Three Steps to Prepare Your Company for Work from the American Jobs Plan

The American Jobs Plan is a response to the decades-long struggle to maintain this country’s infrastructure. Valued at more than $2.3 trillion, this plan serves as a long-overdue investment in our country’s highways, bridges and communities that will in turn create millions of jobs to rebuild America’s infrastructure.

The plan will provide an abundance of opportunities in the upcoming months and years for construction companies. With $1.3 trillion allocated to a combination of community and transportation infrastructure spending to build, repair and upgrade highways; provide affordable housing; build new schools; and more, this plan is a positive step for contractors looking to expand their work.

Once in place, the U.S. government and its counterparts will look to allocate these projects to the most qualified and best fit. If you’re interested in being considered for any of these upcoming projects, ensure your internal business functions are prepared to handle the influx of new work. Here are three things you should start to do now:

1. Make sure your current Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is capable of handling this upcoming, potential work.

If you find yourself performing functions outside your current system to overcompensate for the system’s limited functionality, you may need to consider a new system. Your ERP should be able to easily size to your business needs and adapt to market changes. Examples of deliverables your ERP system should be able to perform include:

• Generating required payroll reports, such as certified payroll report, EEOC reports, and union reporting.
• Forecasting field hours by easily seeing the number of hours you budgeted compared to actuals and what still remains.
• Knowing your committed cost so you can accurately forecast your cost to complete the work.
• Work-in-Progress (WIP) reports to calculate over and under billing requests from banks and bonding companies.
• Generating the proper billing documents, such as an American Institute of Architects (AIA) contract.

2. Check that your complementary products and services all work together.

Does your payroll work well with your ERP system? How do your benefits or payment processes fit into your other business systems? Being able to have a marketplace of products that enhance your current product or provide additional services can be an added benefit. Take a look at Deltek’s Partner Marketplace to see if our products and partners can be a good fit for your business needs.

3. Confirm your employees have the skills they need to perform the jobs.

To best set yourself up for success with the upcoming influx of work, ensure that not only your field staff is licensed and certified to perform the work, but that your internal team members are positioned to best serve your company’s needs. Investing in training can result in better positioning for future work from an overall business perspective.

By reviewing your current company’s infrastructure, you will be in a better place to excel when the work becomes available. Solid infrastructure leads to greater efficiency, which will result in bottom line profits.