form 16/24Q)

• ADP Vista (India) — Local payroll engine with PF/ESI/PT compliance and employee self-service; backed by ADP’s India practice.
• Zoho Payroll (India) — Designed for Indian compliance; Form 16/24Q, EPF/ESI/PT/LWF, and region-specific rules.
• Keka Payroll — Payroll + statutory (PF, PT, ESI, TDS) with Form 16 workflows and filing utilities.
• RazorpayX Payroll — Strong on automated compliance payments & filings (TDS, PF, PT, ESIC) directly from the product.
• greytHR — Long-standing India payroll with Form 24Q, digitally-signed Form 16, and compliance utilities.

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How to choose

Start from the work, not the wishlist.
List your non-negotiables: multiple locations, geo/biometric attendance, overtime rules, shift differentials, union agreements, multi-state PT, and Form 16/24Q cycles. If a tool can’t meet these easily, move on.

Pick your “system of record.”
If payroll is the hub, choose payroll first and plug time/scheduling into it. If recruiting and performance are the pain point, choose HRM as the hub and ensure time and payroll integrate cleanly.

Test the ugly paths.
Retro timesheet edits, missed punches, leave conflicts, a mid-cycle pay change—run these end-to-end in the trial. If the tool makes edge cases painless, the rest will be fine.

Mind the hand-offs.
Time flows into payroll; schedules flow into time; HR data flows into everything. Confirm the integration path (native API, pre-built connector, or reliable CSV) before you sign.

Launch simple, then layer on rules.
Adoption beats feature sprawl. Start with clear rules, then add exceptions once people are actually using the system.

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Quick buyer’s checklist

• Attendance: mobile/biometric, geo controls, overtime policies, clean audit trails (exportable for inspections).
• Scheduling: availability, swap approvals, conflict alerts; coverage vs. cost view.
• HRM: clean onboarding, document vault, reviews; role-based access.
• Payroll: PF/ESI/PT/TDS with Form 16/24Q generation and quarterly filing workflows.
• Reporting: labor cost, variance, attrition, overtime, compliance dashboards.
• Support: SLAs, onboarding help, and plain-English documentation (not just sales decks).

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Workforce management isn’t one product—it’s an ecosystem. In India, that means time/scheduling that respects local shift realities and payroll that handles PF, ESI, PT, and TDS without drama. Pick a hub, prove the integrations, and choose the few features you’ll use every week over long menus you won’t. Your reward shows up fast: calmer pay cycles, fewer roster fires, and teams that spend energy on work—not on workarounds.