Construction projects are challenging enough in themselves, but trying to manage teams across multiple job sites can bring significant extra headaches. Deadlines are often shifting as conversations with clients evolve, while things like supply chain disruptions and inclement weather can hinder progress. All of these factors influence personnel needs, and their unpredictable nature can make it extremely difficult to coordinate and manage teams optimally.
Without the right approach, even the most diligent manager can run into scheduling difficulties, which can lead to lost productivity, missed deadlines, and bloated labour costs. This is why it’s so important to implement a strategy that allows for adaptive workforce planning and high schedule quality. Here, we’ll go into more detail on this and discuss some practical, impactful ways that you can better schedule your construction employees between jobsites.
Schedule Based on Skills, Not Just Availability
Having employees on site is one thing, but you need to have the right people on site at the right times. In construction, more so than many other industries, skill distribution is critical because projects rely on cooperation between a wide variety of specialists.
In addition to the general labourers that make up the bulk of your workforce, you need to have certified machine operators, electricians, and other skilled professionals to do more complex work. Moreover, you want to use their time efficiently so as to maximize their abilities. Having one project stall because you’re waiting for a plumber to finish work on another, for example, is something you’ll want to avoid.
When scheduling staff, it’s often advisable to base decision-making on the skills that your employees possess, often your first consideration, prioritizing it before availability. Utilizing a skills matrix is a great place to start with this. This is a simple but effective grid which you can use to plot out skills distributions.
By using this one seemingly basic visual tool and reviewing it regularly alongside your project timelines, you can align skill distributions with project needs. This will ensure that those with niche skills and certifications are always on at the right site when needed to perform specialist tasks. As such, you’ll be able to minimize bottlenecks and maximize the impact of skilled employees.
An additional upside to this approach is that it provides clarity over skill coverage more generally. By checking your skills matrix in preparation for upcoming projects, you can forecast potential gaps and adapt your hiring or employee training approach where necessary to build stronger, more adaptable teams.
Implement Tech That Gives Visibility and Scheduling Insight
In order to effectively plan and manage employees across, you need to know exactly who’s at your disposal at any given time, as well as what they’re working on. This is essential to functional scheduling.
When dealing with multiple job sites simultaneously, this is obviously challenging, but what is not always apparent is that the systems you’re using could be holding you back. Relying on traditional rotas, spreadsheets, and standalone time-tracking systems can leave things disconnected, allowing important details to slip through the cracks. These systems aren’t designed to meet evolving needs in real time, so it’s better to implement a more flexible and cohesive workforce management platform.
The latest construction scheduling software products can unify all the different aspects of workforce planning into a single dashboard. You can see where employees are working, track work time, and monitor assignments all in one place. Essentially, you’ll be able to establish real-time visibility over all of the factors involved in your decision-making, so that you can plan more comprehensively and adapt to changing priorities.
As an added benefit, these platforms also give access to insights based on workforce data. You can better understand labour utilisation in order to optimise it, for example, and identify patterns in absenteeism or delays. This can help you to forecast potential issues so as to plan ahead more effectively and avoid setbacks on your sites.
Centralise Communication Across Job Sites
Regardless of the specifics of your particular scheduling system, you are likely to encounter issues unless communication is handled properly. A perfectly optimised schedule is easily ruined if employees aren’t kept adequately notified of where, when, and on what they’re expected to work.
This can be an issue in construction, where site managers can end up relying on a combination of calls, messages, and emails to interact with staff. The better alternative is to set up a system that will centralize all of this communication. A mobile workforce app is ideal for this, as it can allow you to reach all relevant employees where they are. These apps provide real-time notifications, meaning that you can update schedules dynamically as projects evolve and ensure that staffing needs are always met as intended.
Best practise dictates that, in addition to implementing this kind of application, you should also establish some standard processes for scheduling. Agreeing on a time-frame for scheduling adjustments, a shift confirmation procedure, and perhaps even an approvals process with site managers can help avoid confusion, ensuring that teams on all sites are always updated and aligned on the latest schedules.
The Upshot
Things often change fast in the world of construction, which can make scheduling a complicated and challenging undertaking. That’s why it’s essential to put tools, systems, and procedures in place to empower adaptability as much as possible. By implementing the measures we’ve discussed, you can improve visibility, optimize skill distribution, and foster alignment to get your workforce operating cohesively and efficiently, even across jobsites.