“Bridgit Bench has become the executive team’s backbone for managing resources across our entire organization, which is invaluable. It’s become an excellent reporting tool for preconstruction and operations.”

Matt Walsh, Operations Technology Manager, Power Construction

The company

Excellence in construction through innovation and relationships

In the ever-evolving construction industry landscape, Power Construction, a leading national general contractor based in Chicago, IL, ranked #75 on the 2023 ENR 400 (up from #97 in 2020), stands out for its commitment to client relationships – and innovation.

This commitment drives its success and underpins its approach to attracting and developing top talent. Amid rapid growth in recent years and the challenges of managing staff effectively across the project lifecycle; Power needed a solution to scale and transform its workforce planning process.

The Challenge

Evolving from spreadsheet-dependent processes

For nearly two decades, Power Construction relied on a combination of spreadsheets and PDF reports for workforce planning–a process filled with inefficiencies, described by Matt Walsh, Operations Technology Manager, as “the most intense spreadsheet PDF combination of effort I’ve ever seen.”

In addition to improving core efficiencies, Power was looking for a solution to help standardize the process and ensure their team spoke the same language. “It’s always been difficult to know what job you’re going to next,” explains Walsh. You never really knew where you were moving until the day before. That was hard on our staff. We needed to move from a reactionary state to a proactive one.”

The Solution

A single source of truth for holistic workforce planning

Transitioning its workforce planning to Bridgit Bench marked a pivotal shift for Power Construction. Impressed by the platform’s holistic approach to workforce planning, Power found Bench provided the flexibility to focus on granular insights and details without losing sight of the bigger picture. “That’s where Bridgit Bench shines…” said Walsh, “It has become the executive team’s backbone for managing resources across our entire organization, which is invaluable. It’s become an excellent reporting tool for preconstruction and operations.”

In addition to facilitating streamlined data management, Bridgit Bench was crucial for managing the company’s staff across an expanding operation now active in seven states.

Walsh recalls Bridgit’s help in facilitating the smooth integration of new teams. “We had to tweak our workforce planning processes to accommodate a whole country view,” Walsh explained, “Without Bridgit Bench to help us scale our efforts, merging them into our organization would not have gone as smoothly as it did.”

The impact

Combining operational efficiencies with strategic improvements

As Power Construction has continued to evolve, Bridgit Bench remains an unchallenged piece of its larger tech stack. The platform’s ability to adapt, combined with its user-friendly interface, has won over even the most tech-averse members of the Power team. “Bridgit Bench is one of the most successful things my team has been involved with. It’s the shining star of my team’s involvement at the company,” said Walsh.

A dramatic reduction in manual work

With the help of Bridgit Bench, the Power Construction team has significantly reduced the manual efforts and data maintenance associated with workforce planning. “80% of all manual efforts have been removed,” explained Walsh, “which is directly reflected in our staffing meetings, which used to be spent ensuring the data is correct. That reduction means we can spend more time planning our staff strategically and aligning with projects.”

“It’s improved the efficiency of our meetings tenfold.”

Those efficiency gains have also been a boon for Power’s expansion efforts. Walsh explains, “We would have failed if we were still in our old process. Our staffing meetings would not have been possible with multiple leaders now responsible nationwide. We would be struggling.”

Cross-functional collaboration

Beyond impacting project and people management at Power, Bridgit Bench helps foster a culture of controlled transparency and collaboration. By democratizing access to workforce data, departments like marketing can leverage Bench for their own strategic planning, highlighting the ability to impact processes beyond traditional workforce planning. “The presentation you give a client when they’re entertaining five contractors is a huge deal,” said Walsh, “Marketing needs to find the right staff to include in this presentation packet. A project team that puts Power in the best position to win that client.”

“In the past, marketing never had access to the workforce data in Excel or our PDFs. Now, Bridgit Bench has become the source of truth for all staff and their locations, replacing our previous source of truth, CMiC.”

Matt Walsh, Operations Technology Manager, Power Construction

Cutting commute times to improve retention

For project teams, there’s never a guarantee that the next project will be close to home, something that Walsh remembers from his days on site. “Some jobs were two and a half hours away. That commute was brutal. Sometimes, you have to move across the country for a job. That often makes or breaks the decision to stay with the company.”

Using the Distance to Project feature in Bridgit Bench, the team at Power can track team member addresses to help ensure they’re never forcing a team member’s hand to find work elsewhere, something that would have been impossible in the past. “That location information is one of the most important things we track in Bridgit,” said Walsh, “Only the executive team sees that, but it’s one of the most important factors for Power now when deciding where to send staff.”

Working with Bridgit

A partnership built on open feedback and innovation

Reflecting on the three-year partnership with Bridgit, Walsh expressed his appreciation for the responsiveness and adaptability that have helped define the collaborative efforts between Power and Bridgit. “Bridgit is the benchmark we use to compare against all future partnerships,” said Walsh, “No software providers have ever come close from a partnership standpoint. They’re all just good, hardworking people.”