Category Archives: Construction

Be careful while dealing with contractors that you have not worked with

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Trust is an important factor in any form of business. You got to trust the person before you start working with him and if you are not able to generate the trust and comfort then it makes no point in working along with them. At some point or the other you will get stressed up and you will have to do away with the other guy. When you are entering into a partnership with a person you do not know much about, you got to be very cautious. Ideally, it is recommended that you do not get into any partnership with an unknown person but in case if you have to then you are needed to remain ultra-careful and monitor his business activities. You should not trust the person by not knowing him in complete or else it might lead you to serious issues.

There is a popular saying in the construction world. “Do not trust an unknown person. He carries with him the potential to back-bite you”. This is very much a possibility in an industry where there is cut throat competition all over the place and people are ready to negotiate with their ethics without giving a second thought. Since the construction business has been considered such a rewarding business many people are turning into it to make it their career. They will often consider toppling anybody that they see as a potential competitor and therefore if you think of getting into partnership with one such person you will regret it for the rest of your life.

Contractors in specific can cause you more harm than others. They are the ones who do most of the work in a project for you and are paid as per the contract. Now if you get engaged with a contractor that you do not know much about and he does not intend to do his work properly and is associated with you to make some easy money by doing shabby work, it can lead you to serious problems. It is therefore important to know the credentials of a contractor before you give him the contract.

You need to know if he has worked previously in any such project and try to get his conduct from that company. Such information can be availed with ease. Construction companies do mind giving out conduct report about a specific contractor as they understand that the contractor is not bound to work with just one construction company. They can work with multiple companies at the same time. So if the contractor is worth getting some work, you will be informed about it or else they will give you a negative report.

If you have been working with a contractor for a long time and you know his quality of work is splendid that generates a certain degree of trust in you and you can focus on other stuffs by submitting the entire assignment to him but this can’t be done in case of an unknown contractor with whom you have been working for the first or perhaps the second time.

Renting a motor grader has now become simpler

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Construction of roads has now become a healthy business and many small contractors are lining up to get a piece of the cake. They want the road construction projects to be given to them so that they can make good money once the work is done. The overall cost of the project is understandably much lower than the actual contract price which is why contractors find it to be a comfortable one to get into. Now in the road construction project, motor grader plays quite an instrumental role. The primary function of the motor grader is to grade a piece of land and level it so that while you go to construct the road, there is no unevenness found on the surface. This process is normally done before placing asphalt on the surface of the road. In a nutshell, without the application of a motor grader, you will not be able to construct good wide roads.

Though these graders are not so expensive to buy but still contractors prefer to take them on rent. The reason is these machines are not used through the road construction process. It is only used wherever some sort of grading work is required. Alternatively, if someone owns a motor grader, he may not use it always. The need of a grader is quite specific and once the need is fulfilled the machine is left idle for most of the time. Therefore it makes absolutely no sense to buy a machine that has a lot of importance while building roads but has a very specific purpose attached to it and can’t be used for multipurpose work. The best option is to take it on rent for few months and once the work is done and you no longer need the machine, you can give it back to its owner.

This limited need of the machine gives rise to another form of business and that is renting of motor grader. There are some companies who buy graders in bulk and then they let it out to the ones who need them for road building. These companies work in close nexus with contractors who are primarily engaged in road construction work so that if ever anybody requires a grader, they can make it available for them. The rental amounts they charge from these contractors are a bit lesser than the rentals charged normally.

Now for individuals who have bought a grader and do not need it for some time can rent it on websites or can simply approach these companies who in turn will route the machine to someone who needs it. They may charge a certain amount of fee for their services. An individual can first try it out on a website and check if he gets some response and in case if things do not work out for him there, then he has these guys who can get it done for him. Overall, a grader is such a machine that has pretty decent demand in the construction arena and will never find it idle if someone wants to rent it out.

