Believe it or not, communication on any given project is the foundation for success (or failure). In fact, according to the Project Management Institute (PMI), poor communication is the main reason for one-third of all failed construction projects.
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What about projects with effective communication?
- 71% finish on time
- 76% are within budget
- 80% met original goals
Seem crazy right? But crazy or not, we’ve all witnessed great and poor communication in our everyday lives. We’ve seen the positive effect, response, and engagement with great communication, and the downfalls, confusion, and lack of cohesion when communication isn’t so great.
With construction projects, there are so many moving parts that great communication with colleagues, project administrators, and craft labor can take more time than you might think it’s worth. While the PMI would disagree, one way to nip poor communication in the bud is just to help contractors make project communications easy and logical, no matter how many people are on the project or your team. Here are three ways Bridgit Bench can help.
The Broadcast
Broadcast to your people
The Broadcast is the easiest way to send updates to your entire team, right from Bridgit Bench. Next time you’re in your People List or Gantt view, look for the paper plane next to your reporting icon. You can use that to send a quick email or text message to your entire workforce.
The best part of the Broadcast, though, is that whatever filters you’ve applied to your people will inform your send list. Want to send an update about a specific certification renewal? Filter for team members whose certs are about to expire. Need to tell your PMs about updates to company guidelines? Throw on a filter for PMs and the Bench Broadcast has you covered.
Broadcast to your projects
The Broadcast can also be used to communicate with project teams. You can send email and/or text messages out to an entire project team directly from a project in Bridgit Bench. No more wasted time sending weather updates, site shutdowns, or any message you need to be sent to your project team.
Worried about anyone being able to send endless broadcasts to your teams? Have no fear. Only users with permission to Manage Projects will have access to send messages from Bench. Head over to any project and you’ll see the Broadcast button in the top right (you might recognize the paper plane from above). Now, just select which kind of message you want to send, your recipients, throw in your text and hit send.
Assignment Alerts
With the pace and fluidity of your projects, communicating new or revised assignments with team members can be a lot of work and difficult to track. These messages can get lost in the shuffle and could lead to miscommunication and loss of productivity. Your people deserve to know where they’re headed next, and you deserve a tool that can help manage these communications.
With Assignment Alerts in Bench, you can keep your team up-to-date on project assignments directly from the platform. Simply assign or change project roles as needed, then send out an email or SMS text message to your team members to let them know the project and their assignment dates. You can even add the exact address to the alert so they know exactly where to go, as well as any additional details you want to be included by adding custom text.
Bulk Alerts
Did someone say Bulk Assignment Alerts? Alerts can also be sent in bulk so you don’t have to send updates one at a time. Just select multiple individuals using their respective checkboxes and hit the envelope in your bulk actions at the top of your roster.
Scheduled Alerts
Assignment Alerts with the ability to send in bulk? Could this get any better?
I’m glad you asked.
Getting ahead of planning, but don’t need to send updates to your team quite yet? Great news – you can schedule your Assignment Alerts to send at a later date and time. Just keep an eye out for the “Schedule” toggle at the bottom when creating your alert. By flipping the toggle on, you’ll be able to pick a date and time for your alerts to be sent. Scheduling your comms works for both individual and bulk alerts.
@mentions in Bench
Sometimes better communication doesn’t mean sending messages out to your entire workforce or project teams. Sometimes you just need to let Mark down the hall know you need his thoughts on an update you’ve made to his project team.
Or, you need Christine from your Dallas office to confirm that one of her PMs is available for your project in Austin for a few months.
With @mentions, you can quickly tag other Bench users to make sure they have eyes on any updates or changes you’ve made. Whether you’re in your project or people notes, simply type @ followed by another Bench user’s name and we’ll tag and send a notification email their way.
For more information about improving your workforce and project communications with Bridgit Bench, set up a time with one of our workforce planning experts to talk more.
