Located in South Florida and founded in 2001, Link Construction Group has become one of the area’s premier construction companies.

There are a few reasons that the firm, which employs approximately 60 people, can swing above its’ weight class. Link is focused on completing projects on time and within budget, as well as delivering what they promise to their clients. The strategy is clearly working as they have a high percentage of repeat clients.

Internally, Link is a family atmosphere. “We work hard and get the job done,” says Mike Quesada, Vice President of Construction, “yet it’s a healthy work environment, and people enjoy coming to work here.”

Link, whose services include general contracting, construction management, and design-build, works on a wide variety of projects, such as industrial buildings, office buildings, schools, and retail.

THE CHALLENGE

At Link, their goal is to keep construction and pre-construction in sync. This helps them as they strive to match the most appropriate team for each project. It also enables the company to keep resource planning top of mind in order to keep employees working consistently and avoid downtime. 

Keeping employees on staff when they are not productive eats in at budgets. However, “We are not the type of company that lays people off when a project ends only to rehire them later when a new project begins,” says Quesada. “We believe we have the best personnel in the business, and we keep them even if they have to wait for another project.” This feeds into the company’s family-type culture.

Link is constantly trying to find the right balance in terms of taking on projects and keeping staff busy, but not overworked.

THE SOLUTION

In the past, Link managed their workforce planning in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The company tracks approximately 30 people, over 20 current projects, and up to 15 upcoming projects.

Although Excel did enable Link to do workforce planning, it was not efficient, and Quesada describes the workforce planning process “as going into exile.” The process involved him shutting the door to his office for a few hours and reviewing multiple scenarios while studying a two-sheet Excel workbook. “Because using the Excel spreadsheet was a tedious process, it wouldn’t get updated as frequently as it should have,” says Quesada.

When Quesada and the team at Link reviewed Bridgit Bench, one thing stood out about the workforce management tool, “The main thing that caught my attention was how much more efficient it was than Excel,” says Guido del Valle, Director of Operations at Link.

Because Bridgit Bench is so simple and quick, the Link team uses it regularly.

Since the new workforce management tool is being updated regularly, the information the team can get out of it is more useful. Link uses a filter to review pending jobs and employee availability. Because it’s easy to make changes to resource planning, they run different scenarios till they find the team they want to assign. “We’re able to be more precise and match the right team to an upcoming project,” says del Valle. 

“After we began using the tool, we had ideas for improvement,” says del Valle. When Link conveyed these ideas, they learned Bridgit had already begun making the changes. He adds, “Bridgit is diligently making changes that are helpful for the system.”

“When Bridgit makes changes, they’re helpful,” says Quesada, “so we are looking forward to seeing them,” says Quesada.

With their new workforce management tool, Link can easily keep their data up to date. Working with information that is accurate helps the firm create teams that will best serve their clients and to fulfill the promises they make. Putting employees on projects that suit their skills also keeps them happy which is part of Link’s goal of making the workforce a family atmosphere.