Treat your employees fairly

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We do not like our boss to be prejudice towards a certain employee for some specific reason. This can irk one and all and can spread an emotion of discontent all across the company. Eventually, the employees will not feel the place worthy to work and they will start looking for some place else. This means that you end up losing your valuable employees and can also see it as talent drain. These employees can get better pay by joining a company that is related to the same line of business and can hope things to be better out there. In the end it is you who will be at loss just because you have been unfair in treating your employees. What you could have done is you could have been fair to all your employees and treated them equally.

People appreciate when they see their bosses pick the best talent and reward them. But if you pick the person and reward him who is simply not worthy to be rewarded, it is then the rift will be created. This can have a lasting impact on the prospect of your company.

Select the best men/women for expansion projects:-

If you have expansion plans and have already allocated few projects through which you will expand your business, the first thing you need to do is select the best men who has the ability to take the expansion process ahead. Here you need to check the guys who have been phenomenal in terms of performance, hardworking, have taken less leaves and are highly productive. When you give such people an opportunity they will leave no stone unturned to ensure that they get the results you have expected to get from them. Give opportunities to the deserving and the loyalists. They will stick to your company and will work hard to take the organization to the next level. You can only grow in the construction business if you have the knack to pick the best men to do the job for you.

Do not make anybody your favorite:-

It is a big “NO” to have a favorite in the construction world. You may like someone’s work which can even lead you to make him your close associate. You can always give an ear to his advices but you should never believe him blindly or walk as per his direction. That is never going to be healthy for your business. You should have a group of men/women who will be your advisors and listen to everybody before you take a decision.

 Make people feel they are special:-

When an individual feel that the company no longer sees his importance in the company, he/she starts getting demoralized. For you, he/she may be a wonderful employee but you have never let him know about it. This will lead him to start his search for a new job where he can get some sort of importance from his boss. If a person has stayed in the organization for a long time, it certainly means that he/she see his/her future in that company. The efforts of such employees should be acknowledged and appreciated and they should be thanked for their hard work.

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Work with your team rather than putting pressure for non-performance

We have often encountered a situation wherein we are reprimanded for the non-performance of the entire team. Especially if you are the person who is in charge of the team and if your team is not able to perform as per the expectation of the company, you get to hear the nasty stuff from your boss. Well, we do not like to fall in such a situation but things always do not work as we want it to. Now let’s take this situation as an instance. You have a boss who is not at all grumpy and always loves to stay in a pleasant mood. He gets to know that your team is not doing well and therefore summons you. To your surprise you see him not yelling at you but trying to know what could be the possible reason for the team’s non-performance. He tries to set up an environment where you feel like discussing things with him and finally coming to a conclusion on how to deal with things.

Well this is how things should be when you are the owner of a mighty construction company. In order to get things done, you should keep your mind calm and try to see things from an angle that others do not. You will get to know the cause of the problem only when you sit for a discussion with the person who heads the department. When you see all the departments doing well other than one, it suggests that there is inevitable some problem associated with that team and you got to get to the bottom of the issue. Unless you unearth the problem, you may find things not going well in that department and soon you may see issues pervading to other departments as well.

Understand their grievances before you react:-

We normally have the tendency of over-reacting before we know what has led to a problem. The moment we see things have not worked as we want them to, the first thing we do is over-react on the situation and then once we calm down, we hear the problem. Well, what we should be doing is the opposite. Listening is an art and when you are running a big construction company, you should be master this art first. Listen to the problem first before you react to it. Understand the position of your fellow workers and try to make things simple for them. Do not exert pressure to get any work done from them. That will be a temporary solution but issues will brew up soon and then it may be out of your control.

Change in plan of action may work:-

One of the most suitable methods to deal with the issue of nonperformance is to change the action plan. Do things a bit differently and it may work for you. Not everything happens the way you want them to but changing your way to get the work done might help.

