It’s never to early to focus on retaining your employees. In this episode, Brad outlines several ways construction companies can work towards retaining workers during the company’s own training processes.
START Faster and Smarter ©
One expert in the construction industry has found that the least productive hour of the workday is the first hour. In that first hour important decisions are often NOT made, there is failure to insure critical maintenance has been applied to equipment and tools, and field leaders, in a hurry to get going, fail to review critical project plans and documents.
Every contractor knows first hand the real action starts at the “front-lines,” where actual crews and leaders execute project plans. Yet this is where we lose too much firepower, productivity, and precision after hard fought jobs have been estimated, won, and pre-planned. Sure there are always surprises on projects, but the contractor who can prepare his or her crew leaders to consistently follow a sequence of preparation steps will empower their crew leader, and their crew members, to perform “No Bad Jobs!”
Ok, let’s consider a sequence, placed in an easy to remember order, which will raise your crew’s ability to hit their daily numbers. Let’s jump START your workday!
START is an acronym that you can teach your crews in fifteen minutes. The secret isn’t the ease in which they learn START, it’s building it into a daily commitment for them to adapt and execute each new day. Here we go…
Schedule Your Day
Sounds almost too simple but it’s sadly not completed every day, much less by the crew. Sure, many contractors may have their crews meet in the “shop” each morning and the Supervisor may talk to the Foremen about their day’s efforts. That’s good and needed. Yet seldom does the actual Crew Foreman sit down and actually line out just what he intends to have his crew work on for the day, much less set any targets that need achieving.
The Crew Foreman, hopefully working with a formal one or two week “look ahead,” should focus 15-20 minutes each morning working through his plans for that day specifically. Enlisting his Lead Man or several members from his crew will bring even greater insights to the days needs and thus, improve performance. This process allows the crew to leave the shop more confident about what they are doing, what they will need to complete their work, and how much work will need to be completed. (Please read some of my previous articles about job site planning and use of a look ahead for more information.)
- Look and Review the “Super” Schedule
- Identify the “Times of Need” to Be On-site
- Involve the Entire Crew/Team to Discuss That Day’s Plan
- Crew Leader Prepare Their Decisions to Make That Day
- Break the Day’s Plan into “4 Quarters” For Greater Attention & Faster Adjustment
Take Daily Inventory
This second action directs each Crew Leader to insure that their trucks, trailers, and workers have exactly what they need to complete their work. Leaving the yard without every piece of equipment and tool secured and confirmed is a leading reason why workers fail to achieve needed production rates and targets. Waiting for the company’s “hot truck” to bring something from the yard because the crew did not inventory the missing shovels, or oil cans for the equipment is simply a waste of time and drives profit margins south.
An inventory list should be created for work crews that list all of the equipment and tools, materials, safety equipment, etc., needed for each project. For many contractors, this can a list that remains constant as their crews may perform the same type of work each day. However, such consistency of work often breeds complacency among the crew members, each thinking someone else got the needed tool or component needed on the job.
There may other forms of needed inventory for field leaders to employ such as the requirements for a particular customer involving an inventory of what is needed to complete at the site, a list of contact information, and a list of what workers have been cleared to work on the project due to security requirements of the customer, i.e. Clearance documents needed to perform work on a military base.
In short, any inventory list for any reason is too simple not to create. Possessing an inventory list doesn’t guarantee your workers producing quality results but it sure makes it easier for them to achieve needed results by first insuring that they have the needed tools of their trade in their possession when leaving your company’s yard.
- Use a Quality Audit Document that Lists Non-Negotiable Process to Follow
- Implement a Daily Inventory of Trucks & Trailers AND Confirm Needed Items are Secured Before Leaving Yard
- Push the “Star” Process: Assign Crew Members to Provide Extra Attention on Quality, Safety, Tool/Equipment Preventive Maintenance, etc.
Ask Questions Daily
In the rush to get going every morning there is usually little time to solicit questions. Crew Leaders often feel the need to just get the crew out of the office and to the job site. But more questions may need to be asked prior to leaving than after the crew has arrived at the job site.
Simple questions such as…
“Who is setting up the chalk lines today?”
“Where are we going to park the trucks today?”
“What area of the site are we going to begin working today?”
“Do we need to bring any extra forms or anchor bolts today?”
…all seem to be innocent enough but are too often asked later rather than earlier. Crew Leaders need to be asking their workers and company senior leaders questions before start-up and their employees need to be free to ask questions each morning to insure that we’re all on the same page. A work culture that appreciates asking questions, sometimes the most important question at the right time, is a culture that will perform tasks better and do more things right the first time.
- All Supervisors Ask Daily Questions of Their Foremen to Insure All Bases are Covered
- Make Daily Use of the “Process Book” of SOPs for Every Major Work Process Company Executes; Get Sign-off from Users
- Lead “Process Book” Questions, Especially with New Employees Or Employees Not Performing Well
- Circle Back to Your “ADHD” Workers to Insure They Understand
Review Documentation Daily
There seems to be more documentation today required for the simplest of projects than ever. Big or small, your Crew Leaders are often the holders of copies of blue prints, CAD renderings, OSHA and DOT documents, Weekly “Look-ahead,” city or county permits, customer requirements and contact information, location and contact information for local material plants and suppliers, and Standard Operating Procedures or “SOPs,” to name a few.
