Resource Managers: Myths, Reality and an Inside View.
Date
There are many myths and misconceptions about different roles and professions in the IT world. One of such mysterious and at the same time key figures is the Resource Manager.
Let’s determine what this mysterious professional really does, what challenges one faces, destroy, or on the contrary, confirm some myths that have accumulated around this job. Speroteck’s Resource Department will help us in this important task – our resource managers will open the veil of secrecy and share some pitfalls of their work.
A Resource Manager by definition is a professional who has planning, management and coordination skills, as well as a deep understanding of the specifics of the IT industry. This professional must have excellent communication skills, the ability to quickly solve problems and the ability to work in a dynamic environment.
Myth 1: A Resource Manager is a superhero who always knows everything about everyone and what to do for every employee of the company.
Expectations: A Resource Manager is a guru who instantly solves any problems related to load distribution and people in general. He has a supernatural ability to predict the future and always knows how many specialists will be needed for each project, be it the launch of a startup or a space mission to Mars.
Let’s listen to the opinions of our resource department on this matter, will this myth actually turn out to be a real fact?
Oksana Pinchuk (Head of Resource Department)
“A Resource Manager is a person who skillfully and expertly handles all information on the company’s resources (on all specialists involved in certain projects). This is a kind of buffer zone between the project team and the HR department.
For most team members, a large part of the work of resource managers remains unknown, so they perceive us as those who are just constantly twitching in chats with reminders to fill trackers on time. And some generally think that we are something like Project Managers.”
Anastasiia Fedorushchenko (Resource Manager)
“A Resource Manager in general, as a part of the HR team, is the most versatile employee, as there is always some interesting task that no one knows how to do – and the Resource Manager still has to complete it.
A Resource Manager is a person who:
- will wake you up on Monday morning with the message “Did you fill out the trackers, Desdemona?”
- during the day he can ask “what did you do yesterday?) and how many hours of tasks were there?) and free time is planned for tomorrow?” (such information is necessary for the Daily report)
- paints your resume in such technical colors that clients will fight for you
- and will worry about your health more than its own, keeping track of your sick days.
Therefore, I believe that the Resource Manager is really a superhero who will always come to the rescue with any problem (and if it is not solved, then at least Resource Manager will direct you to a person who will definitely be able to help with your question).”
Oleksandr Saramok (Resource Manager):
“In my opinion, a Resource Manager is a person who ideally knows absolutely everything about all team members: their work schedule, workload, contact information, date of birth, even when they have a vacation planned, or can instantly find all the necessary information upon request in the relevant reports.
And in general, this is a person who knows exactly where and what to find, and how to help any team member maintain an important balance between work and rest.”
Myth 2: A Resource Manager simply assigns people to projects.
Expectations: What is difficult in the work of a Resource Manager? I took the list of employees, quickly scattered them among the projects, drank coffee and went home. All you need is to be able to tick boxes and fill in the tables.
In fact, it is more like trying to put together a puzzle, where more than half of the pieces are constantly changing position and shape. It should be taken into account that each employee is not just an abstract resource, but a person with his own skills, abilities, preferences, career ambitions and character. Plus, adapt to the requests and requirements of customers and partners.
Let’s see what tasks and responsibilities Speroteck Resource Managers actually have.
Oksana Pinchuk (Head of Resource Department)
“Preparation of all the necessary information for each team member to join the project, processing information about the team’s workload and participation in the process of resource allocation between projects.
The IT field is very dynamic, so you need to always be ready for new requirements that it dictates to us. There is also a certain unevenness of workload, that is, in a certain period you can relax a little and do your daily work at a leisurely pace. And then you read in the chat “Hi!” and you begin to urgently prepare a completely new portfolio format for several people at the same time.”
Anastasiia Fedorushchenko (Resource Manager)
“At the moment, my duties include:
- clock reconciliation between trackers, help with trackers patching checking the correctness of displaying the hours in trackers
- all work aspects are related to different trackers (review of unsubmitted timesheets and submission of blank timesheets; tracking of timesheet issues, such as missing project codes, timesheets that are not approved for a long time, rejected or deleted from the system altogether
- assistance with partner accounts (starting with a request to create an account; help with setting up an authenticator/ email signature / vpn; restoring access to the account and resetting passwords; requests for unlocking the account and finding reasons and solving other possible problems that occur during work)
- tracking the timely completion of partner security trainings
- collection and systematization of information on current skills of team members
- and any other questions that management or the team may have (answers to questions about the planned workload on projects, generation of workload reports for analysis of past periods, surveys, etc.).”
