Project planning: a real lever for retaining consultants
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Estelle
Content manager
August 19, 2022
5 min
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As part of project planning, service companies must act quickly to find the right consultants, mobilize them, monitor their missions... Staffing, operations or human resources managers sometimes have to manage hundreds of people. A real challenge, especially since the arrival of new generations on the job market. The expectations and requirements of consultants have evolved and consultants no longer have only salary demands.
Service companies have every interest in taking into consideration these new demands related to QWL, CSR, professional career development and apprenticeship... At the risk of losing their consultants, the real driving force behind all projects.
Many performance indicators are listed in your staffing software: budget consumed per project, turnover achieved, time spent... But you also have valuable information about the desires and interests of your consultants. Here are some tips for deciphering them and using them wisely for good project planning:
To engage and retain their teams, service companies must take into account information other than availability and skills in project planning. In particular, they must be interested in the aspirations of employees, and in their interest in the missions offered to them at the time of staffing.
To do this, you need to be able to collect this information. Make sure that your staffing tool allows your teams to declare the skills they want to develop, to set up evaluations or feedback after each mission and to make future business opportunities visible. In this way, your consultants can easily express their aspirations, their wishes for development and their interest in the projects to be carried out.
It is not uncommon for service companies to always offer the same types of missions to an employee, over the years, without taking into account their desires for evolution or change. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why employees feel obliged to leave their company: they do not see how to develop their career within the company. However, 3 levers can easily be activated to prevent this turnover.
Beyond being transparent about future missions and allowing consultants to be able to notify of their interest in them, it is essential to take them into account in staffing. With equal skills and availability, opt for a collaborator who has expressed interest in the project to be staffed. And if, for one reason or another, an employee could not be positioned on the project of their choice, it is imperative to take the time to explain your decision to them. In this way, you avoid frustrations and simply maintain the dialogue!
Another lever that should not be overlooked for your project planning: implementing a personalized career policy. Be transparent about the positions and opportunities for internal development, as well as about the skills you need to acquire to achieve them. When your consultants express the desire to move up a rank or change position, you can thus, in the context of staffing, position them on missions that will help them reach their objective.
This naturally brings us to the third lever: training and skills development. You have everything to gain when you offer your consultants training to help them develop their skills. Your teams are always at the forefront of knowledge in your sector and can learn on a daily basis. In short, when you meet the need and desire for training of your employees, you can thus prepare a training plan in order to make it evolve within your company. But that's not all! You consolidate his knowledge for the benefit of your projects. He is thus more likely to be involved in the future on a project that interests me. You reinforce its commitment to you and its long-term performance.
Operations managers, staffing managers, or the human resources department should not only take into account the employee's resume. There are many factual reasons why employees disengage from service companies: lack of interest in the mission, a lack of visibility on career development, non-existent training plans, etc.
In order to ensure the retention of consultants, it is necessary to establish - among other things - mutual trust by valuing employees in the context of project planning. In this way, you naturally generate a maximum rate of engagement and performance!
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