For the contractor performing larger sized projects with the crew operating out of a job site trailer, the need and reasoning is still the same. Important project documentation needs to be identified in terms of what is to be reviewed and completed daily, weekly, or monthly. Our Crew Leaders can simply not omit reviewing needed documentation.
- Identify “Needy” Foremen and Lead Them to Review Their Daily Documents
- Inspect Training Plans for Employees Needing Extra Training & Support
- Crew Leaders to Engage Other Reliable Crew Members to Assist in Reviewing Documentation for Inventory, Tracking Crew Hours, Quality Audits, Safety Inspections, etc.
- Regularly Assess What Crew Foreman Needs What Accountability and Support for Greater Performance & To Build Foreman Mental Retention
Train Your Workers…Daily
If there is one action every Crew Leader must be fast to start it is to increase the effort to train and educate their workers. At no other time have we observed so many employees joining the construction industry with so few skills for their trade. Thus, it will be incumbent on the Crew Leader, supported by their Supervisors, to make every day a “class room” of learning.
Suddenly every start, stop, and restart has a teachable moment. Rather than take the job back from the new employee, Crew Leaders must take that extra one to five minutes to explain the “Why?” behind a particular technique while demonstrating the “How to.” If there is one daily effort that more Crew Leaders will employ it will be that of training and educating their workers.
- Crew Foremen to Be Highly Active to Train…Even More Active than Performing the Work Personally
- Supervisors to Redirect Crew Foreman When a Wrong Step Has Been Taken; Crew Foreman Redirecting Their Crew Members When a Wrong Step Has Bee Made
- Engage Recently Taught Employees to Train Another Worker…ASAP!
- Slowly Add Little Pieces of Responsibility to Workers
- Drive the Non-Negotiable Importance of Safety & Job-Site Cleaning Along with Technical Training
- Refuse Mediocrity… NO BAD JOBS!
Like my Crew Leaders from Packer-land have begun to do, initiate your own frontal assault on making your project teams and field crews more productive. Gone are the days that we just hope that by pure badgering of our workers things will begin to get better. It takes too long to wait out that method and it also risks losing potentially long-term employees who will give up too soon before a more organized approach is implemented.
Look, to START faster and smarter takes exactly those items shared above. Why wait for the performance to improve when you can START right now!
May you have a great START to productivity records this year!
Brad Humphrey
The Contractor’s Best Friend ™
I want to dedicate this article to a great concrete contractor and his many field Foremen and Supervisors up in Packer country. In their desire to be better, they challenged me to raise my own efforts to create an easy to follow reminder for field leaders when beginning each new workday. The bullet points presented below for each START activity is provided by these fine construction leaders. Thanks guys for inspiring me to develop START, and may your efforts help other current and future construction leaders overcome their own challenges!
6 Steps to ‘Pre-Con’ Your Way to Greater Profits
Pre-construction, better known as “Pre-Con,” is a familiar part of most general construction company’s approach to building a project. While not all GCs excel at this effort, there is much to learn from this critical construction process that specialty subcontractors would benefit. Done correctly, thoroughly and consistently, the Pre-Con process can strengthen your profitability on every project you win.
The pre-construction process can involve many different components. To name only a few, consider the list of activities that are often completed during this “pre-start” phase:
- Review of available prints and drawings for project (And that’s getting tougher for many projects.)
- Identification of critical specifications and requirements
- For the GC, the “buying-out” of subcontractors for bids
- Securing needed insurance, permits, certificates, etc.
This list barely scratches the surface for many projects; however, it does provide you 
with an idea of the types of activities that must be completed — and you haven’t even started the project yet!
While Pre-Con is a term most associated with construction companies, the principles behind this important building phase are important for any organization engaged with the construction industry. Let’s look at a few very important pre-construction efforts that you should incorporate or refine in your own company so that you lay a strong foundation for greater profits.
1. Clarify the pre-con scope of work
This first effort gives your company the chance to completely review what you and your workers will be executing. Unfortunately, too many contractors simply develop a job file (which is a good thing!) that most often includes the directions to the jobsite, contact information, various lists of material quantities, specialty tools and equipment needs, and hopefully a print of the jobsite. For the smaller contractor there might be a sketch of the work to be completed with estimated measurements and location.
The project’s scope of work should certainly include all important information and drawings. It should also include, however, an overview of what manner of work will be completed; what other contractors might be involved with the project; an overview of what the customer’s expectations and needs are; and working restrictions that your crews might need to respect or adhere to. The project’s scope of work is essentially the view of the work to be completed from “5,000 feet.” It’s a macro overview of the entire project.
2. Create your line-of-sight (critical path)
This effort parachutes you in from “5,000 feet” and allows you to line out the order of how your company will address completing the contracted work: sequence the actual work efforts; mark with special emphasis critical milestones that should be reached, in order; and identify projected dates for completion.
