Prime Build Future-proofs Labour with Workforce Planning

The Challenge

For Prime Build, workforce management has always been top of mind—but they were ill-equipped to effectively allocate their people from job to job. The spreadsheet used to track their workforce was an unreliable source of information which led to frequent frustration in labour planning meetings.

The Solution

Prime Build’s teams needed a digital platform to replace their tedious spreadsheet solution. That’s where Procore Workforce Planning came in—removing the difficult, time-consuming spreadsheet and instead, providing a single source of truth with accurate data and real-time visibility.

The Results

Working Smarter, Not Harder with Workforce Planning

As a rapidly growing business, Prime Build leverages technology to handle dozens of projects spread out over a large geographical area. An early adopter of construction technology, Prime Build has spent over a decade ensuring they are equipped with the right tech to support their business and clients.But in early 2019, they still hadn’t solved the challenge of workforce management and were managing their workforce in a huge spreadsheet that wasn’t up to the task. A weekly labour update meeting would grind to a halt while everyone waited for the bloated spreadsheet file with more than 1,000 lines to open. It was difficult to compare and understand what was happening across jobs in different states. Tim Thompson, director and co-founder of Prime Build, knew there had to be a better solution.“Resource management and forecasting have always been a huge challenge,” Thompson says. “If you have ten people trying to hop into a spreadsheet, it’s a recipe for disaster.”A Procore customer for a number of years, Prime Build was looking for a solution that could provide real-time information on scheduling and resources at both the regional and national levels. Now with Procore Workforce Planning, they can keep their teams on the same page.“We can have the right conversations a lot quicker. Now, with a few clicks, we can be talking about the right things at the right time,” says Thompson.Prime Build chose Procore Workforce Planning because it offered the ability to customise workforce management and realise savings with accurate, up-to-date information on a cloud-based platform. ‍Meeting the needs of each division, the tool helps managers see and allocate available resources, while directors at the national level can shift between divisions.“With Procore Workforce Planning, we could really set up the platform to handle the projects we do,” Thompson says.

Ditching the Spreadsheet Saves Time

The spreadsheet that threatened to crash the weekly meeting was replaced with a digital interface—a cloud-based platform that lets everyone move at their own pace and drill down into projects in real-time. Thompson estimates this one change saves Prime Build at least three to four hours every week.

Teams can now quickly and efficiently look at the current project mix in order to plan for new work and onboard new employees.

Powering Growth ‍with Improved Forecasting

Prime Build receives a host of tenders and now, through Procore Workforce Planning, the team has the ability to look at a single page that tells whether or not a team is available to allocate to a new project.

“Procore Workforce Planning gives us a view into when we should chase work and when we’re at capacity,” says Thompson.

With a clearer approach to forecasting potential resources required on current and future projects, teams are now able to plan total resources by role several months in advance. Prime Build launched a new line of business, shopfitting more than 200 stores across Australia, that leveraged the improved communication and insight provided by Procore Workforce Planning.

Strengthening Culture ‍at Prime Build

A stronger grasp of where and how people were being utilised enables Prime Build to focus on the onboarding process. The contracting firm can be thoughtful about when it is hiring and how new hires are trained. Procore Workforce Planning helps Prime Build navigate the economic challenges brought on by the pandemic. Management shifted crews to regions where work was available in order to keep workers employed and position the company for future growth. With Procore Workforce Planning, the team is now equipped with the right tech to keep building “The Prime Build Way.”