As construction continues to undergo a digital transformation of core processes, putting a focus on data and analytics will become more important for management and leadership. The shift from outdated, manual processes to cloud-based software and technology will ultimately result in a wealth of project and workforce data being captured from every milestone and phase a project goes through.

USING DATA TO MAKE INFORMED WORKFORCE PLANNING DECISIONS 

According to FMI, 95% of all the data captured in the construction industry goes unused. Additionally, 13% of construction teams’ working hours are wasted looking for the correct information to keep their projects moving forward.

Data analysis is a challenge in and of itself. There’s likely only a handful of people employed at a general contractor that have the ability to analyze and pull key takeaways from your data when it’s being stored in a spreadsheet system. If you’re looking to embrace the digital disruption of construction, it’s important that your organization:

• Makes analysis approachable (if not easy) for team members that aren’t “data experts”
• Clearly defines what success means, and then measures it against the previous process
• Ensures that people have access to the data they need to inform their work
• Puts a focus on training, education and the benefits of being a tech-first, data-driven culture
• Consistently make, and communicate, workforce decisions supported by data

Whether we’re ready for it or not, the digital revolution of construction is upon us. In this article, we’re going to outline a few ways your organization can lean into the change and build a data-driven workforce planning process.

The struggle in shifting to a data-driven process is often more than simply a technical struggle, but is also a cultural one. In fact, the Harvard Business Review has put together a list of data commandments that can help to create and maintain a data-driven culture. We’re going to outline some of their key suggestions and narrow the scope to discuss what that means for the construction industry.

DATA-DRIVEN WORKFORCE PLANNING WILL ALWAYS START FROM THE TOP DOWN

One of the quickest ways to pivot to a data-driven process is having your leadership set the expectation that decisions must be supported by accurate data before being finalized. Your leadership will need to enforce this as a regular part of the process and not something that happens occasionally.

Your project management and operations teams should be leading by example. For instance, ahead of staffing meetings your teams should be updating and consolidating all relevant information and spend some time preparing to discuss project progress, changes they think should be made, and the data to support those changes. Making this a regular part of the process will help to reinforce the expectation throughout your company. It demonstrates how decisions are actively being made at the top, and the data to support them. Team members that want their input to be taken seriously will need to adapt their approach and provide actionable data to support their cause.

GIVE YOUR TEAM ACCESS TO DECISION-MAKING DATA 

Information sharing is often brought up as a challenge in construction. More often than not, workforce planning data is kept in a series of spreadsheets, with the team member responsible for maintaining them (understandable) hesitant to share access with the larger team. Human error can result in a spreadsheet becoming disorganized or can simply break it, requiring dozens of hours to fix. However, by denying access, the team members that are looking to use data to support the decisions they’re making will always come up short and your data-driven culture won’t get off the ground.

Let’s use your staffing meetings as an example. For a general contractor looking to share its workforce data with a larger team, it’s a good idea to start slow. There are alternatives to spreadsheet systems that allow for different permissions for team members. This not only limits the impact they can have on the data, but these alternatives can also help present your data in an accessible way that doesn’t require your team to be “data experts”.

Workforce planning software like Bridgit Bench allows administrators to create customized permission groups. By doing so, they can differentiate levels of access to their workforce data for their operations team, human resources, and even estimation and marketing teams. Everyone has access to view the data that will support their decisions, but the risk of human error is gone.

In being consistent with the “top-down” approach to building a data-driven workforce plan, ensure your executive team is given access to your data to create metrics and company-wide strategies that are informed by accurate data.

QUANTIFY UNCERTAINTIES INTO ISSUES THAT CAN BE SOLVED

Knowing with absolute certainty is an impossible task. However, HBR suggests that if your leadership and project teams can quantify uncertainties, it can have 3 powerful effects on your organization.

• It forces decision-makers to grapple with potential sources of uncertainty. Is the data accurate and reliable? How can new factors be incorporated when there isn’t existing data? These questions can often lead to uncovering new ways of updating processes and problem-solving.
• Your data analysis provides a deeper understanding of your models when they have to evaluate uncertainty. This can help to paint a more accurate picture when running scenarios with active project bids based on the likelihood of winning/losing bids.
• Understanding uncertainty will also push your organization to run experiments. Whether it’s trying out a project team that’s never worked together or taking on a project your organization hasn’t managed before, “trial and error” allows for small opportunities to discover new methods to support widespread changes.

KEEP TRAINING RELEVANT AND AT THE RIGHT TIME

It’s standard for contractors to invest in large training efforts that include as many team members as possible to save on costs. The only problem with these mass-training efforts is that team members don’t have a chance to immediately put that training into practice and will often forget what they’ve learned. This is natural, we’ve all sat through training or technology tutorials only to jump into the tool two months later and not remember a thing.

Offering training that leads directly to the practical application of new skills will help reinforce those skills and create a foundation of confidence when using data to support decision-making. It might mean you need to slow training down or offer it to smaller groups until everyone is up to speed.

Be sure to also communicate to your team how using data will positively impact their specific role within your company. If you vaguely explain how using data effectively will affect the company in the long run, team members may hesitate to abandon current practices. If you communicate how it will directly benefit them as individuals – avoiding rework, and saving time – they’re more likely to invest in the change.

EXPLAIN ANALYTICAL CHOICES TO MORE PROVIDE CLARITY

Ask your teams about the steps that were taken to approach a project decision. Ask what alternatives were considered, what the positive and negative trade-offs are, and ultimately why the end decision was made. This teaches your team to consider alternatives and change previous assumptions when attempting to solve problems. If there’s a member of your operations team that assembles project teams in a different way and uses data to explain their methodology, it can help enlighten everyone else with a similar role. 

Digital transformation can often seem risky, incur a new cost, or appear difficult to enforce company-wide. Having accessible data helps provide evidence and support to new ideas, and gives operations teams the confidence to adopt new processes without feeling like they’re running through the woods in the dark. Creating a data-driven culture isn’t easy. It requires leadership to lead by example and create expectations for the rest of the team, but once you’ve started taking steps to make the shift, you’ll see decision-making in a new light.