Retain 2.0 puts skills at the heart of everything. It's the first platform that unifies resource planning across your entire business, powered by skills intelligence, behavioural insights, and AI.
Before, businesses needed separate tools for different departments; one system for Audit and Tax, another for Advisory, yet another for Consulting. This created expensive silos and disconnected data. Retain 2.0 changes all that with one comprehensive platform that understands not just who's available, but exactly what they can do.
🖱️Retain 2.0 transforms resource planning with skills intelligence and AI-powered capabilities, giving you one unified platform for all your resource management needs. Book a demo today to see how it works.
What is Retain 2.0?
Retain 2.0 is the first platform that unifies resource planning across your entire business, powered by skills, behavioural insight, and AI. It's a complete resource planning ecosystem that transforms how you match people to projects, focusing on skills and capabilities, not just availability.
Unlike traditional resource planning tools that only show who's free, Retain 2.0 creates a dynamic skills framework that standardises abilities across your organisation. This means you can quickly find the right people based on their skills, experience levels, and relevant project involvement.
The system brings together what would normally require multiple separate tools into one unified platform. We've built a comprehensive set of resource planning capabilities that work together seamlessly, eliminating the silos that typically exist between departments.
What makes Retain 2.0 unique is its skills-first approach. The platform creates a standardised skills taxonomy across your organisation, linking skills directly to projects and performance. You can filter by skill level, see how recently someone used a capability, and verify their experience through completed work.
[🖱️ Want to see how skills-powered resource planning works in practice? Book a personalised demo of Retain 2.0 today.]
What you can do with Retain 2.0
Retain 2.0 transforms how organisations deploy talent by connecting skills to scheduling, enabling you to put the right people on the right projects at the right time. Here's what sets it apart:
Skills taxonomy and intelligence: Retain 2.0 includes Skills+, powered by Lightcast—a leading open-source skills library. This lets you build a standardised, current, and crowd-sourced taxonomy with up to 30,000 skills to select tailored to your business needs.
AI-powered matching: Move beyond availability-based scheduling. Our AI analyses skills, experience, team fit, and primary skill preferences to recommend ideal resource matches. This ensures you're always building high-performing teams.
Unified cross-department visibility: Break down silos between teams with one source of truth for resource data. Leadership gains complete visibility across all departments, while resource managers can find the right talent regardless of which team they sit in.
Smart scheduling: Smart scheduling considers availability, skills, and workload to improve team matching, saving hours of admin time. Admin controls now let you tailor which booking notifications you receive, reducing noise by excluding unconfirmed bookings. Plus, filters are now available across more areas: Edit booking, Role by name, Role by requirements.
Real-time performance insights: Track utilisation, billable hours, and project metrics in real-time dashboards. Identify resource bottlenecks or underutilisation without manually compiling reports, so you can adjust plans proactively.
Summary dashboard: The new customisable dashboard gives you a live view of bookings, unassigned roles, and over-budget projects—perfect for quickly spotting planning gaps or priorities.
Hidden talent discovery: Uncover capabilities you didn't know existed in your organisation. The skills framework helps identify people with valuable skills that may not be evident in their current role or job title.
Career development: Retain also suggests top-5 skills to help individuals expand their profiles over time, using job title and primary skill data. These recommendations are updated every few months and give people a dynamic, evolving career view.
[🖱️ See these features in action with a personalised demo.]
How Retain 2.0 works across your business
We appreciate that resource planning can look different depending on which department you're in. Retain 2.0 recognises this reality while still providing a unified platform. Here's how it works in practice:
For audit teams
Audit departments typically need to assign resources based on very specific technical qualifications, regulatory requirements, and client history. With Retain 2.0, audit managers can filter resources by credentials like CPA certification, specific accounting standards expertise, or previous experience with similar audits.
The skills taxonomy understands audit-specific terminology, distinguishing between someone who's worked extensively on IFRS 9 implementation versus someone with US GAAP expertise. When planning for busy season, managers can see at a glance which team members have the right technical skills and which ones need to be paired with more experienced colleagues.
