6 Mistakes To Stay Away While Creating A Staffing Plan

Traditional thinking about hiring the resources and setting for 100% utilization is distorted because it is wrongly assumed that people perform at their full capacity every day. A 100% resource utilization plan is unrealistic which rates stress, and drive your most important resources “employees” to the point of exhaustion and burnout.  

It is important to acknowledge that resource hires are humans, not machines. Overbooking of employees impacts the business either with a high budget, less productive hours, or failed deadlines. So if you are planning for 100% staff utilization and high billable hours, it looks good on paper and has high consequences. 

Hence to accomplish your goal and achieve a successful staffing plan it is important to keep proper records, which can easily be achievable through a best-time tracking app. 

6 Mistakes to stay away while creating a staffing plan

1. To know billing and operational efficiency

Time Tracking is a key to improving operational efficiency. Operational efficiency links with the billable hours and highlights the productivity level of individual employees as well as the entire organization. This way it gets easier to track the time spent on client work and bills can be generated accordingly. Highest billable hours are the highway towards more profits in business. And hiring an efficient resource is the best solution for increased billable hours.  

2. Increase accountability among employees

It is important for staff to register the time, this makes them more focused as they know how many hours they need to spend on tasks. At this point, everyone is aware that the clock is ticking and tries to be productive as much as possible. By looking at their report, employees will notice the pattern and trend of their working hours and this gives them the opportunity to minimize their non-billable work. 

3. Allocation of the right resource

It is important to allocate the right resource to the projects to avoid project turndown. The right resource with the right skill helps in completing the project on time with no additional hiring costs and labor costs. An efficient resource will motivate the other team members to work efficiently which leads to high billable hours. 

4. Dedicated time tracking report

Timesheet reports show the actual time spent by resources on different projects, tasks, and non-productive work. From time tracking reports it gets easier for the managers to know the gap between the planned time v/s actual time consumed to complete the projects. With help of timesheet data managers can work on filling the gaps by hiring a new resource or assigning tasks to another resource as per the skills and experience required.   

5. Monitor progress and reduce the chances of delayed deliverables

It is important to be aware of the project’s health. As we all are aware that managing resources is a critical task and so it is hard to avoid the uncertainties of resource unavailability. In such a scenario  timesheet records valuable information regarding any delay, and thus it gets easier for managers to re-assign the project to the available resources, which is more important than compromising on the project’s health. 

6. Keep a hold on costs

What is the best way to keep your budgets aligned? Time Tracking again is the best solution.  As employees fill their timesheets, the time taken on projects and tasks, it gets easier to calculate how much budget is consumed. It is good to set the rate cards and hourly costs appropriately. 

Creating a successful resource management plan is a hard nut to crack. A best-time tracking app can help alleviate stress and boost the success rate of the project by giving a birds-eye view of the available resources.

How eResource Scheduler will be helpful in efficient staff planning

With eResource Scheduler’s in-built time tracking capabilities, managers can resolve the ruckus of creating staffing plans within the scheduled time. The tools allow you to get real-time information related to project costs, resource planning, utilization, and project progress. eResource Scheduler is one of the best time tracking app which benefits you with its unique features of:

1. Capture actual time spent by each resource on the assigned projects, tasks, and non-billable work.
2. The timesheet app shows the drafts, submitted, approved, and rejected entries in different color codes which gets easier for managers to identify.
3. Information about all the timesheet entries on the single screen facilitates making an informed decision.
4. Timesheet reports show the time spent by resources on the different projects and tasks.
5. Detailed reports on the planned and actual utilization of resources provide actionable insight by comparing scheduled efforts v/s actual efforts.

Additional Benefits of eResource Scheduler Time Tracking App:

• Multiple options to fill the timesheet
• Configurable timesheet
• Manual and automated approval
• Workflow Approvals