The effort to complete this should strongly consider needs of the customer, what the actual time constraints are for the project, and where the other contractors before and after your firm’s actions are expected to be.
While the line-of-sight will be adjusted during the actual project, it serves as the first effort schedule to how you and your company will be approaching, preparing for and executing the needed work tasks.
3. Develop a checklist of required resources
Creating a checklist of required resources is not always completed by the general construction firm, much less created by a GC for its subcontractors. So it’s a good idea whether you’re a subtrade specialist or GC to consider all of the resources that will be needed to complete the project.
Why is this critical? In some cases, placing an order for a particular material or securing a special piece of equipment to rent might require ordering well in advance. Needing a special and hard-to-find fiber cable to run for the M&E contractor could require 12 to 16 weeks advanced ordering. Such a long lead time — if it’s not planned for — can totally destroy a construction schedule for a great many contractors.
Whether your list of resources only consists of concrete or sheet rock, or whether you are used to easy pick up at the local contractor’s supply store, making a bona-fide list of needed resources, ahead of time, for every project keeps the “2,000-pound elephant” in clear view of your team and makes it easier to remember ordering such needed resources.
4. Clarify project roles and responsibilities
This is one effort that even some of the best contractors often overlook. It is not uncommon on projects to have confusion about who is doing what, which often leads to a lot of “he said…she said.” One strong step to prevent this from taking place is to first view the project in sections of time and then identify those individuals who will be involved with each section.
Once you have identified the “players” it is time to identify what each player’s project roles and responsibilities will be. If any players will be involved with more than one section of time then a scrutiny of any changes in their roles or responsibilities should be assessed.
I created a project team exercise to assist contractors in this effort. The 4 Quarter Leadership Review breaks any project into four “quarters,” though each quarter is not necessarily the same amount of time. The quarters are more importantly identified by significant milestones or completion and important starting dates for phases of work. Then, the project team involved in each quarter identifies and documents what its specific roles and responsibilities are to be.
Additionally, the project team identifies key performance indicators, critical success factors or goals, and important transition efforts for each quarter.
Obviously if you are completing work that can be less than a day in total completion time then using a “4 Quarter- like” effort is overkill. But, don’t “throw out the baby with the bath water.” You still increase your workers’ efficiencies and profit-making work tasks by lining out and discussing specific actions that need to be taken. Overlook this critical element of Pre-Con and you risk having dollars flushed down the toilet.
5. Risk assessments and management plan
The entire risk management element to all areas of construction has grown exponentially over the past years. For now, let me provide you with some simple-to-follow but none-the-less critical steps for your profitable construction efforts.
Start by identifying any part of your construction efforts that could have a potential risk involved. While simply driving your truck to the jobsite has risks, I’m more referring to those risk that could put you and your organization at risk of losing a life, suffering an injury, delaying your work schedule and thus causing others to be delayed, even from performing the wrong work. All of these items, and a multitude of others, can end up costing you safety, money and reputation.
What might be some areas to assess? Consider just a few examples:
- Jobsite is in high traffic area
- Your workers will be working in tight conditions
- Your workers will be working along with several other contractors (i.e. The Bunch Affect)
- Time schedule is extremely tight
- Penalties incurred when completion dates are not achieved (due to extremely tight time schedule)
- You’re performing work that is NOT in your sweet spot
- Inside work conditions provide little lighting or air ventilation
- There is no “on-site” staging area for your equipment and tools
- There is little verbiage in the contract about the change order process; what is there seems to strongly favor the customer
Consider each of the items in the above list. What impact would each have on your company’s ability to be profitable? It will pay huge dividends to get such items clearly defined and, in some cases, legally confirmed before commencing work.
6. Conduct a project leader “summit”
The “summit” involves every project leader connected to the job coming together for a few hours to talk to and about…one another! In more than 25 years of working with every type of contractor, manufacturer and supplier known to construction I continue to see unclear leadership, misunderstandings, poor communications and personality conflicts as the biggest project challenges.
At the summit project players need to have their communication tendencies and expectations clearly defined. Leaders should be presented scenarios that WILL happen sometime during the project and then role-play how they will prevent communication mishaps from taking over their project. A very clear discussion on personal needs of each leader has should also take place.
The purpose of the summit is not to turn the project members into “raving fans” of each other (although that wouldn’t be bad) but to establish a benchmark to how they will conduct business. If you want to build greater teamwork, better communication and a bunch more profit into every project then you better insure that your project leaders “summit” prior to every new project.
Depending on the size of your projects and the complexity of each project, you will need to tailor the six efforts just described to maximize what profitability you can realize. BUT YOU MUST MAKE THE EFFORT. Not taking on a pre-construction strategy will certainly make your projects more difficult, potentially frustrate your workers more often and keep your crews from having a fighting chance to be successful.
Set your workers up for success…make a pre-construction effort a company requirement!
NOTE: This article originally appeared on ForConstructionPros.com
