Category Archives: Business

The first few years decides your future in the construction industry

Worldwide, construction industry shows an enormous growth potential. It is a good career option for those looking for job satisfaction and lifelong learning opportunities. It involves variations in jobs such as constructing a residential apartment/house, institutional and commercial constructions, heavy industrial construction and civil engineering such as building of bridges, dams and highways. The construction process can be summarized as comprising of design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and demolition. It is important to understand that construction industry is very different and complex as compared to other industries since it has a number of variables. Each project is unique with different nature of work, placed on different locations, involves different types of skilled and unskilled labours, and produce different types of products. In the modern era, the large scale projects make use of increased automation and more complex processes. Due to its extremely challenging nature of work, there is existence of hazard during every project. Thus, construction industry is regarded as a high risk work environment as compared to others.

 

Although this being the case, in last few decades construction industry has shown a speedy growth. The initial years are very important for ‘a beginner/starter’ in order to have good future. Since it directly impacts life of people, hence building strong and reliable structures becomes necessary to gain life-long confidence and trust of people. This leads to increase in number of customers and thereby generation of a brand name. However, this journey may not be easy due to number of variables.

The following are some of the important variables which need to be considered for gaining initial success in the construction industry:

  1. Good and ample financial resources.
  2. Study of the location and the climate conditions. Be aware of the potential dangers.
  3. Employing professionals with construction management degrees: they have knowledge about building a structure. They are analytical and have good problem solving abilities.
  4. Employing educated and skilled laborers with an aim to retain them permanently rather than on contract.
  5. Due to rapid evolution of technologies training needs to be imparted to the workforce (labor, professionals and management).
  6. Encouraging good partnership, leadership, and teamwork
  7. Investing in R&D activities to enable high quality construction
  8. Good planning and effective execution so that work progresses in a smooth way.
  9. Health and safety of construction workforce is important to avoid fatal injuries/deaths. This will benefit in terms of time, cost and daily operation. Hence, it is essential to set up a safety culture for good working environment.
  10. Affordability, delivery on time and few occupant related illness and injuries.
  11. Constructions should be environmentally safe, healthy and fulfilling human needs.

Among these, the construction quality and occupational safety and health are fundamental issues to be given priority. When all these variables are considered and accordingly work is planned, it will lead to 90% success in the construction activities and lead to safe and healthy constructions. This enables to win customer’s trust and will guarantee success in future of construction industry.

Be ready to pay heavy penalties if fail to protect the workers

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

An employee joins a company expecting that the company will protect his interest and he will work in a safe and sound environment. But if the employer does not follow the safety norms and plays with the life of the employee, such employers are bound to pay heavy penalty for risking the lives of its employees and should also affect the license to conduct any further business. This law should be applicable to every industry and should not be industry specific.

Also, there should be a governing body which will regulate the laws and will work for the larger interests of the workers. The law of the land should also be stringent enough and the convicts must be dealt severely. Here in US, we have quite stringent laws when it comes to protecting the rights and interests of employees and if an employee meets an accident that happened due to employer’s negligence resulting to the injury or death of the employee, employer should be ready to face the brunt of the law.

Construction companies in US have to be particularly sure that they are providing all necessary safety accessories to the workers because if they fail to do so and if it results in an accident the company will have to pay the price for it. Construction sector is by all means is considered risky for its employees. Right from operators to engineers and welders to construction workers, none of them are safe as long as all the precautionary measures are followed by the construction company.

Penalties can lead to thousands of dollars:-

If there is an incident that occurs on the jobsite which results to grave injury or death can lead to severe penalty on the company. It will have to pay good sum of money that can be thousands of dollars to the victim of the accident. Therefore it becomes extremely crucial for the construction company to ensure that it provides safety accessories to one and all. No employee whether permanent or contractual will work without wearing proper safety accessories. The contractors need to ensure that the safety measures are followed and that no employee violates safety procedures. If an incident takes place, the company not only loses a valuable resource but also good sum of money.

