Category Archives: Employee Development

Five Functional Traits of Great Construction Teamwork

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This article originally appeared on ForConstructionPros.com.

One of the most consistent requests I get from contractors around the country is, “Brad, how do I really get great teamwork?” This teamwork might be among workers of a formwork crew, the field leadership team of a joint venture, or the teamwork needed among the executive team. Perhaps different levels of people but still the same needed traits for great teamwork.

I have witnessed all sorts of teams that appeared to make it work for their group of individuals, but I must admit that there appears to be about five traits that I have found exist within a great team. Let me quickly share them and then offer a little insight for each trait.

  • Trust
  • Direction
  • Influence
  • Transparency
  • Leadership

If trust is not present within your crew, project team or executive team, you will not have teamwork. Team members do not have to like each other, but they have to trust one another. Being confident that each member “has my back” when needed and will defend each member is huge toward building a team culture of trust.

While trust is often manifested through communication the underlying trust needed is the internal feeling by each member that “we are all on the same page.” When one member disagrees with another member, there is no personal attack but respect for the opposing viewpoint. However, once a decision or action is taken, each team member works from the same understanding.

Reinforcing trust within a team is the need for direction. I’ve observed teams of construction people who may have trusted each other, even liked each other, but had no clue as to the direction or purpose of their efforts.

Direction gives the purpose for the teamwork. When a group of people are all focused on striving for the same end goal there is informal outreach between members on how to make the goal a success. I have found, personally, that providing direction alone is a great motivator for individuals to set their own agendas aside and figure out how to maximize the talents and knowledge of those on the team.

Once trust and direction are in play the team members can then impact each other through influence. Influencing a fellow teammate is not to strong-arm or to manipulate. Rather, to influence is to approach other members with helpful insights or expertise that can contribute to greater results. To influence is to present a perspective or solution and then allow the teammate time to understand, adjust and finally to see the advantages in the perspective.

In my studying and coaching of teamwork among the construction crew, project team or executive team, I can assure you that there is much influence exerted among members. Sure, some members may be more influential than others but there is still a trust that one member is not taking advantage of another.

Transparency remains one of the hardest things for construction teams to acquire as a team trait. This trait is difficult for many reasons, perhaps,but admittedly to be transparent is to trust others. Therefore, if a team can truly experience trust between its members, the openness to be honest and emotionally “naked” in front of fellow members becomes much easier.

Much of my observations on teamwork through the years have discovered that for the construction team to be transparent it is helped along if one or two of the members will initiate the honesty. This might include one member making an apology to another member in front of teammates or simply one member sharing honestly why they cannot support a decision, goal or action taken. Tough to do for sure, but if you don’t have transparency in your teamwork, I doubt your team is reaching their potential.

A fifth trait I have always found within any great team is leadership. In the team, it’s not “leader-follower” living but instead “leader-leader.” This suggests that every team member, no matter their rank and title, can lead one or more of the other teammates in any given situation. The leader-leader does not suggest equal pay among the members but rather a healthy respect for each member, giving way to the member with greater experience, knowledge, commitment, etc.

Leadership is desperately needed today in construction. The great teams in construction spend very little time establishing who is “top dog” in control and more about getting all of the “dogs pulling the sleigh” in the right direction.  Title and rank have little to do with real leadership; in fact, at times, it can be the greater interrupter of high performance.

Work to make the five traits of great teamwork part of your work crews, your project teams and even your senior leadership team. The same “diseases” that can cripple teamwork (such as jealousy, egos, etc.) at the crew level can also cripple great teamwork for the management team.

Start team building today and let it begin with the five functional traits of great teamwork!

Employee Development, , ,

Raise Construction Worker Productivity with a Team Scoreboard

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This article originally appeared on ForConstructionPros.com.

 

Most employees want to know how they are doing and how they are performing. Likewise, crews and departments of people often have the same interest. Creating a “Team Scoreboard”suggests identifying the top three to five (or even as many as seven) performance measurements that best reflect how the group, team or crew is doing. No different than the dashboard in your vehicle that provides some measurements of how well your car or truck is performing, so too does the team scorecard provide such monitoring. The Team Scoreboard can be developed for construction crews, project teams, departments, companies and production lines.

Let’s discuss three important components to building the team scoreboard — and one component on gaining the employee’s interest.

  1. What performance indicators should be selected?
  2. How are selected performance indicators to be measured?
  3. How should the measurements be reflected or captured on the team scoreboard?
  4. How do you gain the employee’s interest to respond to the team scoreboard?

