Addressing Labor Shortages with a Resource Management System

Tom Schoen, CEO

The current labor shortage is unprecedented in scope, and professional services organizations aren’t immune. According to a survey of the professional services industry by Source Global Research, about 2-in-3 consulting firms are short staffed and 1-in-5 are turning down work because of it.

Firms are faced with managing more work with fewer people. Let’s take a look at how a resource management system can improve team productivity while helping firms plan smartly for the future.

 

Meeting Labor Needs with Better Efficiency
A resource and project management solution optimizes your people and operations, and provides accurate forecasting for future capacity needs. A robust solution includes capabilities such as…

  • Resource management and forecasting
  • Project management and team collaboration
  • Easy integration
  • Business intelligence and insights

Forecast skillsets
If you’re trying to do more work without enough people, the forecasting features of a resource management system are especially important.

The solution gives you an accurate picture of the skills and utilization of your current workforce, as well as when employees will have time for additional projects. You can be sure the right people are on the right teams, and take the guesswork out of resource management.

Optimize talent
With a complete picture – business, project and workforce data together – you’ll have crystal-clear visibility into how employee skillsets are allocated and optimized. Is there too much overlap on certain projects, and could people be re-assigned for better efficiency? Are the same skillsets consistently underrepresented, sparking the need for new hires?

A resource management tool not only reveals that data, but allows you to test adjustments, such as how reallocating employees would impact a team’s performance and a project’s profit.

Image Credit: Mavenlink

 

Save teams time
If you’re facing labor constraints, the last thing you want to do is give current employees more tedious administrative work. A resource management solution should be very easy to use so it drives quicker adoption and makes everyone’s life easier.

For example, BTM’s resource management solution has saved our teams and managers a huge amount of time, and they’re happy to use it as a result. It integrates easily with other enterprise systems, and managers enter project information, get approvals and update allocations in minutes instead of hours.

The bottom line: Our work and productivity is much more efficient. Our project managers have experienced a 15% increase in utilization, and we’ve seen a 10% increase in employee utilization across our company.

Prepare for growth
Accurate forecasting helps a firm prepare its workforce for growth: You know how many people you need, with what skillsets, and at what time. A resource management solution is especially helpful for identifying any gaps in advance.

It won’t solve a staffing shortage, but it will give you the ability to better use the talent you have and lessen the risk of employee burn out. The tool’s forecasting engine can tell you weeks or even months in advance when employees are needed for projects, so you have the time to train current people or make new hires. Everyone can start a new project feeling well prepared, and overall utilization is much higher.

Streamline and simplify
As professional services organizations, we can’t solve labor challenges on our own. But we can be smarter about how we put employees to work and forecast future needs for hiring and training. A resource management solution is quick to implement with minimal disruption, and has an outsized ROI for your workforce.