Highway Construction Safety

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Safety on a construction site is perhaps the most neglected part and stress should be put on the company to ensure that they follow the safety parameters at all times. When we talk about safety on construction site, we restrict ourselves to the safety of the employees and workers who work on the jobsite. But when we talk about safety on highway construction, it should not restrict us to the safety of the employees but should extend it to the safety of the people around the site. When you are working on the highway, you have vehicles moving on the road and it becomes the responsibility of the construction company to ensure that the vehicles passing by move safely and do not become a victim of an accident. The fact however suggests something else. It has been noted that a number of accidents and casualties that happen on the highways are because of not following the highways safety parameters. Though efforts are been made to reduce such incidents but the figures are alarming.

Need to have adequate signals:-

Most of the accidents that happen on the highway are due to inadequate availability of signals. The workers are busy doing their work and there is no one to give signals to the vehicles. For instance, when the construction work is happening on the end of a curve, it is crucial that the workers put some sort of impediments to slow down the vehicles or else they might not even see the construction happening because of the steep curve. For a second, they fall in the blind spot from where they can’t even anticipate anything happening on the other side of the curve. So when the vehicles are at full speed and they do not see any signals, they are bound to dash and that may cause severe casualty. In situation like this, the construction company should ensure that the workers deploy men who constantly provide signals to the vehicles alerting them of the work happening on the other side of the curve.

Workers manning the flow of vehicles:-

While the construction on the highway is in its full swing, the workers should man the flow of vehicles. They can close one part of the highway temporarily and ask drivers to use diversions. You only need few men who can control the traffic and show the diversion route. You can also put big blocks of impediments to block the way and use arrow signs to give appropriate signals to the drivers. There should be proper arrangement in place to control the movement on vehicles while the construction on the highway is in full swing. One must ensure that in no terms the vehicles should be passing close to the construction area.

Workers should be vigilant to oncoming traffic:-

It is crucial for the workers to remain vigilant at all times to oncoming traffic. They should make sure that none of the vehicles should pass close to them. During moments of high traffic, proper arrangement should be made to make sure that the vehicles move from a distance from the workers causing no accidents and eventually no casualties.

A lien on the construction can lead to serious problems

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You take up a big project, complete the work on time but forget to pay your contractors their dues. This can lead you to some serious problems in the future. If you do not pay your contractor for their work, they have every right to place a lien on the construction project and you will then find it difficult to get a completion certificate. More to this, banks will not entertain you when it comes to refinancing or for that matter any sort of financial assistance. Banks do not get into projects that have issues. They want projects whose title are clear and have no issues whatsoever. It can cause several other issues to the constructor when it comes to selling the apartments in a condominium which he has constructed for residential purpose. If the title on the property is not clear, he will find it absolutely difficult to sell it to the public.

The construction company has to ensure that he clears the dues of the contractors should also ensure that the contractors are also paying to the sub-contractors because if they are not paid then they can also adopt the same methodology and create issues for the company. The sub-contractor can also place a lien on the project and can put a halt to the sale proceeds. It has been seen that liens are ideally placed as a last resort when contractors do not see any other option to get their money they go for placing liens. Once a lien is placed on any construction project, it gets recorded in the credit rating of the company. This means that credit rating of the company gets hampered which eventually affects the overall goodwill of the company. Construction companies do not want to play with their goodwill and therefore they do not want to take any potential risk by not paying their creditors or contractors.

Further to this, a dip in their credit rating can also cause problems to them when it comes to getting loans from banks. Construction companies with poor credit rating do not easily get loans and if at all they manage to get it from any financial institution then the interest rates will be really high. This in turn will have a negative impact on their business. They will never want such things to happen and therefore should try everything to avoid getting a lien on their project.

There have been several instances where construction companies have paid the contractors but they in turn have failed to pay other concerned parties to the project. This can be a big pain for the project owner because here he may not know all the parties who are associated with the contract and then all of a sudden you get to know that someone has placed a lien as they are not being paid. However, you check your records and see that you have paid all the parties involved in the transaction on time. You can file a complaint and state that you are clear in paying everybody and can disclose the records in front of the concerned authority. But this is unquestionably a big pain and in order to avoid this, you should pick contractors of good reputation.