License may get cancelled:-

A construction company also needs to keep a thorough check on the number of incidents that has happened on the site. There are chances that the company may lose its license if it fails to follow the safety norms and if the numbers of accidents are on the rise. The law of the land is quite strict when it comes to things like these and no one can play around with the lives of young men irrespective of the nature of job that they are in. One can understand the consequence of the license getting cancelled and the amount of loss the company will have to bear.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”3″]

 

Start picking up star performers in your company and reward them to keep them retained

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

The top performers are called as the ‘Star’ or ‘A’ performers, are the most important assets of any company. They possess the most valuable skills and move the business forward. Hence, it is necessary for any company to identify them, understand their career goals and reward them suitably. This approach will enable to retain the best talent which in turn will ensure stability of organization and allow its rapid growth

 

Star performers can be identified possessing the following characteristics:

  1. Capability of taking a responsibility in short span of time: They volunteer for handling new assignments. They are professionals who deliver strong and high quality results by means of an efficient teamwork.
  2. Unquenchable thirst for knowledge: They like to know how the things work. This quality gives them an advantage of improving troubleshooting skills. They master new types of expertise.
  3. Good communication skills: This ability allows them to deliver their ideas in an effective way. There is very little misinterpretation which avoids failures.
  4. Trustworthy and reliable: Senior managers and colleagues seek star performer’s advice and they are considered as good confidantes. They forge strong relationships and their opinions are always valued.
  5. Willing to take calculated risks:They weigh ups and down of a particular situation and take their decisions.
  6. Exhibits a well rounded effort: They are good both personally and professionally. If they are good at home, or at sports, they will undoubtedly be good at the workplace too. They serve as role model and mentor for others. Thus, they achieve excellence in most of the spheres of life.

 

Losing high performers is painful, both personally and professionally. Hence, it is very important that they be retained by the employer in the following ways:

  1. Give them opportunity to head or control a project: They need to take the core responsibility of a project where they get chance to present their ideas and they can take their decisions.
  2.  Leaders should interact with high performers and understand their passion and career goals.
  3.  Present them with challenges: High performers always like challenging projects. Hence the company should entrust them with interesting and difficult projects to keep these performers motivated to work.
  4.  The managers should ensure that the star performers trust their leadership capabilities
  5. Offer regular feedback : Weekly meetings should be held to let them know about their work performance and areas of improvement.
  6. Reward for great work : To recognition their efforts that have made a significant contribution to goals and objectives.  a.  Recognition memo from the Manager  b.  Send out a weekly email of the employee’s achievement to the entire company.  c.  Award the employee of the assignment they were interested in working.  d. If they are very outstanding in their work then to reward them handsomely as An Award to be given, Letter of Appreciation, Announcement as Employee of the week/month in Town hall meetings

 

When the top performers feel respected, honored and recognized for their efforts that their performance and confidence increases. This enables to retain the top most talent for a long time ensuring success of that organization.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”2″]

Hurdles one faces while setting up a construction company

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Starting up any new business is a tough task. It becomes tougher for the ones who do not have much or any experience in handling the business thus making the entire process extremely painful. In addition to this, it become arduous to keep the present business running as there are chances of facing severe ups and downs in every phase and leap that you take. Like any other business, setting up of a construction company is filled with risk and hard work. You also need to be foresighted and got to assume things appropriately so that if you see a threat you can counter it in advance.

Hurdles are plenty in the construction industry. However, it also gives you a ray of hope which is more than enough to sustain in a dynamic industry like this. So the crux of the matter is how well you can adapt to the ever changing phenomena of this industry and how quickly you can recognize the internal as well as the external threats that may destroy your dream of owning a construction business.

Legal concerns:-

While setting up a company, there are a lot of legal formalities that one needs to complete without which it will not be possible to run a business in US. These legal formalities can be lengthy at times and therefore you need to know the right way to get your work done at the shortest possible time. You might want to take help of an attorney who will guide you with every step and get things done for you. Getting sanctions from the government may not be a huge hurdle but it definitely takes some time of yours to get you started.

Setting up an office and a small team:-

Once you have received the sanctions, the next step will be to set up an office and also have a small team in place. You got to hunt down for a place that you can use it as an office and also recruit few men who have worked in the construction industry. If you have little experience in this domain, you will be able to pick the right guys but if you are a newbie then things might get really complicated.

Buying heavy equipment:-

In order to get a small project, you need to have a couple of heavy equipment. Now you have the choice of either buying them or taking it on rent. If you plan to buy them you have to shell out good chunk of money but if you take it on rent you need to ensure that you have sufficient reserves every month to pay the rental amount. Other than this, buying the right machine is always a challenge especially if you are going for second hand ones.

