Every year, construction companies and contractors shell out billions of dollars in construction claims, primarily because of loss of productivity amongst construction field workers. Even small delays in project completion can result in costly and long-drawn litigations that can really hit your small-sized home builder or construction management firm hard. If you are wondering how to improve construction productivity, this article can help.
Under the ambit of tight budgets, tighter deadlines and thin profit margins, if you would like to empower construction field workers to get more done in less time, here are some strategic steps to take:
- Sign up for the best-in-class technologies: The market is abuzz with enterprise software that is designed to improve labor productivity. Whether you want to speed up project management and communication (Slack), scheduling (Fieldwire) or document workflows (Signeasy); there is a software solution for it. By digitizing and automating a lot of mundane admin work, these technologies free-up your workforce’s bandwidth to tackle more skilled tasks.
- Set and communicate realistic goals: Every construction project is unique. This is why you need to invest time in rigorous planning so that the job is completed on time and budget. Many contractors plan for every 30-, 60-, and 90-day and set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Based) goals for that time period. Still others invest time every day into micro-plans for the next day or week. In this way, if you are able to gauge the idle time in the hands of your field workers be better placed to improve site productivity. These daily plans can be shared with field workers, wherever they are located, within minutes with eSignature solutions such as Signeasy.
- Be transparent: The only way your on-site staff will know if they are not operating at their productive-best is via timely feedback. Think regular memos that clearly mention how an individual's performance affects project status, pace and risks along with suggestions for resolving the issue. It's seen that workers stay on task if they’re reminded of what they’re working towards.
- Complete all paperwork before on-site work: There are so many documents, from scope of work to cost estimates and drawings that need to be in place before workers begin on-site work. Ensure all these documents and relevant approvals are secured pre-work so that there are no paperwork-related delays once work begins. Even if some document needs to be shared and approved after the project start date, use an eSignature solution for a remote, convenient and quick signing experience.
- Keep field workers engaged: Paid time-off, upskilling sessions, performance appraisals and fun activities (such as parties, games, recognition programs etc) are critical to prevent workers from burning out or getting disillusioned. At the sME TIME, Construction safety is essential FOR keeping workers engaged. So, get construction safety programs in place that will help reduce safety issues and injury risks. Also, touchless contracts a la eSignature solutions can make it possible for documents to be exchanged without the fear of cross-contamination. Ultimately, happier and healthier employees equals more productivity.
- Good project record keeping: There is so much that your team can learn from past projects and experiences that will aid with improving worker productivity. Just think of how analysing the timesheets of past projects can help you predict how to staff your team for a new project. But it can be a real pain navigating through tomes of physical paperwork to locate these reference files. Instead, if you use Signeasy to sign and share your construction-related documents then they will be stored securely on the cloud and can be accessed on-demand. By centralizing documents for worksites in various locations, you also ensure that remote teams don't work in silos.
Keeping projects on schedule with Signeasy
There is nothing more wasteful than workers sitting idle waiting on contracts to be signed. Delays caused because a couriered contract got lost in transit or the site manager was working from home and missed an important fax are not legit excuses. This is why you should get your on-field team accustomed to using Signeasy to streamline paperwork.
- Expedite remote document signing: Especially owing to the pandemic, lots of admin staff may prefer to not travel around too much for work. This makes it especially difficult to drop off contracts and bills. But with Signeasy’s intuitive mobile and web app, you can request for signatures and send contracts over email, which enables field professionals to reduce visits to customer sites.
- Eliminate time taken to create contracts from scratch: With Signeasy, construction managers can just create fillable form templates for repeatedly used document-types, such as subcontractor agreement, purchase orders and inspection documents. This can be edited and sent out to the workers, in no time from your iOS or Android mobile device. Having a base to work off of really speeds up the document workflow.
- Automate follow up on signing: Because Signeasy maintains an audit trail of all document movement, you can request for signing status of each file. It also automatically sends reminders to signers who have not signed the document within a set timeframe. This means even if you forget about the document, Signeasy won't let the absence of the file affect your project timelines.
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Our clients swear by Signeasy. They concur that it is one of the most effective and document management solutions for improved productivity. Why don't you check out Signeasy’s 14-day free trial to know if it's truly what your construction field workers deserve!
