How Workforce Management  Software Can Help Navigate Labor Shortages

Everyone has trouble finding, hiring, and retaining the needed staff in today's construction industry. Whether it's labor or material shortages, sudden economic changes have forced many companies to reevaluate their operating models. Many have found that many factors are out of their control.

However, regarding your workforce, a few key tools can help you manage your company employees as effectively as possible to help overcome labor shortages. A modern construction operations platform solution like Align goes beyond simply keeping track of your inventory. It helps you run almost every piece of your business more efficiently.

Labor shortages heavily impact construction companies’ ability to operate effectively. A fully featured construction operations solution can help counterbalance these challenges by improving tool and equipment management and EHS safety program management and producing a more efficient and productive workforce.

Ways Workforce Management Systems Improve 

Implement automation to improve labor efficiency and reduce overall labor need.

Whether it is in the warehouse or on the job site to keep a modern construction company running and compliant with all OSHA safety standards, standardized processes will need to be repeated daily and weekly many times over. Without the proper systems these repetitive tasks can take up a large amount of time and be a productivity drag for your team. When it comes to inventory management a construction operations software like Align will be capable of automating a significant portion of the activities needed to keep track of tool movement, condition, and location even across different job sites. Through technologies like BLE (Bluetooth low energy) tags, Align can automatically report when a tool is removed from the warehouse and can often be used to track the specific location of the tool and its condition to make sure it is safe for your employees. The amount of time that can be saved by automating these repetitive tasks will dramatically free up your workforce to focus on higher priority tasks that will drive productivity.

Increase productivity with improved workforce management.

It’s been said that strategy involves doing what you can with what you have available. When market forces suddenly cause changes to variables like materials prices and the labor market, many companies must make fast changes to their operating model. When it comes to tight labor markets like the one we are experiencing now strategy, operations, and management become even more critical towards getting the most out of the workers you have available. A modern construction operations platform should go far beyond just tracking your inventory and should also offer solutions to better manage your workforce across all your operations. A solution like Align offers analytic insights to identify productivity chokepoints and data to better inform high-level strategic decision making. Across multiple departments being able to identify problem areas and correcting them can help to get a much more efficient workforce that can overcome workers shortages much more easily.

1. Eliminate delays and waste to make the most of the labor you do have.

   To complete projects on time and within budget, you need the right resources on-site at the right time in good working order. So, if your workforce is waiting on the delayed delivery of the right piece of equipment, the effects on project productivity and profitability can be devastating. A construction operations platform like Align empowers you to get what you need, when you need it, in safe working condition. This allows back-office and warehouse teams to identify delays, inventory shortages, and unsafe tool and equipment conditions before these factors can cause delays. All of this can be handled by small teams that can easily observe and analyze the operations of your entire company. When these operational roadblocks are removed construction companies can make the most of the skilled labor that they have available to them.

2. Go beyond safety compliance to focus on employee wellbeing.

   Safety is an important part of any construction companies’ operations, and ultimately safety is about the wellbeing of your people. The companies that create a culture that values the wellbeing of its workers in both a physical and a mental sense will be able to better retain talent as well as avoid job site accidents. Effective safety management solutions – like that offered by Safety Reports, an Align product – go far beyond safety compliance reporting to ensure employees feel appreciated and can trust that they are working in a safe environment. This is a key component of combating stress and often results in heightened productivity. Unfortunately, many people in the construction industry are tempted to cut corners on safety processes, seeing them as a needless hassle that only wastes time. But for anyone who has been in this industry for a long time will tell you, when you add up the injuries, fines, delays, and the inevitable chaos that will emerge on a disorganized job site it becomes clear that safety is an incredibly important component of construction operations. Organizations that take advantage of the safety enhancing features of a construction operations solution will be better able to find, hire, and retain talent in the construction industry.

Conclusion

The operational capabilities offered by the Align platform and Safety Reports  apps' combine to form a solution that can help any construction company overcome labor shortages. Whether it is reducing operational workload through increased automation, improving workforce management, eliminating delays and lost tools, or improving organizational safety standards. All of these variables can help companies get the most value out of their workforce while also promoting a safer and more efficient environment to better attract and retain talent.