How to effectively market your construction business

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For a business to grow, it is important that people know about it and only when they know about the brand they will buy the product or use the services of the brand. In a nutshell any company who wants to grow its business needs to first create a brand for itself so that people are aware of its product and services and then sell it to them. Reaching to the end user and keeping them in loop of your existence is also knows as marketing and every company has to form a strategy to market their brand. Now some company takes an aggressive approach and some go soft while marketing their product. It is believed that companies that market their products aggressively are the one who have hunger in their belly. They want to grow quickly and the ones who are slow on marketing their products are perhaps happy with how things are moving. They might take an aggressive approach later as they may feel the opportunity is not right for that time and will wait till they see things moving their way.

A business where day in and day out there are new competitors joining in and each of them are struggling hard to make their name in the market it makes the overall environment to be more challenging. The construction industry in one such industry where you will come across many companies who have just started their business and are marketing their company quite aggressively. People with experience in this form of a business know how the industry works and what they got to do to make their business a success.

Be in the news:-

For people to know about you and your company, you got to be in the news for the right reason. You have to come up with excellent ideas and should also be able to present that to whosoever is interested to know about it. People in the construction business circle should know about you. For this, you need a website where you can put up your business plans and talk more often on how you can accomplish your targets. Your website should reflect the personality you possess. People going through your website should know that you dream big and also have the courage to fulfill it. This is one way to market your company. You may show your aggressiveness here which will go to a lot of people. You can also release circulars every week where you’ll talk about the industry as a whole and how your business is reacting to the current situation.

Be active on social media:-

We have a craze of social media these days. For every small things that we do, we try to put that out on social media. We do this to get some attention and as far as the construction business is concerned, it makes sense to be ultra active on social media. It is perhaps one of the many platforms that will take your identity to a lot of people by paying a nominal fee.

The ups and downs of the construction industry

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If you are in some form of business you will always come across suggestions from veterans of the industry that you should save more during the ups and be conservative during the downs. It simply implies that when you are having a good time in your business you should try to preserve capital for the bad times and this rule is applicable for all the industry and every kind of business. This makes more sense in a volatile sector like construction. In the construction industry, you can’t ever guess when the downtime will begin.

As long as you have projects in hand and you are getting paid for it, it is all good for you but when things turn ugly, it does a huge impact on the overall industry and particularly to businesses. At times the industry as a whole is at its peak but due to some unforeseen situations, you do not get paid for your work. Now you can come across this situation no matter how well the industry is performing. It is absolutely not relevant to the performance of the industry. This can turn into a crunch situation where you need money desperately to carry out business activities on a different location.

Preserve capital by not overspending:-

We in our daily lives tend to spend to stuffs that we do not need much. In other words, we can still carry ourselves quite elegantly without the presence of a particular commodity. But since we have enough money to buy the stuff, we go for it. Something similar to this also happens in the construction business. If we have made good profits from the last few projects, we start to contemplate to expand our business for which we think of buying heavy equipment, hire more labor, increase the marketing team etc. This in turn will increase the operating cost exponentially which in no way is healthy for a growing business. On the other hand, one must try to preserve the capital that he has earned and invest it when he feels necessary. You can buy your business related products when you have enough need for it or else it will be just waste of money.

Take calculative risk:-

Business is all about taking risk at the right juncture. Industry experts say that the more risk you take the more is the chances for you to get better returns. Well, it should be put in this way. The more calculated risk you take, the better is the chance to earn good returns. Just because we all want to earn money in no time, does not mean that we should begin taking risk without giving a second thought to it. This can lead us to a bigger mess and is certainly not advisable. Before you take a big leap, understand what you are doing and what could be the repercussions. Understand both the pros and cons of your decision and please before you act and not after your act. It makes no sense to cry over spilled milk.