For advisory services
Advisory work often requires assembling cross-functional teams with complementary skills. Retain 2.0 helps advisory leaders search for combinations of expertise - finding that rare person who understands both cybersecurity and financial services regulation, for instance.
The platform enables advisory teams to match consultants based on industry experience, technical specialties, and soft skills like client management or workshop facilitation. It also tracks which skills are frequently needed together, helping forecast demand for certain skill combinations.
For HR and talent development
For HR professionals, Retain 2.0 provides invaluable insights into skill distribution across the organisation. They can identify critical skill gaps, spot emerging capabilities, and plan training initiatives based on actual project demand.
The system also helps with career development by making it easier to match people to stretch assignments that build new skills. HR can track how skills develop over time through project work, creating a more dynamic picture of talent than traditional annual reviews provide.
Skills in action: A day in the life with Retain 2.0
To see how Retain 2.0 brings skills-based planning to life, meet Shannon, a resource manager at a professional services firm. Shannon needs to find an available auditor with the right mix of experience and technical skills.
By searching for suitable resources, she’s immediately presented with ranked recommendations showing both suitability and availability. Each candidate’s profile highlights not only capacity (e.g. 40 hours available) but also a breakdown of relevant skills and experience.
>> Andrew Anderson shows 75% suitability and full availability. He’s already been shortlisted by Shannon previously and is flagged as a strong contender.
>> Laura Austin has 90% suitability and is also fully available.
>> Arthur Beck only shows 50% suitability—but the system adds critical context. His Keynote skill has a 90% similarity with MS PowerPoint, a required skill, and he’s logged significant experience with Express Metals Inc., a client similar to the one on the new project.
>>Barbara Bennet is 100% suitable but only has 4 hours available, making her a less viable option for this project.
Shannon selects her preferred shortlist, and Retain 2.0 highlights potential scheduling conflicts, suggests close alternatives, and updates departmental forecasts in real time. It also logs this project against each person’s skills profile, strengthening future match accuracy.
The result: What used to take days of back-and-forth now happens in minutes. But more importantly, you’re building better teams by finding hidden talents you didn't know existed in your organisation.
The human element: Balancing AI with expertise
While AI-powered matching is at the heart of Retain 2.0, we understand that resource planning isn't purely algorithmic. The human elements of judgment, relationships, and intuition remain crucial.
Retain 2.0 approaches this balance thoughtfully. For instance, instead of AI making autonomous decisions, it presents options and explains its reasoning. Resource managers can see why certain matches were suggested, with clear indicators showing which skills aligned well and which might need development.
Similarly, beyond technical skills, Retain 2.0 captures elements like team dynamics, working styles, and client preferences. Sometimes you need to pair a detail-oriented person with someone who's more big-picture. Retain 2.0 helps you to identify these complementary working styles, not just technical capabilities.
This approach respects the complexity of professional services work while still providing significant efficiency gains. Resource managers spend less time on admin tasks and more time on the strategic elements of team building that truly benefit from human insight.
The strategic advantage of skills-powered resource planning
When you understand the full spectrum of capabilities within your organisation, you unlock possibilities that were previously hidden from view. Retain 2.0 brings this advantage to life by creating a unified platform that connects skills to scheduling, enabling you to put the right people on the right projects at precisely the right time.
✔️ For leadership teams, this means unprecedented clarity and control. One clear view of capacity, skills, and demand across the entire business eliminates guesswork and enables confident decision-making.
✔️ For resource managers, it means finding exactly who you need in moments rather than hours. The system helps resource managers quickly replicate successful project matches, saving time on admin.
✔️ For your clients, it means consistently better outcomes delivered by teams precisely matched to their needs. No more square pegs in round holes—just the right expertise for each unique challenge.
✔️ And for your people, it means more engaging work that develops their careers in meaningful directions. When the full range of their capabilities is recognised, they can contribute more and grow faster.
Ready to see what skills-powered resource planning could mean for your business? Book a demo of Retain 2.0 today.
