TL:DR We’ve launched Employment Dates to give you the ability to set hire and termination dates, as well as periods of unavailability for team members that can’t be allocated to projects for an extended period of time. It also lets you get an overview of the employment history and exact dates and times during which employees have and haven’t worked. The applications of this software are huge, and your human resources department will thank you for your foresight.
What is Employment Dates?
Employment Dates allow Bench customers to create periods of unavailability for team members, whatever the reason. This helps flesh out records of their employment history and maintain a proper record of benefits and earnings.
Here’s a quick run-through of a couple of use cases where Employment Dates will add value to your workforce planning.
Why are Employment Dates important?
There are often times in the construction industry when a company’s hiring manager will acquire manpower for future projects, whether it’s interns that won’t be starting for a few months or new hires that are being brought on board to start on specific projects in the future. Before, if you added profiles for new hires to Bridgit Bench prior to their start date, you wouldn’t have an accurate sense of your workforce size and its availability over a given time period, nor their employment history with you. Adversely, if you were to wait until new hires had started on the job, you would lose the ability to plan their project allocations ahead of time.
Well, wait no more.
Employment Dates allow you to add hire and termination dates to every profile in your Bridgit Bench account, as well as create periods of unavailability to block out times when your team members are unavailable for work. Whether it’s a new employee starting their period of employment in a couple of months, maternity, paternity, military, or medical leave, you can now have an accurate understanding of exactly how big (and how available) your workforce is at any given time.
Some companies will also have more detailed information regarding when their team members may be retiring or leaving the company. In this case, you are able to set a termination date, and should that date change, you can easily edit it. In the case that individuals aren’t necessarily leaving the company, but you also aren’t sure of the exact dates they may return, Employment Dates will allow you to create an open-ended period of unavailability that allows you to continue allocating those team members while they are still working, but not have their availability impact your future planning and workforce forecasting.
To put it simply, without impacting your workforce availability:
Hire dates allow you to plan ahead for new team members
Termination dates allow you to plan ahead for leaving team members
Periods of unavailability cover every extended time period that someone can’t be allocated to a project
Where do Employment Dates appear in Bridgit Bench?
Employment Dates will be found in your team members’ individual profiles. Here you can evaluate employment history and set exact dates for a new hire, termination, or period of unavailability, and include a reason as to why they are unavailable (don’t worry, these reasons can be kept private). Whatever the reason for a team member being unavailable, those periods of time will show on your People Gantt view as blacked out.
Employment Dates will appear in your individual profiles (pictured above), and periods of unavailability will appear in your People Gantt (pictured below).
What if someone is already allocated to a project and is in need of extended leave? No sweat, Bridgit Bench will simply do a status update, remove the person from the project for their period of unavailability and employment history, and create an unfilled role so you can easily allocate their temporary replacement.
You will also be notified if you are allocating an unavailable team member to a new project or job. From here, Bridgit Bench will automatically create a gap in the project allocation if the project extends longer than the period of unavailability. Bridgit Bench will also allocate them within the report right up until that period starts so that it extends beyond the length of the project allocation.
Here’s a quick run-through of a couple of use cases where Employment Dates will add value to your workforce planning.
Michel Richer
Michel Richer is the Content Marketing Manager at Bridgit. He got his start in the construction industry at an early age with a local restoration company. Michel is driven to propel the construction industry forward by helping to eliminate outdated, ineffective processes.
