Bridgit: Optimizing Construction Workforce Management

The construction industry has always been slower to adopt new technology. The COVID-19 pandemic and drive to digitalization has accelerated the need for new processes in the construction space. However, even with the migration to a tech friendly approach, a lack of data and insight into project and workforce demands can cause delays, last-minute hiring, and projects being awarded without the support to deliver them on time.

At this juncture, Bridgit, a workforce planning solution provider, is redefining the way general contractors manage their workforce. Bridgit’s mission is simple – to help the construction industry maximize profits by taking a people-first approach. Workforce Intelligence from Bridgit transforms workforce data into actionable insights that inform an organization’s strategic and tactical business decisions.

“Our solution provides the right information to the right people so that they can make the best decisions for their people and their company with a completely automated process,” explains Bridgit Co-Founder & CEO, Mallorie Brodie.

Bridgit Bench, the company’s flagship product, is the number one workforce planning software trusted by top general contractors across the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Bridgit Bench provides teams with real-time updates, people and project visibility, next-generation forecasting, and seamless integrations that easily connect to existing tech solutions with no manual updates required. 

Manage people, not spreadsheets

Bridgit Bench was built in consultation with general contractors to drive operational efficiency and workforce effectiveness. Project roles and allocations are updated in real-time and those changes are visible to all users which means less time spent on staffing and more time focused on business objectives.  

“It’s really important to us that Bridgit Bench easily integrates into a contractor’s existing tech stack. Our customers deserve to have the information they need without wasting time doing double data entry.” says Brodie.

By offering integrations with project management systems, HR tools, and CRMs, there is significant time savings and a single source of truth for information, enabling contractors to plan their workforce seamlessly.

“Our out-of-the-box integrations make it easy to sync data with other leading construction software. We also have an Open API to support a seamless flow of information with any tool in our customers’ belt.” adds Bridgit Co-Founder & COO, Lauren Lake.

By providing real-time insights, and empowering teams to collaborate on workforce needs no matter their location, Bridgit Bench provides complete employee oversight – from current and future projects to overlapping workload issues. By easily identifying under- and over-allocated staff it’s easy to fix problems before they have an impact on completing projects.

The software solution provides a full project history for every team member while also tracking skills, experience, and certifications. Users can create custom fields like “willingness to travel” or track relevant metrics and ensure they’re always assigning the best person for any given project.

Bridgit Bench is an adaptive, flexible construction workforce management solution that supports customization at every level, including project and people fields, project roles and phases, and permission groups. Enterprise contractors can even assign projects and people to “Groups” that are broken down by different office locations, allowing them to get a holistic view of the company, or narrow their focus to a specific region. By centralizing an entire organization’s workforce strategy, different offices can share best practices, new strategies, and even available resources.

By visualizing an entire project timeline and workforce management flow, managers can maintain and meet workforce needs. With next-generation forecasting, a 5-year look ahead, and an increased understanding of what their workforce looks like, operations staff are saving time and ensuring projects stay on budget. “We’re actually enabling VPs of Operations to be more strategic with their time, and that feeds into the transparency around data. They no longer have to spend their time on that data management,” says Brodie.

Built by General Contractors for General Contractors

What drives Bridgit to keep innovating and iterating is the commitment to the industry and the experience of its founders. Founded in 2012, Bridgit released their first product, Bridgit Field, in 2014 after two years of research and visiting construction sites to hear from general contractors about what types of tools would make their jobs easier.

With family ties to the construction industry, Brodie and Lake both knew the best approach to building meaningful solutions was to ask questions and gain a deep understanding of the challenges being faced. That level of understanding and desire to solve problems is what makes Bridgit a stand out construction software provider today and continues to inform the development of Bridgit Bench. The company has assembled a Customer Advisory Board as a way to improve its offerings and has released over 60 features in 2022 alone based on direct feedback from their customers.

Looking ahead

Today, Bridgit is on its way to being the go-to workforce planning solution for top general contractors. With 25% of the ENR Top 400 using Bridgit Bench, the team is expanding their product offering in international markets. “We plan to put greater emphasis on these international markets and to further expand as there’s customer demand for a workforce planning solution in these new geographic segments,” says Lake.

“As a business it’s critical to listen to our customers and really make sure that they can participate in guiding the product roadmap. We’re incredibly focused on workforce planning and helping our customers get the most out of their strategy,” shared Brodie. “We’ve made a lot of progress creating a more effective and efficient workforce planning process. We owe that to our incredible customers, and a team that is borderline obsessed with solving their problems. We’re excited to continue delivering an exceptional experience and transitioning an entire industry to managing their people instead of a series of spreadsheets.