Confusion in Resource Utilisation in Startups

The term “resource utilisation” is used to ensure every employee is using their available time as efficiently as possible for billable work.

Resource utilisation helps managers understand how their team is utilising their time in order to make more effective resourcing decisions that increase efficiency and productivity.

Dealing with numerous concurrent activities can require cross-cooperation and the shuffling of assets within groups. Project supervisors should consistently monitor employees’ workload to ensure they are not overburdened.

Project managers are liable for the creation and allocation of assignments so that tasks are able to be efficiently taken to completion.

Resource managers are accountable for adequately distributing the resources required to complete a project successfully.

There is no commonly accepted formula for resource management, nor are there any golden rules for it; however, there are a few points that can be followed to get it going:

• The first step is to estimate the required number of resources for a project.
• Evaluate the completion date by dividing it into hours or weeks and include the employee hours required on the project.
• Understand which resources are critical and fewer in number; this helps prevent burnout and better management. Priority setups are essential in these kinds of scenarios.
• Teams should agree on a common approach to prioritising work across shared resources. Creating an agreed-upon scoring process in advance to help facilitate objective decision-making, rather than falling victim to the “squeaky wheel” problem, is better.
• Constantly monitor unplanned work that can steal from capacity and create hidden delays.
• Keep in mind that overcommitting individuals can prompt quality issues and a decrease in output. Embrace different ways of working within the resources available across the organisation.

Resource management is an ongoing process. Despite having seamless processes, hiccups are to be expected. 

The main issue with managing many employees is assigning tasks and keeping track of their billable/work hours. To tackle this problem, we use  an end-to-end work management software called Scoro.

This software provides tools including time tracking, time management, task assignment, auto assign tasks, etc. Using these, we keep track of each employee’s time utilisation and task completion alongside their performance. We can then analyse and focus on the target audiences that are performing exceptionally well.

We can also pinpoint and discuss shortfalls of the employees who have not performed particularly well and suggest improvements. This builds employee trust and helps to create seamless workflows.

The main challenge faced while implementing this software was communicating to all staff how to use it efficiently. To do this, we created a PowerPoint presentation with a walkthrough and responded to everyone’s questions and concerns in a meeting.