 

Team work is an important component in the construction business

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When you are running a huge business that has many genres and departments you can make it a success only when you have people who work as a team. Running a big business is not a joke and it takes lot of wit and cautiousness when it comes to taking important decisions. You do not know if the decision that you have taken will be beneficial for you or will it harm the prospect of the business but you still have to take a call. This is when you depend on your team and believes that if you take a call to go ahead on a project you have your entire team to back you up and will face all hardships together. There are several instances where it has been proven that a single man can’t make all the difference. He may become a good leader if he believes in bringing the change but he definitely needs his team to follow him and show excellent team work.

Construction industry like all other industries firmly believes in team work. You have plenty of departments if you are attached to a big project and the success of the project lies on how cordially the entire team can perform. The team has to display great team work and they all have to follow what their leader says and got to complete the task on time. This also shows how important of the role of a team leader is while handling a big project. Right from the heavy equipment operators to its mechanics and the construction workers, they all have to work in tandem with each other. When we talk about team work it does not mean that there is no place for any dispute within the team.

Disputes do arise but it is the responsibility of the group leader or his seniors to address the issue then and there and try to get it sorted. It is quite natural for the employees to expect quick remedy of their problems rather than having to deal with the issue for months. This is why the management in a construction company needs to ensure that they address the issue without any delays. The morale of the workers should not be brought down by any means and if their well-being is taken care then that will play a mighty role in increasing support from the team members.

Rewards and recognitions should be quite usual. It should not take time for the superiors or people from the management to acknowledge the efforts and hard work of the employees. Employees from all departments should be awarded for their good work and a tradition should be made where employees from various departments come under one roof to collect their awards. In this way they will also know people from other departments. This will explore their options of learning new things by engaging with people from different teams. These little things play a big role in ensuring that there is a cordial environment and people continue to work as a team.

Small construction companies benefit more by taking small contracts

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Owners of small construction companies often feel that they will make more money if they manage to get to work for big projects. However, that is not the fact. When you get involved in big projects you also need to deploy more labor, more heavy equipment and need to ensure that you have enough capital in hand to fund the project. You also have to go through a lot of hassles which is basically involved in bigger projects. At the end of the day you earn good money but if you co-relate it with the effort you have taken and the capital you have invested, you may have a feeling that is this really worth? Having said this, it does not at all imply for any small construction company to not to engage in bigger projects but while they do so they need to make sure that they reap the maximum from it and not give away the resources that they have.

Small projects require less investment:-

If you take up a small project, it inevitably requires less investment. Therefore you will also find people who will be ready to invest in your project. Though the amount of profit will not be enormous but it will be pretty decent to suffice your business and personal needs. You also do not have to buy latest heavy equipment and can work with machines that are bit old. You can buy such machines at a cheaper price or can even take them on rent where you pay a nominal rental value and use the most of it. The capital that you invest in a project is also less. You do not have to manage a large labor force for which you need not employ an admin team and if at all you need to have an admin team they can be less in numbers. This means that do not have to shell a bomb to pay them their wages.

Easy to get:-

There is a mad rat race to acquire big projects and you will find most of the big construction companies out there trying to beat one another. It is very difficult for a small construction company to get into the race and try to bag the project. You need strong connections to get there and you got to be really quick in making those connections. On the contrary small projects are not as difficult to bag as bigger projects are. No doubt that you will face stiff competition there but you will still be counted. Moreover, you can get into a project by working as a partner with the other company. You have ample of options to keep your business ticking.

Takes less time to complete:-

Unlike big projects, smaller ones take less time to complete and therefore it gives you the opportunity to move on to the next one. Without losing much time you start hunting for the next work. A project that takes more time increases the operating cost of the company too and therefore the magnitude of impact of the operating cost is lesser in smaller projects.