Bench Report

The one skill that I always vouch for is process improvement in the field of IT operations. When working for my previous employer made several process improvements, which are still continued as a ritual. All the process improvements or best practices were implemented after a complete brainstorming with the people on the ground and then details shared with the leadership for their approval.

 If you are in IT industry and especially in a service-based company you can understand this better and appreciate it. For any Service based or consulting firm, every associate is a revenue. Need to convert every hour of our associates to Dollar value; this will help to meet our top and bottom line – aka Revenue and Profit margin. 

Planning to share one of the process improvements - Evolution of the Bench report.

In the IT sector, whenever there is demand or a new requirement open, PM checks for the internal pool/bench and then only takes the lateral hiring route or goes to market.

What is Bench / Redeployment Pool? The bench or bench period is the time between the assignments. The bench policy varies from company to company. 

There are 2 types of Benches –

1 For the Practice (as the skills are niche / specialized for the practice -

AWS / Azure / GCP / MSBI / Informatica /Python) - PDP (Practice Deployable Pool).

 

2 Corporate (common skillsets - PM, BSA, Testers, Java )  CDP (Corporate Deployable Pool)

 

As a combo, the team gets deployed for the client, and once the assignment/project is done they return to their respective benches. Based on the skillsets acquired over time, the associates move across the benches. For us Ops, billing is a priority at the same time fulfill the associate’s aspiration too.

 As Ops for the Practice had developed the Bench report - which is divided into 7 sections. 

 1. PDP - Practice Deployable Pool. This section will have the details of the associate who is currently on the bench and also the associate who is released from the project with the future effective date. As per policy the releasing account should give a minimum of 2 weeks’ notice. Hence to have optimal utilization the respective PM, will release the associate when they are billable with future effective date. Else PM will carry the associate in their account when they are non-billable to serve the 2 weeks’ notice. Yes, discipline counts for this…. NO Exceptions. Pre-COVID also included Travel Ready TR associates, available for deployment. TR associates have been included both the ways, offshore to onsite and onsite to offshore.

 For every section Associate details are published like - Emp ID, Name, Designation, Contact #, Skillsets, Release/d date, Available from. Pre-Covid had the location of the associate and whether the associate was flexible on the location too. Post-Covid as most of the demands are virtual, can ignore it for now. 

Also in case, no demands are matching the skillset,  will release the associate to the Corporate deployable pool. 

2. To overcome the resourcing challenges - have been hiring more than 150 associates every year through various alternate supply channels. 

Hire & Train / Train & Hire / Campus hire / Up or cross skilled -all these associates were available with a cost holiday. Most of the major clients acknowledge these hiring strategies and supported us. As this is an ongoing effort, do publish the availability calendar with the PMs. Once the cohort is identified,  do publish the associate level details - they will be deployed on completion of their training.

 3. This section is for associates who go on FMLA (Short term Disability) / Visa issues / Leave of absence with their tentative return dates. So, the managers can map them to upcoming opportunities. 

 4. Also publish associates whose assignments are ending in the next 5 weeks. Irrespective of their assignment is marked complete or not. This will help the respective PM to work on the contract and have them extended in the system as needed, to have these associate's assignments extended too. In case there is a delay in extensions of the contract, PM needs to work on the associate releases.

 5. In this critical section, list all the associates with discrepancies. Like their billability is nil, (NBL) or missing assignments - unassigned or under-assigned (< 100 % allocation). This helps to reconcile and fix the gaps. Extreme cases can be released and considered for other billable opportunities.

 6. The following section will include associates who are proactively hired or to be hired based on their skillsets. So, the managers can map them to upcoming opportunities. This includes primarily full-time hires and sometimes Subcons or Contractors too. This section is a luxury to have, based on the budget available, need to plan. Also, this has to be meticulously calculated and the hiring process initiated with the Talent acquisition team.

7.  The last section is where we treat our Subcons also like our employees - include CWR Released / To be Released as well, so we can redeploy them.

Also, there are various applications/systems,  teams working on each activity and the Resource / Workforce manager is responsible for collating these details and compiling this BR.

The one feature that I am proud of is having an adjustment that was totally under our Ops control. As per the norm, need to carry only 1% to 1.5% of the practice headcount in PDP at any point in time.  Based on the number of associates in PDP switched the PDP associates’ availability from soft-lock mode to FCFS basis mode. When the volume is high, go with FCFS mode. When it is low or BAU (Business as usual)  go with soft lock mode. This feature was not a corporate standard, but we in the practice implemented it as needed.  When executing this switch both the PMs and the associates are aware and they play it accordingly. In the end,  need to place our associates in a billable role ASAP. Both the associate is happy, PM /client is happy. It is a Win-Win for all, yes it is copacetic.

With this BR - any PM who is having a burning demand can map the available associate with less hassle. Else work with the recruiter for lateral profiles FTE/CWR from the market. This report is considered as one of the sources of truth – a one-stop-shop, which helped to improve the utilization by 6%. Also ensured that all stakeholders involved in Resourcing, Project management, including the leadership get a copy of this Bench report. Earlier published all working days, but as the sections started increasing, it was published twice every week.  

 Lessons learned. Given an opportunity to implement this best practice, I am well equipped.