Running the office:-

You got to pay salary to your team and also meet the office expenses that will recur month after month. This means that you got to have ample reserves in hand. It is to be noted that you do not get a project the next day you set up your office. It takes lot of time to get some small work. So maintain your business becomes a big hurdle.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”2″]

Importance of backhoe loader in the construction business

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

We all know the importance of heavy equipment in the construction sector and to what degree it can help the construction workers to ease their work but there are some heavy equipment that are by large considered as the most efficient and most preferred by all construction companies. Heavy equipment like dozers, scrapers, rollers etc. all have a specific role to play but there are some that can be used for multi-purpose activity. Heavy equipment like excavators and backhoe loaders are machines that have the capability to perform activities for which you require another set of heavy machines. So you need not buy any other set of machine and can only depend on these heavy equipment to do most of your work. All you need to do is change the attachment as per your needs and it should be able to take it from there.

A backhoe loader is one such heavy equipment that can do 2 things at one time. It can use the backhoe to dig the dirt from the ground and with the help of the loader it can gather all the dirt and load them on the truck. So this means that the construction house does not need to deploy 2 different machines to do this activity. Backhoe loaders in general are quite powerful, efficient and completely reliable. Not just for constructing big buildings but also for constructing roads, these powerful machines make a huge difference. It has the potential to work on rough terrains and does not give a nightmare to the operator when he gets to know that he has to work on a mountain slope or a muddy piece of land.

The cabin for the operator working inside the backhoe is spacious enough to accommodate him and few of his belongings easily. It also has good leg space allowing the operator to stretch his legs after working for long hours. The most important part of this machine is its engine which is super tough. However, the quality also depends from companies to companies and therefore someone who buys the loader from a reputed brand will always find his money worth the machine. It is also much preferred heavy equipment with most of the mining companies. With the help of the backhoe it can easily break down the toughest rock and the loader can then carry it all. This gives it an edge over all other heavy equipment in its class.

The operator of a backhoe loader should be pretty experienced with having worked with such machines in the past. They may then know how to maneuver the machine with ease. A newbie might find it a bit difficult and may need guidance to deal with it. It is crucial for the operator to know the gears well as it is also used during the digging process. So the person working on it should be aware of the gears and understand its significance. Overall, it is a machine that most of the small construction companies look forward to as it helps them to fulfill dual activity by just switching over the attachments.

Related articles across the web

Making of a mighty construction company

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Construction is a lucrative business. Although many entrepreneurs start this business as, yet it is only 10% who make it very big in terms business to become brand names. These construction companies do not achieve success overnight but they have done diligent business planning to become ‘Mighty’ in this field. Experts have observed some common traits among these super achievers as:

  1. Clear aims and objectives: They know what they want to achieve and have noted it down and hold onto that vision. They are aware of their mission, vision and values. This allows them to maximize resources of time, energy to achieve big monetary returns in future.
  2. Planning: Construction involves a lot of work and it has to be done with a responsibility. They understand the importance of planning, systems, and processes need to be place in business. They plan their work to perform it systematically and they also work according to their plans to be successful.
  3. Updated: They are aware about the market trends in construction and try to adjust themselves as per the situation. They also spend time with people who will support their ideas and from whom they can get suggestions. They participate in healthy discussions to be successful in their ventures.
  4. Well-qualified professionals: They hire excellent staff and managers for smooth and effective functioning of organization. They pay them well, train them in latest technologies and give them good work-life balance. They also hire the right type of people who will perform their work very dedication. They know that hiring of cheap labour will lead to mediocrity and work will suffer and will lead to loss in the future.
  5. Designing Effective Business Strategy: In order to win over rivals in business, they have make appropriate preparations and checklists. They always provide excellent and superior quality service. Further, they know strengths and weakness of their employees. Employees are informed about their weakness and are suggested to be improved.
  6. Defensive business strategy: The costs cover the equipment, vehicle, labor, registration or business licensing, surety bond, and insurance requires a lot of finance. They do not depend on loans abut have saved enough which ensures that this excess money will help them in difficult times.
  7. Effective sales and marketing: Just providing good services is not enough, as its awareness has to be created. Hence, they hire good sales people. In addition, they also get onto social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and sending text messages to get into business leads.
  8. Business Transactions: While performing different transactions, they are diligent and vigilant. They do not sign on any papers to avoid getting them into trouble.
  9. Customer satisfaction: Since they value their customers, they listen to them, reply to their queries and concerns about product. They try to modify or improve their services to please the customers. This increases their customer base. They value professionalism and empathy which makes them customer loyal and successful in business.

