Discover the state of resource management with insightful statistics. Explore current trends and challenges in optimizing organizational efficiency.
Managing resources can sometimes feel like you're playing chess. You need to calculate several steps ahead, look out for potential dangers, and try to get creative with the resources you have in the moment.
But if there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's that the world of resource management is constantly changing, and the change is not always for the better.
In this article, we're going over the latest shifts in the field and pointing at the weak spots you can hit to win your game.
In 2022, Prosymmetry conducted research to see what kind of businesses need all things resource management the most. According to their findings, it is most relevant in professional services businesses like consulting (29%) and auditing (26%). With the former, applying resource management practices is a must as it is services that get monetized.
That same research also shows that 56% of respondents said their enterprise uses one or more tools for resource management. Among the features they particularly value are the ability to automatically forecast skills gaps (62%) and for individuals to set their dates and times when they're available (50%).
One of the top things you need to have for good resource allocation is a reliable skills database. It allows you to see what skills, from the ones you require in a project, are already available, and which ones are missing.
However, in a recent survey, the Resource Management Institute found that only 60% of respondents have an adequate skills database capability to do accurate resource planning, even though 92% of them indicated using some sort of technology to store skills-related data. But 35% of respondents said they don't track project or career interests of delivery personal, which means they don't show enough interest in the projects their resources would actually want to work on.
The RMI recommends doing three things if you want to build a reliable skills database:
There is, nevertheless, one troubling discovery the RMI made during the survey. As it turns out, 58% of respondents don't have a list of skills defined for their roles, which is an 18% increase from the first time the RMI started asking that question back in 2018. When you're already missing a detailed definition of relevant skills, building plans for developing and acquiring new skills makes little sense.
In a recent report by Deltek, 49% of agency leaders said they were prepared to allocate significant funds for hiring more talent in 2022. But even though hiring human resources and employee retention remain a high priority, planning those resources still remains the leading operational challenge for the agencies that took part in the survey. When describing the challenge, many of them said they struggle with 'knowing I have the right amount of full-time and freelance staff to match my new business pipeline and expected revenue'.
On top of that, although many companies are using resource management technology, in most cases it is dispersed (56%), and only 38% of participants said they get to enjoy a centralized system.
When it comes the biggest challenges resource managers face, 41% of respondents still struggle with visibility into available resources, while even a bigger fraction of the group says they don't have enough funding.
COVID-19 had a massive impact on the project delivery landscape, yet when asked about their biggest roadblocks, many respondents highlight issues related to resource management. Among others, there were resource availability issues and skills shortage.
And here is another interesting fact: overcommitted resources have also been proved to cause project delays. In this context, those overcommitted resources indicate a utilization rate of 125%, while the recommended point for successful project delivery usually stops at 80%. The RMI recommends measuring utilization weekly or at least monthly in order to spot and address negative trends early on.
When looking into their utilization calculation, 72% of professional services businesses count overtime hours as it has a significant impact on employee morale, and potential burnouts, and it can help you spot under-utilized resources.
In fact, Wellingtone found that in 2019, the problem of poor resource management increased by 60% compared to the year before that. At the moment, a lack of adequate forecasting is the biggest inhibitor to executing resource management practices effectively (forecasting & capacity planning makes 88% of the problem).
The value of skilled resource managers cannot be overstated. They save business costs, make sure projects get delivered on time, and, what's even more important, keep all employees happy with their assignments and ensure everyone gets to enjoy that work-life balance.
But in order to increase the population of skilled resource managers and prevent the churn of the ones that are already developing the industry, it is crucial for companies to provide clear career path opportunities. After all, it is the scarcity of well-trained resource managers that drives costs up in this field. And it's a good idea to train new resource managers from within, while also providing them with the newest resource management automation technology.
Here's where this conclusion comes from:
Forecasting, planning, and analyzing resources is difficult even for the best resource managers in the game, but a good tool in the tech stack can make a world of difference. Book a demo to see how Runn can help make your resource management future-proof today!
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