By Charles W. Coker, Ph.D., SPHR
In our first organizational development session of 2016 we addressed the challenges of building a profitable construction company.
We dealt with the following questions:
Are your company’s mission, vision and values clearly articulated and communicated to your employees, subcontractors and customers?
While this may seem unimportant on the surface, it will be huge as you compete for work in the future and try to engage subcontractors that embrace your same mentality of customer service.
You must be able to clearly identify why someone would want to do business with you, rather than your competitors.
This differentiation will have a dramatic impact on the quality of your work and reputation in our cyclical industry.
Do you have the right positions defined for the products and services you are offering to the public?
If so, do you have local and industry data that will help you ensure the jobs will meet or exceed your customers’ expectations and build a reputation of excellence in your niche? Each and every position can be defined with data.
You can know exactly what to look for when developing the critical positions necessary for your success. If you need a Work Environment Survey form, which will help define your needs, it is available to you.
All of our recent attendees received free these forms at our training. We will be happy to email it to you free upon request.
Do you have the right people who possess the skill sets necessary to help your company succeed?
Are they fully engaged and do they ascribe to your mission, vision and values? If you have questions about acquiring the right people, you may want to consider having an outside consultant help you with the first few or until you feel you have adequate experience in this area.
Hiring the wrong person can put you months behind on projects and cost you thousands of dollars, not to mention the added stress.
All NEFBA members are provided free access to assessments that will help you in this hiring and development processes.
Those free behavioral and value assessments can be accessed at http://lifethrive.com/free-assessments/. If you need help with this area, please contact LifeThrive.
In addition to defining your company, making sure you have the right positions for your niche and the right people, you must have the right plan, both corporately and for each employee.
NEFBA is committed to your success and wants to ensure that you have the resources necessary to have a productive and profitable 2016.
We can help you know what questions to ask in formulating a proper business plan as well as what structure is necessary for measuring the productivity and performance of your employees and subcontractors
I will be happy to provide you with those questions and format at no cost. Simply send me your request.
This year can be your company’s very best year if you position yourself for industry cycles. Construction companies that have survive the industry’s ups and downs do so because they focus on the four areas above
I encourage you to take the time and invest your energy in building an organization that will last for years.
We want to help NEFBA members find and develop the people and processes that will ensure long-term viability. As a NEFBA member, you have to do one thing: Ask for it.
Next month, we will address how to identify and manage productive employees for your company’s long-term success.
Contact me at [email protected]. Visit us at lifethrive.com or call (904) 474-3600.