What is construction workforce management? Everything you need to know

Tired of juggling spreadsheets and manual timekeeping?

Construction workforce management software offers a streamlined solution to your workforce challenges. By automating tasks, improving visibility, and empowering your team, a construction workforce management solution can help you:

• Increase productivity: Optimise schedules, reduce downtime, and ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time.
• Enhance project profitability: Minimise labour costs, improve efficiency, and avoid costly mistakes.
• Boost employee satisfaction: Simplify time and attendance, facilitate communication, and empower your workforce.

While the UK construction sector is set to experience a modest decline in activity in 2024, there is a return to growth expected in 2025, according to the latest analysis from PwC. In order to best prepare for this bounceback, it is wise to start thinking now about how to get the most out of your workforce and stay on track.

Ready to unlock the potential of your construction business? Let's dive into the world of construction workforce management.

Construction workforce management is the strategic oversight of construction personnel to ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget, and to the highest quality and safety standards.

By optimising workforce organisation, training, and utilisation, workforce management maximises team potential, aligns workflows, and boosts productivity. It replaces fragmented processes and confusion with a cohesive, streamlined approach.

Construction project managers, contractors, or subcontractors are usually responsible for managing the workforce. Their duties include identifying labour needs, planning, recruitment, hiring, assigning roles, scheduling shifts, ensuring safety, providing training, and evaluating performance. Larger projects often have dedicated workforce management teams, including HR and training specialists. Effective workforce management ensures employee safety, motivation, and retention.

Construction workforce management is a critical aspect of project success. It involves planning, recruiting, training, scheduling, and evaluating the performance of construction workers. By effectively managing these areas, you can improve construction productivity, reduce costs, and enhance project outcomes.

Workforce planning:  Many of the elements that people would tend to think of in workforce management will fall under human resources. While this is partly true, the capabilities extend far beyond this.

Workforce management can help to identify and assess workforce needs, by incorporating allocations for time off, through absence/leave requests and time sheets. This can help you develop a plan to meet those needs, particularly with seasonal changes and potential labour shortages that may appear.

For new employees, a construction workforce management system is a great tool for companies wanting to onboard recruits through one system, and keep on top of all required tasks. This is an important part of enhancing the employee experience. And of course, it is also important to ensure all workers have the correct documentation, to help avoid potential risks around modern slavery and lack of necessary qualifications and skills.

Construction field management:  By monitoring and analysing what is happening onsite, you can make informed decisions on field management.

Once workers have gone through all the preliminary processes, you can keep track of attendance and briefings to ensure everyone is accounted for and up to speed. This can also be factored into accreditations that employees may be working towards.   

If workers are not able to work to their optimum performance, it may be that additional training or support is needed. Construction field management can help to spot these gaps and also identify where there may be potential hazards, due to lack of understanding, that could put workers at risk. This is why it is also good to utilise a fatigue management solution that supports healthy productivity for employees, taking into consideration travel time and wellbeing to prevent avoidable accidents.

This is also why inspections and incident reports can also be accessed and logged through the workforce management system, helping to keep on top of health and safety requirements as well as having reports at your fingertips.

For site managers expecting or arranging deliveries, this too can be integrated into the workforce management system, helping to minimise disruptions, and pre book slots for delivery so that the team can be ready. This has the added benefit of being more considerate to neighbours and to the planet, by reducing unnecessary CO2 emissions and disruption.

Overall, the level of quality on your project can be greatly improved by field management, by tracking these key performance metrics. Work can be completed to a higher standard, in less time, with less cost all while keeping workers safe and compliant

Data insight: Through more advanced systems, construction workforce management can also track data and provide insights, which allows companies to look at trends for reports and create forecasts, to help predict and plan in a wide range of project areas. This can help with a project overview, worker productivity and even social value aspects.  

Importantly, employee performance or skills can be well analysed and budgets can be tracked, helping to keep all the business resource in one space instead of having information across different areas.

When it comes to putting together a team, and planning out a construction project, there are many factors at play.

Having a strong construction workforce management system in place takes the guess work out of the equation and replaces it with factual data that in turn provides a range of benefits:

• Increased employee satisfaction: Employees are happier and therefore more able to be productive and less likely to take time off, or leave the company. It may even boost recruitment.
• Improved efficiency: Streamlined processes and reduced administrative tasks lead to higher productivity, and greater oversight of the project.
• Enhanced communication: Clear communication between employees and management improves collaboration and reduces misunderstandings, as well as helping to maintain compliance and regulation.
• Better decision-making: Real-time data and insights enable informed decisions that take into account all the variables and potential challenges.
• Cost savings: Reduced labour costs, improved scheduling, and lower turnover rates, as well as maximising the budget allocated through less down time.
• Increased revenue: Higher productivity and efficiency lead to increased revenue.
• Scalability: The ability to adapt to changing business needs and growth if the project requires it.

Construction workforce management is an invaluable tool for any business, and a key investment in your team. Regardless of size, having a robust solution in place is important to keep your company accountable. With margins of error now smaller than ever, it is a no brainer for any company looking to boost productivity, simplify processes, enhance employee wellbeing and keep costs low.

Whatever system you choose, it will of course take time to implement, and it is a long-term investment. Allowing time for your employees to understand and get used to any workforce management software is integral to success, which cannot be underestimated. However, with the right choices, the results will be worth it in the end.

For more information on how MSite can support your next project, contact us today: www.msite.com/contact-us