How Interstates Forecasts Every Job — and Gives Cross-Country Movers Three Weeks' Notice Instead of Three Hours.

Give me the CliffsNotes version of who you are and the company. Jeremy Oliver, senior technologist with Interstates, in our innovation group. Andrew Baker, workforce manager — mostly workforce operations. Interstates is based out of Iowa and operates nationwide. We do electrical construction, automation, engineering, and fabrication. We're close to about 1,800 full-time employees across 11 or 12 regional locations, plus a traveling group that operates anywhere in the lower 48.

What does it mean to have visibility into a workforce that size, spread across that geography and project scope? Having that visibility gives us the capability to make big decisions that affect the future of the company. We know who we have, where we have them, how long they're going to be there, and where all the gaps are that can be filled. When prospective work comes in the door, we can quickly assess: does it fit the time frame, can we meet the licensing and credentialing needs. We have enough time to work through those issues ahead of time so that by the time the project arrives, we can meet them.

How does RIVET fit in? We forecast in RIVET. All of our field personnel are scheduled there — any job they're on, we schedule them. We also forecast every current and prospective job, so we know, based on the project timelines and sizes, what our labor demand is and where it lines out on a calendar.

You forecast all your projects? Every one of them. Why is that important? Why wouldn't you? People say their people will never do it. In my position I couldn't sleep at night if I didn't — I'd always be worrying about the decision that's made: can we actually do it or not. It's peace of mind. So you're not pursuing work unless it fits your labor forecast — typically. Sometimes there are directives to pursue, but then we know where we sit. It influences our hiring needs — I can go to recruiting and know what we need to hire, when, and what credentials. It informs training and onboarding capacity, what we need when we bring on more apprentices, the capacity of our instructors. That forecast affects everything down the line.

What would you say to somebody who doesn't forecast their projects? How high is your blood pressure? I couldn't do this job without it, so I wouldn't want to do this job without it. From an innovation perspective, we look at that forecast to understand the impact a project will have based on our project mix — small, medium, large, extra-large. We've found that extremely valuable.

What does the data mean for the company as a portfolio? It helps us understand where our jobs are performing, compare them against an idealized state, and make better decisions — do we add more people, fewer, certain types — and understand how that mix impacts performance.

Tell me about your labor planning team. We operate a couple of ways. Regional offices have local pools and are responsible for planning and deploying those folks; they also use RIVET. With our traveling group — about 350 full-time, flexing up to around 550 — we have a small team. Mainly I focus on the forecast and forward-looking items. We have two workforce planners, split by job type: one focuses on the data center lane, which is demanding with a lot of certification and compliance, and another on the rest of the projects. Then a workforce coordinator does the rubber-meets-the-road work — dispatching, lining up screenings and backgrounds, making sure trainings are assigned. That's the team for about 1,500 to 2,000 employees.

Do you hear less from job sites about people they didn't need or request? Oh, yeah, by far. Using RIVET, we communicate that really well — they can see what's coming. Very rarely do we get Friday-afternoon fire drills. We typically know weeks in advance whether people are going to a job. Our goal with project teams is to forecast all the way to the end of the job, lock a four-week look-ahead, and firm up three weeks out. When our employees travel and may be at a job 12 months before uprooting across the country, we want to give them at least 3 to 4 weeks to plan the move. The reactive things still come up, but we can react quickly — I pull up the map: who's closest that fits the need.

Is labor your greatest risk or advantage? There's extreme comfort in understanding where your labor is and what you can allocate. If it's unknown, you're not sure if you can take on that project or if it's staffed appropriately. Is your forecasting an advantage versus other contractors? I think we have an advantage — we've got the tools that help us deliver on what we say we're going to do. If we can see a cliff coming, or know work will accelerate, we can adapt and plan quickly. We don't have a bench; our goal is utilization across the board, keeping people working.

Does it impact your employees' experience? Everybody wants more notice. The difference between three weeks' notice on a move versus three hours. That ties into our family core value — giving people as much notice as we can about when they'll uproot their family and move across the country.

You were the first company I drove up to, in Sioux Center, north of Sioux City — the first time I heard a company talk about "one Interstates, one workforce, one company," an open floor plan, a culture from top to bottom. How did RIVET play into that? Before, we were technically several companies under one parent, and even on the construction side it felt fragmented — regional offices in their own silos. RIVET has helped promote collaboration and teamwork across the organization. Our regional and project managers have visibility into what the other groups are doing. If Texas is swamped and the national traveling group has capacity, we can shift people to Texas instead of hiring up and then not having enough work to keep them.

If you graded labor planning before RIVET, 0 to 100%, where were you? Probably 50 to 60%. What we could do was pretty good, but it was extremely manual and not consistent across the organization — some pockets did it extremely well, like our national construction group, but it didn't carry over to the regional offices. After these tools, where are you today? Probably a 75, because we've got a long way to go — the tool is enabling us, but we're still not utilizing it to its full potential, and we have internal processes to adjust. It's a continuous-improvement game; I don't think perfect is achievable.

Did RIVET help you get 1% better? RIVET helped us get many, many percent better. My favorite part is the people — there aren't many companies that will listen to their users and implement changes for the better. The support is fantastic; if I have a problem, I reach out on chat or email and generally have a response within the hour, where a prior vendor took days or weeks with canned answers. An electrical contractor sits down at a bar — what do you tell them about RIVET? First I'd ask how they're doing labor planning today. I don't think there's anything else out there that gives you the insight we get with this tool, or that has the people RIVET has. If you're not using it — I don't know how I'd do this job without it.

Was there a job RIVET helped you make or save money on? The tool gives us the cues to have the critical conversations and fix a problem before it becomes one. Every schedule gets compressed because nothing falls on time. If a schedule slips and we send people in 50% productive because the work isn't ready, we've probably lost $65,000 to $80,000, and it sets a bad tone for the job. When we catch those things early enough, they save money.