Most managers know that trying to keep track of employees, with their various projects and skill levels, is a daunting task. Perhaps it is not so bad when you only have two employees, but when you work in an organization with 500.

1. Understanding the Keys to Effective
Personnel Management
Most managers know that trying to keep
track of employees, with their various
projects and skill levels, is a daunting task.
Perhaps it is not so bad when you only have
two employees, but when you work in an
organization with 500, it is simply
impossible to keep track of these resources
without a little help. Here are some of the
ways in which managers can manage their
personnel more effectively in order to maximize success.
1 – Understand Employee Skills and Availability
Different projects require different skill sets. For example, a project team might require
engineers, sales representatives, plant managers or R&D professionals. Finding the right
person to assign to a project or task can be extremely challenging without the right
resource management processes in place.
Even when managers understand resource availability, it changes. They might run around
and get all of the vacation schedules recorded in a big spreadsheet, only to find that a week
later it has all changed. Rather, what managers need is real-time access to team member
schedules, tasks and available time. This makes assigning people to tasks much easier. The
system should also be web-based, since the team is probably not all in one workspace 24
hours a day. Spreadsheets do not work very well because they do not allow for global
access from various participants (and they also cannot be audited).
2 – Allocate Resources Effectively
Once you understand resource schedules and availability, you will be able to allocate them
more effectively. In a 100 person organization, for example, there are always five or ten
people who are overbooked. Everyone wants these people to work on their projects, and
every time one of them takes a vacation or gets sick, the organization groans. Conversely,
there are other people who are under-utilized. When a manager has visibility into this,
he/she can fix the problem. For instance, if a resource is 100% allocated, the manager

2. should not assign them to a new project. If another resource is only 70% allocated, the
manager knows that they are free to do more work. Often, managers are unaware of these
problems without the right data, and it can lead to lost profits from under-allocated
personnel as well as the eventual burnout of over-allocated personnel.
3 – Track Time by Project and Task
Projects are executed in order to bring in a positive return on investment (ROI). Managers
and executives, however, cannot know if a project was successful or not unless they
understand its total cost. The cost of labor is often a major factor in total project cost, so
tracking time to projects and tasks is an inescapable requirement for measuring project
ROI.
In addition, project time tracking allows managers to address problems much faster. For
example, if a manager sees right away that 10% of a project's allocated budget has been
spent and only 5% of the work has been completed, he/she has a fighting chance of
recovery. A manager who does not have this information early on will find out much later
that their project is drastically over budget. This is just one example of how real-time data
enables project managers to fix problems before they start.
When you have 5, 10 or 25 people reporting to you, it becomes increasingly difficult to
know what they are working on at all times. Is John wasting time on a project that is not all
that important to the department, or the company? Is Mary spending all of her time on
something a colleague has asked her to do, while neglecting the project you really need her
to work on? When your employees are not tracking their time, you just don't know, and
what you don't know can most certainly hurt you.
4 – Identify Staffing Gaps
By categorizing your staff by skills or function, you can assign the right people to the right
jobs. For example, if you need an engineer, you can easily find one who is available for the
time frame you need. You can also use this data to identify staffing gaps. If you only have
two engineers who are consistently working at over 100% allocation, you know that you
need to hire additional ones. Again, you would not have known this without the data a
project and resource management solution can provide.
5 – Know Which Projects You Can Handle
When management asks if you can take on a major project and complete it by the end of the
month, how do you answer? You might say yes and then scramble to free up the right
people and get them to execute the project by the deadline. You might also refuse the
project, despite the revenue it would bring, because you are unsure whether your people

3. can handle it or not. With the right solution, you no longer have to guess. You know which
employees with the right skill sets are available and which are not.
The success of a project and, ultimately, a company, depends on one's ability to manage
personnel effectively. The larger the organization, the more difficult this becomes without
the right system to provide visibility and communication. Keeping tabs on who you have
assigned to tasks, how long it should reasonably take them to complete the tasks and how
much effort they are making are the three key components to avoiding trouble in the long
run. Once you get those down, you will be able to execute your projects with ease, making
your company successful and your customers happy.
Reference Link: http://www.theicpm.com/blog/item/4687-understanding-the-keys-to-effective-
personnel-management