Resource planning post-COVID: 4 important lessons

COVID-19, more than disrupting workspaces, has revolutionized resource planning within consulting and professional services companies. Remote working, in a pandemic situation and against a backdrop of critical economic uncertainty, presents unprecedented challenges for human resources. These include supervision, effective communication, productivity and performance management. But also employee commitment, advancement and availability. resource planning needs to renew itself.

Convalescence will take place on a case-by-case basis, and will require a rethinking of the various strategies for organizing resources. 

Indeed, it's necessary to take a step back from events in order to draw the best possible conclusions. The Workbook "COVID-19: Workforce strategies for a post-COVID-19 recovery"speaks of: reflect - recommit - re-engage - rethink - reboot.

The aim is to make flexibility the new norm, in order to respond to different situations with the greatest possible acuity and relevance. This will involve a review of work structures and team organization. 

1. Centralize communication with and between employees for better connectivity
2. Tracking performance for optimization
3. Maximizing talent for greater productivity
4. Greater visibility for improved responsiveness 

1. Centralize communication with and between employees for better connectivity

Working from home has heightened the need for centralized communication spaces dealing not only with the progress of different projects, but also with the well-being of teams and their availability. Management needs to have better visibility of the workload of its teams: who is available, when, with what skill(s).

resource planning has become more flexible, as have the employees themselves. The LSE Business Review notes an increased willingness to collaborate, to be flexible and quick to adapt. Faced with this evolution, the danger of micromanagement looms large. Managers who, because it's out of their hands, lose confidence in their staff and cause their teams to lose productivity. 

The solution lies in a centralized, tailor-made platform that connects employees and reports live on their progress. This platform must enable the project as a whole to be managed, so that the progress of the project and the overall workload of the teams can be seen, without micro-managing the individual employee.

What's more, thanks to COVID-19, we've discovered that talent and projects don't have to be restricted geographically. Consulting and professional services companies can extend their expertise beyond their local area. But only if they have the right communication, evaluation, supervision and monitoring tools to manage their resource planning. 

2. Monitor performance to optimize

With the dispersal of the workforce, a tailor-made overview based on explicit and relevant data is fundamental for monitoring team performance and commitment. A precise understanding of the various activities involved enables the appropriate positioning and organization of tasks in the schedule over the long and short term. On the other hand, spotting gaps in the schedule helps to optimize it.

As a result, event-monitoring and reporting have never been so crucial. A solution like Stafiz enables teams to be assigned to specific projects and tasks. By letting employees organize their schedules and resource planning as they see fit, the platform can indicate when employees feel they have completed the project or task and can be staffed on a project again.

Last but not least, employees must be able to account for their day-to-day performance, as well as for any difficulties they encounter, in detail and to attentive ears.  

Consulting and professional services companies are particularly concerned by these issues. Their work and exchange spaces can extend from the office, to the employee's home, but also, and above all, to the customer's premises. This delicate and frequent geographical flexibility leads to distancing and multiplies communication difficulties. Giving an account of one's performance, clearly explaining one's schedule, working as part of a team, etc. become much more complex in these areas, and call for an urgent response.

3. Maximizing talent for greater productivity

In addition, it is necessary to identify and restrict each person's role in order to maximize individual and collective performance. 

In fact, 40% of employees report that they perform tasks that don't correspond to their job description on a daily basis. The result is a dramatic waste of talent. And possibly a loss of efficiency on the tasks in question, and a reduction in the time allocated to missions that really match the employee's profile.

COVID-19 and working from home have accentuated this dispersion. That's why the Stafiz profile search takes into account availability, roles and skills. But also experience, as well as the wishes of employees: why not try to staff projects also according to the skills of employees when possible.

A major French banking group that uses Stafiz asks employees to specify the types of project that could help train them, and asks those in charge of scheduling to take this into account.

The focal point of resource planning is to answer the question: "When, where and how can we secure and mobilize talent, from inside or outside the company, for specific workloads and projects? It is therefore essential to analyze and assess the availability of skills and talents. 

Asking the right questions:

• In-house offer: be careful not to disperse assignments
• External supply: Where is the talent? How do you find and solicit it? At what cost?
• External demand: financial benefits for the company

Consulting and professional services companies, particularly because they are confronted with as many specific situations as clients and do not fall into a routine of protocol, have everything to gain from maximizing the allocation of each talent. Which talent for which project? For how long? For what purpose?

4. Better visibility for better responsiveness 

A social or individual crisis, such as COVID-19, has a direct impact on resource planning and working practices. The responsiveness of our structures is decisive if we are to respond effectively, rapidly and appropriately, but also if we are to learn from each of these difficulties.

Consulting and professional services companies need to invest in tools that enable and facilitate working from home and virtual collaboration between their employees. Their bandwidth will need to be assessed and updated to support these new deployments within their network. They will need to carry out periodic stress tests on this network, and identify alternative solutions for every critical task that cannot be performed at home.

These still unusual reflexes will require great flexibility on the part of both companies and individuals. This means a complete reorganization of resource management and resource planning. 

Through a redefinition of work processes and the norm, COVID-19 calls on consulting and professional services firms to redefine, 'reboot' to draw inspiration from the Workbook published by Deloitte, the organization of their resources and their resource planning. The emphasis is on connectivity between employees, at all levels and even remotely, on the monitoring, evaluation and supervision of each individual's performance, on intelligent talent maximization and duplicated responsiveness.

Stafiz helps you gain visibility and better manage your resource planning and project progress thanks to real-time data. Stafiz is a SaaS solution for resource planning, project management and business intelligence. As a result, budgets and margins are always respected, and you can make better decisions for your business.

To find out more about the Stafiz platform, request a demo.

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