Staffing is not just an HR headache. It’s a formidable strategic lever to manage — and especially improve — the profitability of your projects. Still doubt it? Then ask yourself this question: do you know precisely the time spent on your projects… or only what you had initially planned?
If the answer is unclear, it’s probably because your profitability is too. Good news: we can fix that.
Profitability Is Not (Only) a Matter of Budget
Many managers think that profitability = good quote + good margin. This is partially true. But if your teams spend 30% more time than expected on a project, you may have signed a great contract, but your margin collapses.
This is where staffing comes into play.
It allows you to align the right people, at the right time, on the right missions. No more, no less. It’s this alignment that gives you a real view of the time consumed and therefore the real cost of your projects.
The 3 Key Indicators to Monitor (and Why They're Worth Gold)
Here are the three KPIs that every agency manager should monitor to manage profitability through staffing:
1. The Billable Utilization Rate
This is the percentage of time spent on billable missions compared to the total available time. Below 70%, it’s a red alert. You have an underutilization or poor allocation problem.
2. The Average Daily Cost per Profile
How much does a project manager really cost you per day? A UX designer? If you don’t know, you’re flying blind. Without control of internal costs, there’s no reliable profitability.
3. The Remaining Work (RAF) Project by Project
This is THE thermometer to anticipate overruns. If the RAF explodes and you continue to staff in a “we’ll see” mode, you risk turning a profitable project into a financial sinkhole.
Golden rule: a project that exceeds 10% of its planned time is already starting to seriously eat into the margin.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)
Let’s be honest, even the best-structured agencies sometimes fall into one of these traps:
- “Guesswork” Staffing : based on intuition rather than data. The result? Chronic over-staffing or under-staffing.
- Rigid assignments: a UX designer planned for 10 days stays for 10 days… even if they finished in 6.
- No link between project management and staffing: two worlds that ignore each other when they should be sleeping in the same bed.
The solution? Real-time management. Implement a unified view of staffing and project progress, with clear alerts in case of deviation.
The Direct Link Between Optimized Staffing and Profitability
When you staff intelligently, you:
- Reduce unproductive times (and therefore hidden costs).
- Maximize billable time per employee.
- Anticipate deviations and adapt in real-time.
- Accelerate your profitable projects… and dare to say no to those that are not.
The result? A better average profitability per project and a more balanced workload for your teams. Less stress, more margin. Not bad, right?
Take action (and equip yourself intelligently)
Wondering how to keep track of all this without spending your evenings on it? This is exactly where a tool like Furious comes into play.
Furious allows you to:
- Visualize at a glance the time consumed per project.
- Monitor real-time profitability (not at the end of the project when it’s too late).
- Simulate different staffing scenarios.
- Automatically alert in case of overload or underperformance.
In short, an essential copilot to transform your intuitions into profitable decisions.
Want to see how Furious can save time (and margin) for your agency?
Request a personalized demo and leave with concrete ideas to apply as soon as tomorrow.