Overall while making a mighty construction business they are aware that is a multidimensional business which requires a lot of planning and detailing to ensure success.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”2″]

Make this Christmas special for your employees

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

In today’s mechanical world, we perhaps do not have much reason to smile, to laugh or to enjoy. Thankfully, we have few festivals that give us the opportunity to enjoy lives, probably the very reason why we are all here. Festivals bring happiness into our dull life that has been saturated by hard work and never ending targets. Well, we all have deadlines and we should complete our work in that time. But at the same time, we should not forget that we are humans and not some machine that are just meant to work. In this time bound culture, we have also forgot to socialize which is why today there is a need of Social Networking Websites which in a way helps us all to remain bonded with each other.

Having said this, social media is again virtual in nature and in order to socialize in real, we need an occasion where we can just shut our shops and get together, meet people, enjoy and have fun. Christmas is one such perfect occasion that let us forget all our miseries, pain and problem and help us to live our lives like humans. But no festival is complete without lavish food, gifts for your dear ones and proportionate money to buy few luxuries at least once in a year.

The workers in a construction company work all day in a relatively risky environment where they always have a probable threat to their life. Still they work for the development of the nation. They are the most important pillars needed for nation building and therefore it becomes the responsibility of the construction companies to ensure that they make their Christmas special. It may be a one-time affair for the companies but the employees will remember it all throughout the year. The companies should as a goodwill gesture provide the employees with bonus so that they can buy gifts for their children, take them out to a restaurant, guys who are not married can have a blast partying out with their friends and people who are looking to go for a vacation can make good use of the bonus money.

If it is a new construction company, then it may not be able to give bonus in the first year as it may not incur much profit to distribute bonus. However, if possible give your employees some gift vouchers or simply buy them some gift which will be of some use to them. You can also commit them of expecting more in the forthcoming year and tell them the reason why you could not give them any bonus. But if the company makes decent profit in the very first year, you should then give some bonus.

Today we all buy stuffs online and therefore you can also give them e-coupons which they can use while making a purchase online. Construction companies do get such coupons from various distributors. In case, if you have lot of e-coupons available with you, you can give it away to your employees. This will definitely make their day and perhaps a Merrier Christmas for them.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”2″]

How to keep your employees happy

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

One of the biggest challenges that many construction business owners encounter is massive attrition of employees. Once the employee works with a construction company for a couple of years, they tend to switch companies and move into a company that pays them better remuneration. This means that they have to spend a lot on training new employees every year. The number of people who stays back in a company after having worked for 5 years or more than that is very less and construction business owners have a hard time in dealing with this crisis. Though they manage to recruit experienced men but they also have to pay a higher price for having their services. This does no good to them but is a kind of money drain that they are finding difficult to avoid.

There are some very simple things that one may follow to keep their employees happy and avoid their movement to other companies.

Acknowledge and appreciate their hard work:-

When your employees put their soul and work for you, it becomes your duty to acknowledge and appreciate their work. If you fail to do so then they have plenty of other options where they can expect better employers who will appreciate their work. Appreciating their work also increases their morale and they start feeling that the company belongs to them. This will only add to the fervor of continuing the hard work for the company. It actually works big time to establish the healthy relation between the employer and the employee.

Equip them with state of the art machines:-

You can’t expect your employees to give you quality work without providing them with state of the art earth moving equipment. They need good machines to give solid outcome or else they might not want to work for you. Working on outdated machines means exerting more force on a job which otherwise can be done without having much physical difficulty if they were given the option of using technologically advanced machines.

Speak with them quite often:-

A healthy relationship is generated when you often speak with the other person and ask about his well-being. In the construction business, where most of the business owners are more concerned with profit making, the employee will truly appreciate your effort to reach out to them and speak to them about their family and their wellbeing. In case, if anybody is in a financial mess, then you can try to give them a loan out of company’s reserves and help him out from that crisis. This speaks high volume about the kind of person you carry in front of your employee.

