Workers, Skills, Schedules

The COVID-19 pandemic hit every industry hard, including construction. Although most construction work continued as an essential occupation, office workers and those who could work remotely were often sent home during the early days. As the cautious approach enabled companies to continue, if at a slower pace, the employee demographic was changing. Valued skills were being lost along with valued workers as illness took its toll.
 
Now that most offices are open and workers are back in their seats, companies are reassessing the way they do business going forward. Construction is now facing a global labor shortage, with contractors struggling to find skilled workers in many trades. This makes it critical to efficiently manage existing workforces.
 
Labor is typically the highest and most variable cost for contractors, yet many still rely on spreadsheets and analog options like whiteboards to manage their workforces. Software and cloud service companies are stepping in to help companies find, employ, and schedule skilled workers. For example, LaborChart’s software provides a modern solution to legacy processes for specialty contractors and self-performing general contractors.
 
That need hasn’t been overlooked by major construction solution companies. In the case of LaborChart, Procore Technologies, a construction management software firm, has acquired the company to increase office and field connections by empowering contractors to better schedule, manage, forecast, and communicate with their workforces, ultimately improving profit margins.
While Procore’s Field Productivity product helps contractors track employee time and provides insights into team productivity, LaborChart gives contractors a real time and forward-looking understanding of all workers, assignments, and commitments, enabling them to accurately plan, schedule and forecast. Together, these integrated solutions will give contractors a holistic view of their workforce, ensuring they have the control they need to manage, schedule, and budget their labor.
 
Procore is a provider of construction-management software used on more than one million projects exceeding $1 trillion in construction volume. Nearly 300 specialty contractors and self-performing general contractors use LaborChart, which has been a Procore App Marketplace partner since November 2020. LaborChart’s 40+ employees have joined Procore and LaborChart will be fully integrated with Procore in the future.