Assessing Resource Needs
R E S E A R CH   I N S T I T U T I O N

The Challenge

A premier research institution's major location had more projects than they could staff. The only known expertise for this highly specific work was the overworked research team itself. In addition, security issues precluded the company from using outside sources as backup for research and development.

The key problem was turnaround time - the research unit could not turn the work around quickly enough to meet the market release deadlines set by the funding business unit. Additionally, research management lacked a clear understanding of the skill levels and resource capacity available within the organization. Therefore, management was unable to make well-informed decisions assigning the right resources to the most urgent projects. The company was losing its competitive advantage by being late in bringing its leading-edge products and services to market.

Past practice had been to hire contract workers only to fill in staffing gaps. In this case, however, management continued to turn to contract staff when their own skilled employees were available. Unfortunately, they lacked a system to identify which of their people met the required skill levels -- it simply took too long to query, locate, and interview people, re-negotiate assignments, and re-deploy staff. As a result, employees missed critical and high-visibility assignments, further exacerbating the morale problem .

The Solution

Once SkillSolutions™, the Resource PowerTool, was introduced, employees used it regularly to advise management of their evolving skills and assignment interests. SkillSolutions® gave the research unit people the power to:

1. Calibrate skill levels in the categories most essential to the business unit.
2. Print reports reflecting skills, experiences and training.
3. Advise management each time they wished to respond to a specific  assignment opportunity, and estimate how much time they could devote to such assignments.
4. Manage their own career plans and training plans.
5. Monitor how their expertise and competencies grew as their skill and assignment profiles grew.
6. Exercise more control over their job security.