Oleksandr Saramok (Resource Manager)
“My tasks include:
- Checking the fullness of all the necessary trackers and their careful comparison with each other;
- Monitoring the workload of all team members on all projects;
- Helping team members with questions about workload, days off, sick days, vacations;
- Checking account statuses and updating them in a timely manner;
- Reminding team members about timely completion of professional trainings;
- Monitoring the correct submission of weekend/holiday requests.”
As you can see, the work duties of resource managers are very diverse and cover a wide range of tasks. And yes, there are really enough plates for any taste)
Myth 3: A Resource Manager always finds the perfect balance and can easily satisfy absolutely all requests.
Expectations: It seems that the Resource Manager is a wizard who fulfills the wishes of all project managers and creates a perfect world of interaction between the team and customers. Asked for the best developers? Please! Need all of them at once? A minute and they are hard at work on your project! All projects are going according to plan, no one is overworked, everyone is satisfied and happy.And what’s in reality? In fact, the Resource Manager is a master of compromises and constantly faces new challenges and difficulties.
It is necessary to constantly agree with all participants in the dialogue, to explain why one project is more important than another, and why Max from the development team cannot clone himself to work full-time on two projects at the same time.
There is always maneuvering between deficit and surplus. Sometimes the project urgently needs additional resources, and sometimes it is necessary to look for at least some work for employees so that they do not sit on the bench and do not get bored.
What qualities and skills should an ideal Resource Manager possess in order to operate without problems with all this dynamic data and successfully cope with all challenges?
Oksana Pinchuk (Head of Resource Department)
“Oh, the first and most important thing is flexibility. In the selection of the manner of communication, in the organization of the working space and time interval. The second is the ability to simultaneously operate a large amount of information, often even for different processes that run in parallel.”
“And yes, you must constantly grow professionally, look for new approaches to communication, methods of processing data and making your work easier.
For myself, I currently single out two directions of development: first, of course, Artificial Intelligence. I already use certain tools in my work, but I understand that this is just a drop in the ocean and I need to dig deeper. And secondly, for me it is relevant to study modern approaches and requirements in creating a high-quality portfolio of an employee.”
Anastasiia Fedorushchenko (Resource Manager)
“In my opinion, the ideal Resource Manager is a sociable person with an impeccable memory and hyper-responsibility for his tasks.”
“Personally, I really like working with numbers and tables, so for me every Monday, when I spend hours comparing different trackers, is a day of meditation and monotonous work, which is calming, even though it takes quite a lot of time. The most difficult element so far is understanding the technical skills of our team. When selecting the right person for a certain project, it is necessary to understand and see that the team member has the necessary skills. And since the IT field is expanding and developing very quickly, it is very difficult to keep track of all directions (especially for a person who has an education far from IT)”
Oleksandr Saramok (Resource Manager)
“For a Resource Manager, it is necessary to be able to conduct a dialogue clearly and understandably, to be able to analyze and process information as quickly as possible, and in a short period of time to find an answer to an urgent question or quickly find the person who can help with the task.”
“You also need to have a lot of patience, because the most difficult thing is waiting for a response from the team, because sometimes you understand that the necessary solution to a problem depends on the answer of a specific team member. For me personally, the biggest challenge is finding the right approach to effective problem solving.”
So, summing up all of the above, we can confidently say that a Resource Manager is a master of compromises and a real strategist.
This is work that requires not only professional knowledge and skills, but also a well-developed intuition, the ability to listen and understand people, as well as the ability to quickly adapt and cope with stress, deadlines, tasks and constantly changing demands, both from employees and and from customers and management.
And despite all its modesty, this is a really important role, because in the end, the company’s success often depends on how efficiently and optimally resources are allocated, which allows projects to be completed on time and within the budget.
#Speroteck Dream Team