Give gifts and bonuses during Christmas:-

It is a goodwill gesture if you offer your employees with some gifts and bonuses during Christmas. It will make them extremely happy if you give them or to the family of the employees any gifts during this festive season. It does matter a lot to them. Giving such freebies may pinch you a little but will definitely bring a big smile on the face of the people who devote most part of their days’ time working for you.

Use social media as a tool to augment your heavy equipment business

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

The construction and the heavy equipment industry are largely dependent upon new technology. The construction industry is always in the hunt of heavy equipment that can get the work done quickly and with utter precision. Now this is only possible if you upgrade your heavy equipment by adding new technology in it. This will bring in a new life to the machine and it will work with more vitality under tremendously rough situations. Now that was all about how technology can help get the work done at a faster pace. However, if we want to make use of technology to advertise our products and services so that it can reach to thousands of people at a given time, there is no better option than talking about your business in social networking websites. There you can reach to a large number of population without having to pay a penny for it.

There are many companies who are involved in the process of creating their business profiles in social networking websites like LinkedIn, Periscope, and Facebook etc. There find this to be an excellent tool to reach out to a sizable amount of people at one go. They have seen their business growing in this fashion and acquiring more clients from such networking websites.

There are few do’s and don’ts that one needs to follow while they set up their business profile in a social networking website.

Keep your personal and professional profiles separate:-

It is very crucial that you keep 2 accounts in one social networking website, one for your personal use and the other for your professional. If you are into selling of heavy equipment of all the brands, you can make use of your professional account to mention that there. Talk everything about your business in that account but pay special attention that you do not talk much about your business in your personal profile. If you share a couple of your business stories to any of your friend on the personal profile, it won’t be an issue but if you only keep on bragging about your success stories all the time on your personal account, your friends might get turned off by that. They definitely do not check your profile to know about the success in your life. They just simply want to know if things are ok with you.

Maintain strict professionalism on your business account:-

You should keep your business profile very professional. Social networking websites like LinkedIn are meant for professionals and businessmen who are looking to acquire clients and get businesses from them or to reach to the skilled masses and absorb them in their business. If you are an authorized dealer, you should be very stringent when it comes to professionalism.

Post a photo of your company:-

It makes ample of sense to post a picture of your company’s logo on your business profile. It help your prospective client to understand the kind of account you are holding and they will move into your business account to know more about your business and will not stray down to your personal account.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”3″]

Small construction companies should be cautious to make big investments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

The focus of business changes in every stage. While you are a small business, the focus point of the business is something else and while it begins to grow the focus changes again. In a nutshell you can’t have the same strategy throughout the lifetime of the business. You have to keep on changing your focus, goals and strategies with the development of the business and also keeping into consideration the circumstances your business is in. In business you are supposed to take challenges and risks and it pays you off in terms of profits but at what stage are you taking what amount of risk is crucial to understand. You just can’t take any amount of risk during the budding stage of your business. Risks should always be calculated and not taken with an unsound mind. It actually defines the future potential of your business. Taking uncalculated risk will often lead you to a situation where you will see no point of return and may have to probably shut your dream of having a business of your own for once and for all.

Construction business is one such business where taking a wrong call can have serious implications on the future growth of the business. There are many big companies who had to shut down their business for taking incorrect investment decisions which has obviously proved them to be costly. Small construction companies have to ultra-careful when they think of making any big investments in their business. They usually experience the problem of scarcity of finance and on top of that if they contemplate of making any big investments for which they will obviously have to look for borrowing money from banks, they got to be very sure of the outcome. This is where their calculation can’t go wrong because they have huge stakes involved here. Unable to repay the debts will definitely have a negative impact on the credit rating of the company which will result in not getting any further loans.

Big investments do not only get restricted to buying abundance of raw materials or heavy equipment. It means much more than that. It also means investing on workforce, setting up a new office and stuff. Being a small construction company, when you are hiring a lot of people and buying different kinds of heavy equipment, you got to doubly sure that the investments will pay you. The construction project for which you have been hiring so many men should not have any lien on it and certainly no litigation on the property. The bottom-line is you got to ensure that the piece of land on which the construction project will begin is absolutely problem free and once you are assured of that, making this big investment makes sense.

Small construction companies are more at risk because if they try to play solo, the big companies may create problems for them. It is a competitive world and no one wants to let the other grow easily.

Related articles across the web