What performance indicators should be selected?

This first component is totally dependent on your area of work. If you are constructing a scoreboard for your crews what are the most important indicators of their success? Consider just a few measurements that might be critical to know, including:

  • Sales/revenue
  • Costs/expenses
  • Equipment operations
  • Amount of work completed by workers
  • Amount of material used
  • On-time completion
  • Bids created
  • Gross profit
  • Labor-hours for production

The list barely scratches the surface of the many indicators that could be measured and monitored to assure that our workers are focusing on the right performance. Quite honestly, there should be little mystery to determining the important indicators.

Remember, it is critical to consider those indicators that truly reflect most closely how our company (i.e. crews, department, etc.) is performing. For most of the indicators, the measurement will be a comparison against “hours” or what percentage against our budget or estimate was realized.

How should selected indicators be measured?

Now we get to sink our teeth into the actual numbers. First, consider a few of the possible measurements that are often embraced and tracked by construction companies worldwide.

  • Square feet/labor hour (formwork)
  • Cubic yards poured/labor hour
  • Linear feet/labor hour
  • Number of block/labor hour (masonry)
  • Safety incidents/week
  • On-time job completion/schedule
  • Equipment “uptime”
  • $ average/call-back

There is a host of means to measure our productivity, but the key is again to measure what is truly reflective of our performance and in such a way that our workers can understand what the measurements mean to them.

Here’s a brief example outlining the importance of measuring the right productivity for your workers:

Let’s say that you need to have a formwork crew complete the first floor of a parking garage in one week’s time so that concrete can be poured. Such general direction is much different than informing the crew that we need to average 16 square feet per labor hour worked in order to complete the first floor within one work week. The “16 square foot per labor hour” becomes a measurement that can be calculated, measured and monitored.

While the first approach certainly provides the workers with a general overview that the first floor is to be completed in one week, the more specific target of “16 square feet per labor hour” provides a clearer goal for the crew to work toward achieving or beating.

When measuring it is sometimes useful to measure the actual performance achieved against what was estimated. This comparison is sometimes reflected as a percentage. For example, you might reflect how much linear feet of pipe was laid, or linear feet of striping applied, per labor-hour, compared against what the estimate was for.

So, a crew that produced 93% of linear pipe/labor hour would indicate that the crew placed 93% of what the estimate called out to place. (This is why capturing accurate production numbers is very important to the honesty and helpfulness of the Team Scoreboard.)

How should the measurements be reflected on the scoreboard?

Most of the successful approaches that I’ve witnessed and assisted companies embrace use one of several forms of graphs, include:

  • Run charts
  • Pie graphs
  • “X & Y” graphs

The use of graphs can be easily developed, and even the least educated worker can be taught to consider trends of productivity. “Line moving up represents improvement; line moving down represents declining performance. A larger piece of the pie represents good performance while a smaller ‘slice’ might represent less performance.”

As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Ideally I would suggest that you use a graph, of your choice, for each performance indicator to be measured. Placing three, five, even seven such graphs on one copy of paper or perhaps enlarged to be placed on a poster-sized board will bring greater visibility and interest from your workers.

A key point here as well is to keep the monitoring updated. For example, if you are tracking any indicator on a weekly basis, update and change out the graph reflecting the performance of the previous week. Leave such updates posted for at least one week, allowing the employees most associated with impacting the indicators a chance to review and reflect. It is common for the direct supervisor to engage in discussion about the graphs’ story and how the crew can improve their performance or to maintain the great effort reflected by the graphs.

How do you gain the employee’s interest in the Team Scoreboard?

To gain more interest by those workers who are impacting the numbers you’ll need to communicate the information quickly and often.

It is important that if you are measuring daily and reflecting weekly then ensure that your Team Scoreboard is updated with each new week. This effort alone will attract viewers at the posting of each new graph.

You must communicate with your workers about the graphs, the story that they tell, and most importantly, what can we learn from the results that are displayed. In the big picture of things, construction really is an industry focused on installing materials in a way that a finished product is achieved. Measuring our ability to do such installations provides us with a “how well are we doing?” at our craft.

Use the Team Scoreboard to praise your workers together. You have more than enough opportunity to recognize individual performance when it requires it, but using the Team Scoreboard to address “team” items can go a long way toward building greater team thinking and building.

Finally, to gain the employee’s interest in the Team Scoreboard you must also be very interested. If you post the regular updates but seldom address positive trends you will leave your workers wondering what they have to do to get a “thank you team.” As a leader, if you will not even address the team when their weekly performance is “sliding south and fast” then they are left to believe that perhaps what they are doing is not that important.

