RESOURCE PLANNING IN A LABOR MARKET IN CROSS-PRESSURE

In the cross-pressure between labour shortages and growing challenges with stress, safe and effective resource planning and optimization is more important than ever. But standard solutions rarely meet the growing demands.

In recent years, both Danish and international labour markets have been caught in a cross-pressure: On the one hand, there is a widespread shortage of labour – skilled, unskilled, and highly specialized – and on the other, stress and strain have become a source of growing discontent and more sick leave.

According to Martin Mark Rasmussen, CEO, and partner at exacto, this has caused companies to demand better solutions that can support a more efficient and, above all, tailored resource planning and optimization:

"When there is scarcity, there is more focus on facilitating the best ways to optimize utilization. But at the same time, we see that there is a growing demand for it to be done in a way that does not pressure, but rather helps employees to contribute and give their best. Management in companies and institutions have increasingly become aware that this requires a more holistic perspective, where one operates both more broadly and with a greater degree of detail. With the various standard digital solutions available for resource management, project planning and registration, these needs are not met. Especially if one wants to work with both a short and a long-term perspective, where one continuously uses historical data to optimize operations", says Martin Mark Rasmussen and elaborates:

"It is a trend we observe across all industries and organisations. From companies with highly specialized academic staff working in changing teams to public institutions, e.g. the health and care sector, where maintaining the right staffing and providing access to a accurate overviews across departments and units is a problem".

Management & analyses

Martin Mark Rasmussen points out that one of the key issues is that data is not sufficiently cumulated and used for both a more efficient handling and subsequent analysis:

"Data - to the extent that it is registered at all - is typically spread over several different solutions and loose Excel sheets with a lot of different data controllers in an organizational silo structure. There is also a tendency for the three phases – planning, execution, and final registration – not to be unified for subsequent analysis and thus be reference for future projects.

An issue is that the standard solutions do not, to the extent that the companies demand, support the ongoing optimization of the planning and subsequently the analysis work with access to historical data from previous projects or processes, where you can look at forecast versus actuals. With this access one will achieve a more secure and robust resource management that ensures better delivery, better well-being for employees, and safeguards against unnecessary seizure of resources that are in demand elsewhere in the organization", says Martin Mark Rasmussen and continues:

"When it comes to optimizing resource planning, detailed data on employees is crucial. Regardless of the industry we are talking about, employees are increasingly specialized. It can be as a result of education or simply experience. This must be taken into account when teams are put together, shift schedules are staffed, or employees are sent out working on assignments with clients. In those cases, we have customers who want to be able to centrally establish detailed employee profiles, for those responsible for the planning of projects or shift schedules, to be presented with similar alternative profiles from across the organisation in case their first choice is not available. I believe, this is key to avoiding resources being locked in organizational silos”.

The entire value chain & all resources

According to Martin Mark Rasmussen, there is an even greater potential for optimization if one includes more data in both planning and follow-up:

"Resources are not just employees, after all. Materials, storage capacity, logistics, etc. must be included as well. Whether you have the necessary transport, catering, etc. Based on historical data, you can make robust forecasts for projects and thus ensure that the project is neither over- nor under-budgeted and avoid making overbookings that block the access of other projects. All of this should be unified in one place for one comprehensive overview and for historical data to be automatically, easy, and efficiently extracted afterwards”.

And finally, Martin Mark Rasmussen notes that companies prioritize key employees themselves having a more controlling role:

"There has been a tendency to allocate responsibility for project and resource planning to employees who have overall project responsibility, but do not handle the practical implementation or day-to-day operations. A solution where the project managers, who may be those who know most about the needs and prerequisites that apply, can handle, or contribute to the planning themselves, means that the prioritization becomes more robust and in line with reality. This is of great importance. Not least when it comes to picking the right competence profiles, which is one of the keys to establishing a better working environment, better task solving and, ultimately, less stress", concludes Martin Mark Rasmussen.