The 5 benefits of an integration that change everything! The best-managed project teams are those that share clear visibility into the workload. This ensures that the work is well distributed and that employees are not either overstaffed or understaffed. A resource planning allows you to obtain this visibility and simplify the management of the schedule and the workload by simplifying the work of assignment and optimization. Many teams manage this on excel, and others on dedicated software. So why does this process need to be connected to the rest of the business management? What is the point of connecting the resource planning to the activity management tool? Here are the 5 main advantages of natively interfacing these tools:
Benefit 1: Increased visibility to make better decisions
The right resource planning provide complete visibility into schedules, team and employee loads. They also make it possible to propose the best optimization decisions: choosing the right profiles to position on a project according to a maximum of criteria. The employee's ability, experience, skills and even preferences. The following data is evaluated in the ERP or HR software and can be automatically transferred to the resource planning :
Absences
Carrying out a workload schedule without knowing who is on leave or who is off work is an impossible exercise. It is absolutely necessary that the leave be up to date in the resource planning. Either your resource planning also manages leave and sends data automatically to the HR tool, i.e. the HR tool connects to send information and adjust people's capacity according to their absences.
Experience and project history
If your resource planning software allows it, you will be able to identify the best profiles based on their experience. For example, if you are looking for someone who has already worked for a client to facilitate the work, you will be able to enter this requirement into the system to better identify the appropriate profile. This information has already been entered into the activity tracker, since the employee has probably confirmed that he or she has already spent time on the project or completed tasks.
Employee preferences
The right tools at resource planning allow you to improve employee retention by taking employee preferences into account. For example, if someone wants to work on a marketing project to gain skills in that area, the resource planning tool allows them to indicate this and will consider it in searches as needed. By leveraging this information, your resource planning tool becomes the number one tool to help your employees grow and maintain their satisfaction. This type of information is valuable, and it should also be easily available in the HR tool, along with the rest of the employee's data.
Indicators on the work history of employees
These are their utilization rate, the distribution of time spent between customer projects, internal projects, intercontract... These are all important data for evaluating an employee's performance. They are present in the resource planning which must be able to transfer them to the HRIS or directly accessible by management.
Advantage 2: real coherence between the financial management of projects and the management of the workload
Good project management involves regularly updating the work still to be done on the project, to ensure that the forecast remains aligned with the initial budget. This update is generally the responsibility of the project manager who must estimate the work still to be done. However, in most activity management tools, the rest to be done is completely independent of the employees' workload. Thus, the project manager confirms the time remaining to be spent on a particular task, but does not assign it to the employee who will carry it out and does not indicate over what period the work will be carried out. It is therefore necessary to carry out another entry step in the planning tool to plan the associated load. This leads to wasted time, double entry, and often data inconsistency. Ideally, your resource planning is natively connected to your activity management tool, and the update of the rest to be done automatically updates the workload and capacities of the employees. The project manager kills two birds with one stone by updating his project to allow the margin forecast to be calculated, and by updating the employee workload forecast. The data is reliable, consistent and updated in real time. It is even possible to let the employee (if he has the rights) update the remaining time to be spent on these tasks. Automatically, the impact on the projected profitability will be adjusted and the project manager notified.
Stafiz supports you in the management of your resource planning and helps you to better manage the workload of your employees. Benefit from a more complete visibility on the different profiles, their experience and availability in order to assign them to missions that suit them.
Advantage 3: it allows you to have an accurate forecast of activity, updated in real time
To manage a service activity (consulting, IT Services, agency), it is imperative to have a clear visibility on the revenue and margin forecast in the coming months. This ensures that the forecast remains in line with the objectives or, if not, to know which projects are causing the variances. However, the best way to assess the turnover and projected costs of a service company involves basing yourself on the workload of the employees. A resource planning Adapted to the activity integrates the costs of each employee and makes it possible to calculate how the project will progress and the turnover and costs recognized over the next periods. Forcast using the resource planning is therefore much more accurate than a calculation of the remaining amount to be done in a classic ERP which does not take into account the precise evolution by resource and by month. With this data, the resource planning Will:
Indicate the turnover and margins, by project and by team in the next periods
To send the information to your ERP (or if it is itself natively connected to manage the activity, to do so independently)
Calculate the differences between an updated forecast that takes into account what has already been achieved and the initial budget of a project
Benefit 4: Provide more visibility to the employee, and improve satisfaction for better talent retention
If you have completed the previous steps, you now have the ability to analyze your billable utilization rate and to analyse the gap with the objectives. The war for talent is not a new concept, but it continues to intensify with the phenomenon of the Great Resignation progressing in parallel. To give more meaning to talent, we must give them more visibility and flexibility in their career choices. Give them more visibility on their next projects and task schedule thanks to a resource planning is a first step. In addition, allowing employees to proactively position themselves on projects that interest them on this same platform is an additional step that resource planning like Stafiz allow. Finally, take into account the preferences and wishes of employees in the trade-offs of resource planning offers a real advantage over competitors who don't have this approach. Better considered and better oriented towards projects that allow them to grow in the company and find meaning in their work is the best way to increase employee retention.
Advantage 5: no double entry and a lot of time saved!
A lot of data is systematically entered into the resource planning as in activity management or ERP tools:
Employees: their names and date of entry must be indicated. As soon as the release date is known, it should also be added to prevent this employee from being assigned when he or she will no longer be available. All this information is usually entered into the activity monitoring software and/or HRIS. Once the resource planning Once connected, the data is automatically updated to be entered only one but taken into account in both software.
Teams: to better manage the workload of the teams, it is necessary to know the distribution: to which team each of the employees is attached. Here again, the information is necessarily entered into the activity monitoring software. There is no need to double enter if the connectors are in place.
Skills files: some HRIS tools allow you to integrate a file of the employee's skills or even experience. The right resource planning allow you to use this data and update it according to the projects your employees are working on.
The algorithms of the resource planning then use this data to propose the most suitable profiles and facilitate the optimization of resources.
When you choose a resource planning, so remember to make sure that the activity and management of the resource planning are natively linked, or if not, by default, that there are connectors between your solutions.Discover the Stafiz solution natively connected to accounting and payroll software such as Sage, SilaeExpert, Cegid or Nibelis.
