What is a Staffing Manager and Why Your Professional Services Firm Needs One
What is a staffing manager?
Professional services companies often start out with a core team of people coordinating who goes to which project around a single table. At first, the team is homogenous, but over time, new competencies are added. Then, you might recruit someone from a different city. One day, you wake up with 300 consultants in different locations. Tens of new projects start every week, while others end. Your people have aspirations, learning goals, and things they excel at. It’s no longer possible for someone to handle staffing projects and allocating resources as a side hustle. You need a staffing manager!
What does a staffing manager do?
The primary task of a staffing manager is to ensure that the right people are placed on the right projects efficiently. In essence, what a staffing manager does is minimize “the bench”—the term for people without a project.
A staffing manager acts as the intermediary between the sales team, project managers, and team leads. When new deals come up, they discuss the project needs with the sales team essentially bridging the gap between sales and delivery. Then, they find the right people by searching for available staff in the resource allocation tool, sending messages in Slack or Teams, and calling people.
Why do you need a staffing manager?
You might need a staffing manager for multiple reasons:
- There are too many projects starting and ending for someone to handle as a side job
This is usually the first sign that you need a staffing manager. The quality of discussions with consultants goes down when there’s simply too much work to do. Someone needs to focus on staffing full-time. - People start feeling that the staffing process doesn’t serve them
As competition for competent people intensifies, dissatisfaction may grow if the staffing process isn’t transparent or smooth enough. For the company, one staffing decision is small, but for one consultant, it might determine their work-life for weeks, months, or even years. Ensuring smooth transitions is crucial. - Forecasting upcoming demand becomes difficult
Running a consulting business involves a constant balance between supply (available consultants) and demand (new projects). This is also called capacity planning. When you reach hundreds of consultants, and no one is focused solely on optimizing this balance, you might make costly hiring decisions. Staffing managers keep their finger on the pulse of the supply-and-demand equation. They know which skills are in demand and which may be underutilized. The staffing team should regularly update top management. - People business is about dealing with people, and you need to allocate time for that
Staffing managers listen to consultants, sell project ideas to them, handle project rotations, and try to optimize staffing for both people and the business. It’s crucial to handle these discussions well and humanely. This can set your company apart from the competition. Consultants are known to change companies due to a lack of transparency in staffing. - Skill alignment and career development
As consultants grow in their careers, they develop new skills and areas of expertise. A staffing manager ensures that consultants are assigned to projects that not only meet current needs but also align with their career growth. This helps retain top talent by offering opportunities that challenge and fit long-term goals. It's almost never possible to fit everyone in a project that perfectly supports their learning goals, but that should be the goal, nevertheless. - Improved client satisfaction
Client satisfaction often hinges on having the right people with the right skills working on their projects. A dedicated staffing manager ensures that the best-suited consultants are assigned based on both technical needs and client dynamics, leading to better project outcomes and stronger client relationships.
The Difference Between a Staffing Manager and a Resource Manager
In professional services, the roles of a staffing manager and a resource manager are often essential but can be easily confused. While both deal with assigning people to projects, their responsibilities differ.
Resource Manager:
A resource manager focuses on the allocation and utilization of people across various projects. Their primary responsibility is ensuring that resources (employees or consultants) are effectively distributed based on capacity and workload. They track availability and skills to optimize project assignments, especially in companies with fluctuating workloads and where individuals juggle multiple projects. Capacity planning and utilization rates are key metrics for this role. We wrote a whole article on becoming a great resource manager.
Staffing Manager:
A staffing manager, on the other hand, focuses on project staffing. Their role is to ensure that the right people with the right skills are assigned to the right projects. Staffing managers often work in consulting firms, where the priority is placing the best talent on projects from the outset. They are less concerned with ongoing workload management and focus on finding the right match for each project. We talk a lot about staffing in our Operating Method.
Key Differences:
While resource managers handle ongoing resource allocation and utilization across the organization, staffing managers focus on matching talent to specific projects. In some organizations, these roles may overlap or be combined, especially in smaller companies where one person might manage both tasks. Ultimately, the titles may reflect a company’s naming conventions more than distinct job functions.
Summary
A staffing manager is essential in professional services companies to ensure the right consultants are placed on the right projects. As companies grow, managing staffing becomes too complex to handle as a side job. A staffing manager minimizes downtime (the "bench") and works closely with sales and project managers to align staffing with business needs, making sure consultants are placed efficiently and appropriately.
Key signs you need a staffing manager include overwhelmed project management, dissatisfaction with the staffing process, and difficulty forecasting demand. Staffing managers improve transparency, ensure better career alignment for consultants, and boost client satisfaction by matching the best talent to projects. While a resource manager focuses on overall resource allocation and utilization, a staffing manager concentrates on filling specific project roles. In some companies, these roles may overlap or be combined.
