Turning workforce visibility into a competitive advantage

The Challenge

For Mike Rizzo, the scariest labor problem isn’t a lack of available workers. It’s having the right workers in the wrong places, on the wrong jobs, at the wrong time. 

As Director of Technology for W. W. Gay, a mechanical contractor headquartered in Jacksonville, FL, Mike helps oversee a workforce that stretches across their 9 office locations in Florida and Savannah, Georgia. But without a centralized platform, labor was dictated by geography, not demand. "We used to be regional with it, keeping groups of people together regardless of where they were actually needed,” Mike says. 

As a result, workers could be sitting idle in one region while another scrambled for manpower, costing the company significant labor dollars every day. Or worse, workers without the proper certifications could be deployed to highly regulated jobsites, potentially resulting in shutdowns, regulatory fines or the total forfeiture of a contract.

That lack of visibility posed a dire risk to the company’s already thin margins, which only worsened as the company grew. Without the ability to forecast "bench strength" and dynamically shift crews to where they were most needed, the company was in danger of stalling projects, causing missed deadlines, triggering costly liquidated damages and destroying client trust.

To stay ahead of those risks, Mike knew W.W. Gay needed a way to see its workforce as a single coordinated team rather than a collection of regional labor pools.

The Solution

Mike decided to implement Procore Resource Management, giving W.W. Gay a single, centralized view of its workforce. Instead of managing by region, leadership could now see where workers were, what certifications they held, when they were available and where they could create the most value. 

"Moving into resource planning and tracking has been a monumental shift,” Mike says. “Having that centralized data of where all of our teams are allows us to collaborate across regions and avoid squandering labor costs."

Procore also gave W.W. Gay greater control over its compliance risk. Instead of relying on memory or spreadsheets to see which workers were certified to be on which job sites, project managers could use Procore to verify those qualifications before making deployment decisions. 

“We aren't guessing and finding out after the fact that a resource was moved who doesn't have the required certification for that specific plant or owner,” Mike says. “It has made a huge shift in how we operate.”

At the same time, Procore’s field-first approach helped drive rapid adoption across the entire organization. By reducing the number of systems field teams needed to learn and giving them access to critical information through a mobile platform, W. W. Gay made workforce management easier both in the office and on the jobsite. 

"A tool like Procore allows you to reduce your technology stack in the field, which gives you faster adoption and more visibility into what everyone is doing," Mike says.

The Results

• Dynamic Regional Collaboration: Centralized labor visibility lets W.W. Gay seamlessly share crews across regions, matching labor supply with demand from Central Florida to the Panhandle.
• Eliminated Idle Manpower: Replaced isolated spreadsheets with a corporate roll-up view to minimize labor waste and prevent workers from sitting idle while other regions are short-staffed.
• De-Risked Skill Compliance: Real-time tracking of safety certifications and training ensures the right worker is on site, mitigating compliance blind spots and legal exposure.
• Optimized Field Execution: Foremen spend less time chasing paperwork and more time on tools, keeping field execution lean and projects on schedule.

Maximum labor efficiency, minimum guesswork

Today, resource  planning at W.W. Gay has shifted from a reactive experience into a strategic advantage. Instead of waiting for staffing shortages or surpluses to reveal themselves, leadership can look months into the future to forecast more accurately when and where they need to transition crews, helping them optimize their labor resources.

"By centralizing that and having that full roll-up look out of labor, we're able to distribute resources much more effectively," Mike says. "It has made a huge shift in how we operate."

For field leaders, Procore has help reduce much of the paperwork and administrative burden that once consumed valuable time. Instead of digging through drawings, files, and disconnected systems, managers can access the information they need directly from a mobile device while walking the job site. "It fundamentally changed how we operate in the field," Mike says. 

As a result, crews spend less time chasing information and more time focused on executing work safely, productively and on schedule. The same platform that helps specialty contractors  optimize their labor deployment also gives field teams immediate access to the tools and information they need to perform at their best. 

For Mike, that’s where the true value of Resource Management becomes clear. Rather than operating as a collection of regional offices competing for resources, W.W. Gay can function as a single coordinated team, deploying the right people where they can have the greatest impact. That operational agility not only protects margins, it positions the company to deliver projects more efficiently for its customers. 

In an industry where labor remains the most important variable on nearly every project, having a real-time understanding of who is available, where they are needed and what they are certified to do gives W.W. Gay a powerful advantage. 

"In the future, this is going to become the standard way to operate," Mike says. "Without that data available, you’re not going to have those actionable insights into how your business can grow or change, and you’re going to lose out to those who do.”