New skills search and ranking algorithm features help enterprise services teams maximize workforce talent utilization

Upland PSA has delivered new capabilities designed to help professional services teams maximize the skills available across their organization’s entire workforce.

“Our skills matching feature makes it easier for professional services teams to find the people with the right skills needed to deliver billable and non-billable client work,” said Rafat Hilal, Senior Director of Product at Upland. “This means services teams can collaborate more closely with other cross-functional leaders to be more strategic in their operations and tap into more diverse talent pools to bring even more value to their clients.”

Support for workforce trends

The shift to a hybrid work model and internal gig economy movement has led to an evolution in workforce planning and resource management. One of the outcomes of this shift is the opportunity for business leaders to adopt a skills-first mindset to hiring talent and making the best use of staff regardless of their job role or where they’re located in the world. Rather than limit people to a particular role, a skills-based approach enables people to work on more things outside of their specific job function that match their interests, ability, experience, and career goals.

With this release, Upland PSA project managers and resource leaders have more flexibility to match the best available talent required for client work. At the same time, line managers will gain complete visibility of employee capacity and demand by role, skill and geography based on staff availability within a set period, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. This will take into account all of the work people do outside of their immediate role to make sure staff can maintain a balanced workload, reducing the risk of being over-worked.

Let your talent shine

Additionally, Gartner® Chief of Research, Chris Howard, states, “Gartner research shows that a human-centric approach, which provides people with more control over their work and work environment, also makes them more productive. But it requires employers to rethink their approach, from making hybrid work models human-centric, not location-centric, to providing employers with flexibility to balance personal needs and autonomy to achieve business outcomes.”

The new resource matching feature in Upland PSA allows resources to put their skills and experience to use in many ways to help their organization reach its goals. Further, reports can be generated in Upland PSA to show what the most in demand skills are, which can then be used to inform workforce management strategies to hire full-time employees or build a bench strength of contractors. This information will enable line managers to proactively help staff put their skills to the best use so they can learn and grow in their career.

This new feature in Upland PSA provides additional benefits, including:

• Leverage existing systems: The skills search generates results quickly by filtering through the skills inventory database in Upland PSA or through the integration with an HCM system. This reduces the need to verify skills and availability of resources in multiple systems.
• More search flexibility: The skills search criteria can be set to mandatory or optional, generating more accurate search results for people or groups of people with associated skills. This criteria can be set with specific weighted levels to ensure resources are ranked based on the importance to the project. Criteria can include options such as skills, proficiency level, location, and availability (daily, weekly, or monthly).
• Best match ranking: The best available resources are then ranked with a matching score, which will help identify to best possible skills match for the project. In addition, the ranking feature gives project and resource managers more flexibility to maintain healthy profit margins for billable work because they can quickly calculate the impact of assigning resources on the overall project budget.

Leading global professional services organizations trust Upland PSA to save time with automation and boost profits. Visit https://uplandsoftware.com/psa/ for additional benefits.

Source:

Gartner, Employees Seek Personal Value and Purpose at Work. Be prepared to deliver., January 13, 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.