Like A Wrecking Ball: 5 Things Endangering Your Construction Business
There is some serious money to be made in the construction sector. Of course, to line your coffers, you need to run a successful construction business, is a task that can be fraught with challenges. In fact, there are some issues those in the construction industry come across time and time again. A topic you can read more about below.
Poor relationships with subcontractors
Construction is an industry that relies very heavily on subcontractors. That is the lead company will be granted a job to complete, and to achieve this, they will subcontract individual roles and tasks out to smaller companies. Of course, this way of working comes with a lot of advantages, the key one being that the workers that complete these tasks have the necessary expertise and experience to do them to a high quality. Something that may not be possible if a firm was to employ all its own staff.
Sadly, some unique issues present themselves when working with subcontractors. Problems that, if left undealt with cause some significant issues and endanger the success of your business.
One, in particular, is poor communication between the contracting construction firm, and the subcontractors. In fact, if the lines of communication are not effective, you risk all sorts of mistakes being made on site. This being something that can cost your business a lot of money, and even put lives at risk.
Additionally, poor communication can cause problems with maintaining positive relationships with the subcontractors you employ. This being something that can give rise to issues with getting them, or even anyone to work on upcoming jobs.
To that end, making sure that those liaising with your subcontractors have outstanding communication skills is vital. Something that includes verbal skills, but also how they convey and notify concerned parties about any written and official information as well.
Running an unsafe site
Poor site safety is a wrecking ball that could easily ruin your business's success. In fact, while construction is known to be a high-risk industry, there have been many initiatives over the last 15 years to minimize any hazards to those involved.
Sadly, there is still a percentage of people and businesses that do not fully adhere to the proper health and safety guidelines. An action that not only puts their company's finances, and reputation in danger, but that also endangers the well being of workers and site users as well. Often gravely.
Of course, what that means health and safety on site must be a priority for your construction business if you are to minimise any risk. With that in mind, thorough training at induction for every person working on site is crucial. While thorough checks verifying any training, they have previously done in this area is also vital. Additionally, investing in the best safety equipment, and clear signage is also advisable.
Not having access to the right supplies
A break in the supply chain could easily cause a huge issue that will endanger the success of your construction business. After all, it costs a lot of money to have a site full of workers, plant machinery, and building resources. Bad news for your business if you are unable to proceed with the job in hand because you do not have something as simple as the mortar board.
Happily, ensuring you have the right building construction products on-site isn't too challenging a task. In fact, you can now purchase what you need online and have it sent to site. Something that means you don't need to waste time physically going to a hardware supplier as well and so can maintain productivity.
Bad money management
Success in construction, just as in any other business usually boils down to one thing, profits. Of course, the way that money is managed, therefore has a significant effect on whether your company will be successful or not.
In fact, poor money management can be particularly problematic for construction businesses because they have so many overheads to pay for. Something that means if the coffers are bare, supplies cannot be bought, and workers will down tools!
That is why smart money management is so crucial if you want your construction business to be prosperous. Happily, several tactics can help your business manage their money more successful.
The first is to take a lean approach. That is to cut down spending on unnecessary overheads wherever possible. Something that may entail sending subcontractors home if they have nothing left to do, and sourcing the best quality building materials for the lowest price.
Additionally, making sure that there is viable cash flow both in and out of your business at all times is critical. The reason being that then people will be getting paid, and you will have money available for any materials purchase that you will need. Thus allowing you to complete the job you are working on in a timely fashion.
Terrible leadership
The task of team and department leaders in construction is one of the highest responsibilities and challenging jobs there is. Mainly due to the combination of having to manage subcontracting teams, the rate that the work gets done, and the health and safety of everyone under them.
Unfortunately, this means that poor leadership can ruin an otherwise effective site, very quickly. With that in mind, you must provide two things to those in leadership positions that work for you.
The first is thorough training, including construction-specific courses like SSST for supervisors and SMSTS for site managers. Although more general communication and people management skills training will not go to waste in this situation either.
The second thing that needs to be provided to those in a leadership position on-site is support from those above them. In fact, to enable a supervisor or manager to be as effective as possible, they need to be guided and backed up consistently by those above them. Otherwise, they will find making essential decisions and enforcing changes and company policy very difficult. This being an issue that can easily lead to the failure of your construction business.
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