Workforce Management: Meeting Your Stated Goals State by State

Building the workforce of tomorrow can’t wait for tomorrow. It starts today, and it starts with technology.

Combined with a strong culture and the benefits that come from the co-employment model, advanced HR tech can help your clients compete for talent with even the largest organizations in the country.

One area ripe for a tech infusion is Workforce Management. More than half of the employed workers in this country (about 80 million people) are paid hourly wages, and many of them come from Main Street businesses like the companies you work with everyday. Time tracking, scheduling and labor management are critical components for most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to help them manage their talent—and you can provide them with the tech they need.

State of Business in States

Speaking of Main Street businesses, it’s interesting to look at which states are seeing the most business growth. CNBC recently released its annual list of “America’s Top States for Business 2025,” and it’s not too surprising. At least on the surface.

States are ranked by several factors (explained here), including “economy,” “infrastructure” and “workforce.”

Of the states with the five largest populations, only Texas and Florida made the top 10 for business-growth rankings this year. California (No. 1 in population), New York (No. 3 in population) and Pennsylvania (No. 5 in population) came in at Nos. 22, 23 and17, respectively.

In terms of the “Workforce” measurement, CNBC explains that: “With skilled workers in such short supply, and with the rising role of advanced manufacturing, the definition of a qualified worker is expanding. We look at which states are most successful in attracting talent at all levels, considering the net migration of educated workers to each state, and how states are faring in the competition to attract skilled workers.”

What’s also interesting is the Technology & Innovation category rankings. As CNBC explains, “Truly competitive states prize innovation, nurture new ideas, and have the resources to support them.”

For the three other states in the overall top rankings, North Carolina was No. 13 for Technology & Innovation while Florida was No. 12 and Virginia was No. 8.

Opportunity Awaits

The data, of course, is designed to show businesses the best places to think about opening shop, but we believe it also shows a ton of opportunity.

In other words, there are many smaller states in terms of population that are great places to start businesses but don’t rank as high for tech and innovation.

That’s where you come in.

Workforce Management is an essential tech tool that you can offer your clients to help them automate complex time and pay policies, enhance compliance management and generate real-time reporting.

As workforce expert and futurist Ravin Jesuthasan has said, “Peter Drucker famously said ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ and I would add to that by saying—and it will snack on technology all day long.”

The other part of the equation is the largest states, which tend to have the highest rankings in Technology & Innovation, tend to be the states where businesses face the most compliance challenges. Wouldn’t built-in enforcement tools for labor laws and schedule rules help? Of course they would.

So, are you ready for something your clients can snack on all day long?

State-of-the-art Workforce Management allows your clients to automate complex time and pay policies, enhance compliance management and generate real-time reporting. As an integrated solution, it also gives your clients an edge in terms of talent retention.

Here’s why: Today’s employees are increasingly looking to work for companies that develop a strong Employee Value Proposition that shows they value their workers, whether it’s through pay, benefits, training or something else. That something else could include a mobile app that allows workers to track time easily whenever and wherever they are working. That also means access to an Employee Portal where they can get the documents they need on-demand, manage scheduling and shift requests, and handle paid time off requests quickly and easily.

As the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) reports, just 17% of employers with 10 to 99 employees are using a PEO, but those businesses are growing twice as fast compared with similar companies not using a PEO.

That means there are a lot of businesses that could benefit from a tech infusion—and you’re just the HR outsourcer to give it to them.

Can your Workforce Management solution meet your stated goals state by state for you and your clients? If not, it’s time to take PrismHR’s Workforce Management for a cross-country test-drive.