Resource Planning in the Agency: What You Should Consider

In this post, you will learn what resource planning is and how you can use it for your agency.

You are probably familiar with the saying "Order is half the life". This also applies to your daily work in an agency. After all, you have to ensure that the requirements of your clients are met and deadlines are kept, but also that the capacities of your colleagues are not overstretched. To be able to combine all aspects, you should therefore use a Capacity planning for agencies. In this post, you will learn what resource planning means, why it is important for agencies, and when you should use it. We also introduce you to the different types of resource planning, provide you with important tips, and tell you how you can measure the success of your planning. Finally, you will learn which agency tools, other than awork, can support you in your capacity planning.

What does resource planning mean?

Resource planning defines the Planning, allocation and the Use of staff in your agency and the required equipment. These can be, for example, software, rooms, or company cars. In the agency context, capacity planning mainly refers to the potential performance of individual team members. When planning the available capacities, you first determine how much time should be spent on a particular process. You then look at how many working hours of your colleagues are freely available. If, for example, a colleague who works 40 hours is already tied up in a project for 20 hours a week, only half of her weekly working time is available for new orders. In order to deliver the best possible and timely result for your clients, you must keep an overview of ongoing projects as well as the free capacities of the agency team. Since resource planning thus significantly contributes to the success of your agency, it is one of the most important tasks in your agency routine.

Why is resource planning in agencies so important?

If you work in an agency, you usually provide different services for different clients. In this context, you probably also know the saying "time is money". This applies to agency work in two respects. On the one hand, you have to use personnel resources to get the job done. You ultimately bill these to your clients. On the other hand, your clients want to see quick results. Long waiting times due to poor planning are therefore a complete no-go. Therefore, when accepting and distributing orders, it is especially important to have a look at the available capacities. Because only if you plan the manpower of your colleagues sensibly and appropriately, you can keep the promised deadlines to your clients. This will have a positive impact on customer loyalty and the image of your agency, as you deliver on your promises.

When should resource planning be done in agencies?

But from when is resource planning worthwhile for your agency? Theoretically always. Even if you only have one colleague, you must calculate how many projects you can accept and complete on time. As soon as your team grows and more people can bring their capabilities, a clever planning becomes indispensable. However, keep in mind that resource planning is not rocket science and you should not plan too finely. The effort of your planning should always correspond to the accuracy of the result.

What types of resource planning are there?

In principle, you can distinguish between two different types of resource planning - the homogeneous distribution and the non-homogeneous distribution of tasks. In the case of homogeneous distribution, you ensure an even distribution of the load over the entire duration of a project. This is the case, for example, if several colleagues each work 8 hours per week over a period of 3 months on a client project. With non-homogeneous distribution, on the other hand, it looks different. This directly utilizes available capacities, for example to prioritize important tasks and meet tight deadlines. So, for example, if you have 15 unplanned working hours in the coming week, you can put them all into a project with an approaching deadline, instead of stretching the time burden over a longer period.

Furthermore, there are different methods of resource management. In resource allocation, you efficiently utilize the available resources based on the skills and capacities of your team members. With a resource balance, you determine whether there are any unused or only inefficiently used resources within your agency. If this is the case, you try to correct this situation. The third method is resource forecasting. In this case, you try to predict the future resource needs before a project even starts. You consider the scope of the project, possible limitations and risks, and unforeseen costs.

5 tips for resource planning in agencies

If you want to plan the resources in your agency reliably in the future, here are a few useful tips for you.

• Tip 1: Do not plan too detailed:
  Rather, in the beginning, think about which resources really need planning, on what basis you want to plan (e.g. hours, days or weeks) and how many hours are available to you within such a planning unit. On this basis, you can guarantee reliable planning of your resources.
• Tip 2: Consider fluctuations in performance
  It's perfectly normal that you are more efficient and focused in some weeks than others. You should also take such fluctuations into account in resource planning. Therefore, it is advisable to only plan 80% of the working time of your colleagues.
• Tip 3: Involve your team when it gets tough
  There are particularly many deadlines coming up in a month? Then involve your team in the planning and together, find a solution for this challenge.
• Tip 4: Don't be afraid of idle time
  Your team is not fully utilized in the planning? Don't worry, you will find enough work for everyone, even if you can't see it coming right now.
• Tip 5: Record your times
  If you record the time you spend on a project in a tool, you can always see how much time is still available for the project. On this basis, you can also check how reliable your resource planning was and draw conclusions for future planning.

How can resource planning in agencies be measured?

You surely want to regularly check how effectively you planned the staff capacities and derive from this whether you can optimize something in your resource planning. For example, an agency software like awork can support you in this, in which you can define and measure your own KPIs. But you can also do the evaluation manually at first. For this, you look at how much time you planned and how much was actually needed. This way, you get an exact overview of your team's utilization based on data and can better plan when you can accept new projects.

Which tools are suitable for resource planning in agencies?

To keep an overview of the resource planning of your agency team, you can use an agency software for task and capacity planning. With its help, you manage all project-related and operational processes of your agency in one place. There you create and calculate offers, process orders, create schedules and record your working hours for the different projects. You can also do the controlling of your work and planning with an agency tool, plan vacations, and manage your accounting. With digital tools for your agency you can structure the daily routine without too much effort. Which is the best agency software you have to decide for yourself, of course. To help you make this decision, you will find some recommendable agency softwares below, whose user ratings you can look at OMR Reviews.

MOCO

awork

poool

helloHQ

Die Agenturverwaltung

easyJOB

Stackfield

Opus Connect

Always know the status quo

The agency world is fast-paced. You constantly have to react to new requirements or challenges. With reliable resource planning, you can still reliably tell your clients when they will receive results from you and your colleagues. This has a positive impact on the image of your agency and prevents budget overruns. Through the transparent planning of all resources and capacities, you are always up to date and can also react to unforeseen events. Thus, your resource planning significantly contributes to the success of your agency.