Even if you are organized and have a great sense of time management, there are still times when everyone has had weeks when they have too many things to do. When it comes to construction, your crew is your most essential resource. With them, there will be progress on site, and your project will be safe. However, in today’s present times, there needs to be more workers for construction companies, and the problem is not going away. Many contractors are looking towards hiring more workers to boost their productivity, but it is clear that there is a need for more skilled workers. As a result, you should work quickly and efficiently to make the most of the people they have on staff and plan for future hiring needs.
It is also critical to focus on the current workforce rather than keep on hiring. By planning and managing your building workforce well, you can overcome the lack of workers and run your business as efficiently as possible. In this blog, we will walk you through the steps of successfully planning your workload. These tactics can keep projects on track, prevent costs from going over budget, and maintain quality standards.
What is Workload Planning?
Let us start with the basics first. Workload planning, or as some people would also call it, “workload management,” is a strategic way to get your team to work as efficiently and effectively as possible so you can meet your goals. It is basically the process of breaking down a team’s tasks and planning how to do them efficiently so that everyone does their fair share of the work.
How Should You Manage Your Construction Crew?
As mentioned earlier, workload planning is all about getting the most out of your workers’ skills without overworking or burning them out. That means putting them in the right jobs, giving them the tools and support they need to do their best, and encouraging their growth so that you can get the most out of their skills and abilities. Some of the things that managers have to do with their teams are hiring, teaching, scheduling, evaluating performance, keeping employees engaged, and retaining them.
A workload planning approach that works well puts the best people with the right skills in the right place at the right time. That lets your business be more productive, cut costs, and get better results from projects.
Planning workloads is an ongoing process that includes the following:
Scheduling
We make a clear, attainable, and on-time plan by actively planning goals and project due dates.
Assigning Tasks and Resources
Assigning jobs to employees based on their strengths, skills, and abilities ensures that everyone has an equal amount of work to do and that no one gets too busy.
Monitoring the Workload
Regularly check in to see if the original plan is still working. Has the project’s purpose changed? Have things gone wrong that were not expected? Change your plan as needed.
The Importance of Managing Your Workload
Planning your workload is suitable for your whole business. These are just a few of the many ways that planning your job can help your business:
Lessen Stress and Burnout
Many employees that they are burned out say that it is because of their work. Planning your workers’ workloads gives you the power to stop employee burnout before it becomes a problem by ensuring everyone has the same amount of work to do.
Dividing Up the Work Efficiently
By looking at your team’s present work, you can see who is doing the best job and who needs some assistance. You will also learn how to divide up the work so that everyone is doing about the same amount.
Boost Employee Engagement
Employees who are not pleased with how they do their jobs every day are less engaged and less effective. When you plan your employees’ work, you can take their hobbies and strengths into account.
Lessen Risks and Mistakes
When you assign jobs based on skills, you can ensure that the most critical work is done by the person who is best equipped to do it. This will help everybody better match jobs to their abilities.
Enforce Accountability
Setting clear goals, who is responsible for what, and who owns the tasks fills in any communication gaps between workers and employees.
Common Challenges in Workload Planning
We cannot stress this enough, but the construction industry faces many problems regarding its most important resource—its people. In this section, let us look at some of the common challenges you may encounter when planning your workloads.
Skilled Labor Shortages
Fewer skilled workers are entering the industry, and many are leaving, either to retire or switch careers.
Seasonal Demand
Plan how to use your workers and resources when the need for building changes with the seasons and the economy.
Skills Mismatches
Workload planning strategies let you compare your employees’ current skills with the skills they will need for future projects. This allows you to hire the right people, assign them to the right jobs, or help your current employees learn new skills.
Safety
Your plan helps you ensure that projects and job sites have the correct number and types of team members to stay safe and follow the rules.
Turnover of Employees
With so many open jobs and unemployment at a record low, a workload planning strategy can help you come up with new ways to get and keep employees.
Tips and Tricks to Ensure Efficient Workload Planning
Construction companies need to hire skilled workers, employees, and contract workers and keep track of them. They also need to ensure that they meet deadlines and perform high-quality work. As mentioned earlier, planning your staff’s workload is integral to your strategy. Better project and labor management in the building comes from better workforce planning, which means that projects are finished more successfully. In this section, let us look at some tips and tricks you can use.
Set Goals and Expectations
The first thing you should do when planning your team’s workload is to get a complete picture of their actual work for the next project. Make a list of everything your team needs to do in your time. This list should include all your tasks, from the most important and specialized ones to the more general ones.
Check Your Team’s Skills and Strengths
Now, it is time to calculate how much time your team has to work on the jobs you have written down. Then, calculate how many hours each worker puts in by considering planned vacations, lunch or other breaks, regular meetings, and other things. This will help you ensure your workers have enough time to finish their work.
Assign Tasks
Assign tasks to start putting everything together. First, give the most important tasks to the team member who is best able to do them based on their skills and abilities listed in the previous step.
You will likely get this wrong the first time. Because of things like employee needs or changes in the project’s scope, you will have to switch jobs or make changes.
Deal with the Lack of Workers
Planning your workload lets you be strategic about hiring, keeping, and training employees so you can prepare for and lessen the effects of labor shortages. You can evaluate what skills will be needed in the future, find places where skills might be lacking, and start focused programs to ensure your employees are skilled and dependable.
Take Care of Your Employees and Contract Workers
In construction, you will have to find a way to keep long-term workers while letting subcontractors work on some jobs to save time, money, and effort. Finding this balance can help you boost your company’s productivity and profitability in the long run. Try keeping a flexible staff that can handle a wide range of tasks and adapt to changes in the needs of the projects.
Breakdown The Project
To plan your workload well, you must first divide big jobs into smaller tasks that you can handle. Guessing how long each job will take is more straightforward, giving you a more accurate picture of each project’s size.
Manage The Project Well
Planning the workforce has a direct effect on project results, such as deadlines, funds, and quality standards. When you match the project’s needs with your employees’ skills, you can better use resources and cut down on delays. It also gives your business more control over worker costs, which helps keep budgets on track and reduce overtime costs.
Schedule Proper Training and Skill Development Courses
Planning the workforce in construction is a strong strategy that can make your projects safer and better. If your employees get the proper training and are given the right tasks, they will be better able to do high-quality work while following safety rules.
Utilize Construction Technology
Planning work hours with spreadsheets or other manual methods is a terrible idea. It is hard to be sure that you’ve changed everything that was affected by a change when you make one.
Construction management software, on the other hand, helps you get more done and plan your time better.
Check In Often and Go Over Things with Your Team
Ensure your team knows what you want them to do and can do it. Give them a chance to talk about any problems or issues they have with the jobs they have been given, and then make any changes you think are necessary. To keep your team from getting burned out, you will also need to review and check in with them again as the project changes, new jobs arise, or other things arise.
