Construction Projects and Workforce Management

You say you’re a “people person,” and as a workforce manager, that quality comes in handy. But do you have a concise process for knowing not only who’s who but who’s where and when? With labor shortages and high turnover, organizing personnel on construction projects better makes the difference between profit and loss, on time and late.

Personnel on Construction Projects

Keeping track of who is who on construction projects is a greater challenge than ever before. Good old Fred, who’s worked with you for 40 years, is retiring. You knew his kids’ names. You knew his dog’s name.

Workers you thought were company forever-employees are cutting away for other jobs and boomeranging back and even traveling to work on out-of-state construction projects. Organizational change is daily, and construction software can keep you up-to-date.

Here are two tips for efficient workforce management on construction projects:

1. Scheduling

If you’re in reactive mode when sending workers to projects, the biggest problem is you don’t know how much money this is costing your company.

• Do you have a labor plan that ramps down the number of workers at the right time?
• What skills are needed; where and when?
• Who actually needs to be onsite early on?

Working with a limited number of employees means you need to better define their skills and experience. And you need to know more about who they are.

2. Forecasting

Paper spreadsheets vs. software? No comparison. Spreadsheets provide no real-time context. “By the time you forecast the storm, it’s already raining,” says Brian Witt of LaborChart. Software can’t help you make the best decisions, but it can certainly improve your odds of making the right ones.

Construction project software can cut those tedious labor meetings down to minutes. Everyone knows who’s where and who’s who every minute of every day. The time you save can be repurposed into developing and caring about your workforce instead of managing it. That kind of culture can maximize employee retention today.

We have the software that our marketing pros refine to give you timely and actionable information for business development. Just ask. Contact Construction Monitor.