Most agencies I work with are back in the office in some form. A few days a week for some, full time for others. But when I walk around a lot of studios, I see something that hasn't changed since 2020. People sitting a few desks apart, messaging each other on Slack. Status updates going into a system with nobody checking they've landed. Briefs sent by email on the assumption that the right person has read them and knows what to do.
We came back to the office, but a lot of us brought our remote working habits with us. For most roles, that's manageable. For resource management, it's a real problem.
Resource management is about people, not spreadsheets
When founders think about resource management, they often picture someone sat at a desk, moving blocks around a schedule and making sure nobody's booked at 150%. That's part of it. But the planner is just a record of decisions. The real job is being the connector between teams.
A good resource manager makes sure the account manager has the brief ready before the creative is booked. They check the creative has understood the brief and can do it in the time allowed. They spot that a job is going to slip before it slips. They know who's waiting on what, and they chase it.
None of that happens by looking at a screen. It happens by talking to people. The best resource managers I've worked with are the best communicators. They don't book someone in and assume it'll get done. They check in. Then they check in again.
The risk of relying on the system
Agency systems are great at telling you what's supposed to happen. They're not so good at telling you what's actually happening.
A task can sit at "in progress" for days while the designer is stuck waiting for feedback. A brief can be marked as sent while the creative is still unclear on what the client wants.
If your resource manager is relying on the system to tell them how things are going, they'll always be a step behind. By the time a problem shows up on screen, it's usually already cost you time and money.
What getting up from the desk looks like
When I say resource management isn't a desk job, I mean it quite literally. In practice it looks like this.
- Walking the studio - going over to the creative team and asking how a job is going. Not "are you ok?" but "have you got everything you need for this?"
- Checking briefs before work starts - asking the account team when the brief will be ready, and asking the creative if it makes sense.
- Short, regular status catch-ups - ten minutes, standing up, focused on what's at risk this week.
- Checking capacity with people, not just the planner - the schedule might say someone has time. They might tell you something different.
- Making sure ways of working are followed - if amends are meant to go through the account manager, is that actually happening?
- Picking up the phone - a two-minute call will often sort out something that would take a day of back and forth on email.
If your team is remote
Not every agency is back in the office, and that's fine. The principle doesn't change. You still need to be active rather than waiting for information to come to you.
That means open lines of communication, whatever works for your team. A quick call, a WhatsApp, a direct message rather than a post in a busy channel. It means booking short check-ins instead of waiting for people to come to you. And it means being visible, so people know who to go to when something isn't right.
The channel matters less than the habit. The habit is reaching out before there's a problem.
Where automation fits
I'm a big fan of automation. Most agencies should be using far more of it than they are. Automated reminders, status updates, timesheet prompts, reporting - all of this frees up time.
But it's right time, right place. Automation should take the admin off your resource manager's plate so they have more time to talk to people. It shouldn't replace those conversations. If your team only finds out about changes through a notification, something's missing.
The part AI can't do
AI and automation will take on more of the admin in agencies, and that's no bad thing. Updating schedules, sending reminders, pulling reports - the less time a resource manager spends on that, the better.
But resource management is about people, and people don't always tell you when something's wrong.
A good resource manager notices when a designer has gone quiet, or when someone has been the last one in the studio three nights running. They can tell from a two-minute chat that someone is stressed, even when the resource chart says everything's fine. And they don't just notice it - they help. That might mean moving a deadline, bringing in a freelancer, taking a job off someone's plate or sitting down with them to work out what needs to happen first.
They also pick up on the things that never make it into a system. Two teams with different ideas of what "done" means. An account manager who has promised the client something the studio doesn't know about yet. A creative who's too polite to say the brief doesn't make sense.
That's human work. It comes from trust, and trust comes from being around, asking questions and showing people you've got their back.
It always comes back to communication
When I look back at the jobs that went wrong in agencies I've worked with, very few came down to a lack of talent or the wrong tools. Most cock-ups come down to poor communication. A brief that wasn't clear. A change nobody passed on. A deadline someone assumed everyone knew about. A system can't fix that on its own. People can.
So whether your team is in the studio five days a week or spread across the country, the job of a resource manager is the same. Get up from the desk. Talk to people. Check in, then check in again. Let the tech support that, not stand in for it.
