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Why a labor shortage is not a capacity problem, but a process problem

Janne Duivesteijn : Apr 15, 2026 3:46:20 PM

News

In nearly every conversation I have as a sales consultant with installation companies and contractors, the same theme comes up: “We have plenty of work, but not enough people.” At first glance, that seems like a capacity problem: more jobs than hands. But if you look a bit deeper at how the work is organized, you start to see something else. The issue is often not a shortage of people, but that the people who are there are not being used optimally.

The hidden costs of “a quick trip to the wholesaler”

A common example I hear: technicians driving to the wholesaler multiple times a week to pick up materials. It sounds logical, until you make it concrete. A technician can sometimes spend an hour waiting in line for an order worth just a few dozen euros. On paper, that’s a small expense, but in practice, it’s a costly decision.

Because that hour:

adds no progress to the job
causes delays in the schedule
and uses up time from scarce personnel who make the difference on-site

When you add this up across multiple technicians and weeks, it results in a structural loss of productivity. This is exactly what companies cannot afford.

Scarcity exists not only in people, but also in knowledge

What also stands out is the dependence on a small group of experienced employees. In many companies, critical product knowledge is concentrated in just a few people:

which materials are needed
which alternatives exist
where to order them best

As long as these people are present, the process seems to run smoothly. But as soon as they are unavailable—due to illness, departure, or retirement—friction immediately arises:

orders take longer
mistakes increase
less experienced employees become dependent

The bottleneck shifts from capacity to knowledge.

The real problem: how work is organized

What is happening here is not an incident. It is a structural pattern. Companies have often organized their processes around:

individual knowledge
ad hoc ordering
and physical dependence on the wholesaler

This worked in a time when:

staff were less scarce
and knowledge was more widely distributed

But in today’s market, this model has become vulnerable.

What happens if you change nothing

If this way of working continues to exist, you will see a number of predictable effects:

productivity lags behind while demand increases
workload on experienced employees increases
errors and failure costs grow
and the organization becomes less scalable

In other words: the staffing shortage is being amplified by the way the work is organized.

The shift that is needed

Companies that are making progress in this area take a different view of their processes. They ensure that:

materials are ordered in advance and on a project basis
technicians spend as little time as possible on logistics
and knowledge is not stored in people’s heads, but embedded in processes

By structuring materials and orders digitally, clarity, predictability, and less dependence on individuals are created.

A shortage of staff is not something that will be solved tomorrow, but the way you organize your work is something you do have control over. Companies that invest in this ensure that their existing capacity delivers more value, and are therefore better prepared for a market in which scarcity remains the norm.