Developing the Team Scoreboard is another great communication tool that effective leaders use to raise their workers “Performance IQ” toward working smart and safe. Look for a space on a wall that is regularly passed by workers coming and leaving the office or the yard and begin to post the graphs representing the performance of the recent week.

The Team Scoreboard can raise worker productivity, lead to more effective and timely problem solving, raise the amount of respect your workers begin to have for you and their teammates, grow the pride within the workers to achieve high marks of performance.

Employee Development, , ,

How Contractors Can Make a Good First Impression with Phone Etiquette

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This article originally appeared on ForConstructionPros.com.

 

There is an old expression that says, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This is especially true when trying to develop new customer growth. Consider the following questions:

  • What initial impressions are made on potential customers when they are first introduced to your company?
  • More importantly, what impression do you want potential customers to have?

With an abundance of options available to most customers, it is imperative that you and your company give the customer every reason to like you at first glance or first communication. Telephone etiquette is a key area where contractors can focus to make a good first impression.

In a study of why customers defect from doing business with their current contractor, more than 40% of the responding customers blamed their defection on how they were treated by a business. More specifically, a significant reason included the negative tone and apathetic attitude that was projected over the telephone. Telephone etiquette is crucial to a small and growing business — heck, it is crucial to any size company.

Starting with yourself, everyone in your company needs to understand how to answer the telephone, how to take a message, how to respond to customer questions and how to do all of that without leaving the customer feeling irritated, stupid or with unanswered questions. We might never get a “second chance” if a customer has a lousy experience during that first phone call.

So let’s lay out a few guidelines for your company to use when answering the telephone. Many of the guidelines also work when initiating calls to prospects or customers.

Company name + “How may I help you?”

Sounds too simple, but try calling any contractor you know, even your own office, between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. or 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. and see what happens. Why these times? Because that’s when a contractor’s telephone is the hottest and when people answering the phone have the least amount of time. It is critical that each receiving call be answered in a similar and positive fashion:

“Good morning (or afternoon), this is Friendly Excavation & Supply; How may I help you?”

Tip: Encourage your people to smile when answering the telephone. A training tip is to set a mirror in front of an employee to let her view her facial expressions when on the telephone. Sound crazy? Try it yourself and see if it doesn’t help change your approach and attitude.

Take notes & briefly summarize comments

Anyone answering the phone should keep a pen and message pad handy so that notes about the customer call can be immediately taken. In my own consulting efforts I find contractors missing important facts about customer calls because someone neglected to record the details. If you have a receptionist you should have fewer problems with this concern, but be sure that the receptionist is trained in these same first impression techniques.

However, many small contractors and construction dealers don’t have a designated telephone receptionist. In many companies the person who first answers the telephone might also be the bookkeeper, job scheduler, even the chief bottle washer. Everyone, including secretaries, front line employees, supervisors, foreman and yourself must realize the importance of taking accurate notes. They also should make it a point to periodically summarize for the customer what the customer is saying. This not only helps make sure you’re on the same page as the customer but it let’s the customer know you’re engaged in their call.

Tip: Instruct your employees to record names, dates, addresses, key questions asked or problems mentioned, etc., while speaking with the customer. It is not important to record every word spoken, only key points. For some in-house training try reading a one-page article from a trade magazine and have your employees take notes on your reading. Compare the notes they take to the actual facts read from the article.

Close with “Thank You for Calling!”

First-class customer service begins by sharing appreciation with a customer for having chosen your company to do business with. This appreciation should start on the very first telephone call.

Once the reason for the telephone call is completed, it is wise to always end your call with a sincere, “Thank you, Mr. Smith, for calling. Have a nice day.”  While this is simple, it does leave the conversation on a positive note.

Remember, your first-impression efforts must be positive, encouraging the prospect to feel satisfied about their first experience with your company. Because many first time telephone calls will be handled by your company’s office personnel it is crucial that these people are properly trained on professional telephone etiquette and held accountable to creating a great first impression.

While customers sometimes initiate calls when they are angry or frustrated, it is always in the contractor’s best interest to stay calm and collected when on the telephone. A relaxed but attentive and responsive voice over the telephone is often rewarded with both a welcome sigh of relief by the customer and additional work for the contractor. Remember, empower your telephone skills to make a first impression that begins a long and successful relationship with a customer!

Employee Development, ,