Category Archives: Employees

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.

Quality of raw materials to be monitored in the construction industry

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Any company in order to survive and simultaneously grow in a competitive environment has to show a lot of metal. They need to be consistent in one thing and that is maintaining the quality of the end product. As long as they are able to maintain the quality of their products they exist in the competitive market and once they start compromising on the sole factor that is responsible for their growth they will soon see a fall in their sales. At the same time people who have been using their products for a long time will want to see something new. May be an add-on feature at the same cost but if they see a decline in the quality of the product they will for sure give a second thought to go for the same brand ever in their life. This huge can be the impact of the quality of a product.

In the construction industry too quality plays a crucial role in its overall growth. Construction industry like any other industry is as competitive as it can be and therefore it becomes all the more important for a construction company to give significance to the quality part. Now in order for the final product to be an ace product it is significant that the raw materials used to manufacture the end product is also of ace quality. You can’t expect the end product to be exceptional by using deteriorated quality of raw materials. This is where the quality of raw materials plays such an important role in the overall making of a wonderful product. So the company has to pay special attention to the fact that the raw materials used for construction are of first rate quality and they will be for sure applauded for their wonderful work.

Hire expert people:-

You should be hiring people who have expert knowledge in recognizing the quality of the raw material. Raw materials which are superior in quality are quite expensive. So the call is yours which one you would want to go with. However, it will be crucial to have people who know about the quality of raw materials and can give their expert opinion of the subject. There are chances that you might get cheated by the raw material vendor who supplies the stuff to you. The subject experts can analyze the quality of the stuff and can guide you if the quotation laid by the vendor is reasonable or not.

Buy government approved raw materials:-

Hiring experts can prove to be quite expensive and if you are unable to afford them then the next best available option for you is to buy government approved raw materials. Government gives grades to the raw materials and on the basis of it the price of the item is fixed. So you need to know which item can cost how much. This small part of research needs to be done by you to buy raw materials of superior quality.

Loyalty of employees is important in the construction industry

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It is perhaps the human resource that defines the future of any company and as far as the overall industry is concerned, human resources play a significant role in shaping it up. It is the talent that every man and woman possesses that defines the destiny of the company and simultaneously of the industry. There are people who change jobs to get a hike in their package. The other company who hires them finds their credentials suiting the needs of the company and therefore they pick them by giving a higher package. But it is certainly not a wise thing to lose your efficient men to others. They are leaving your company for a reason and it is important to understand that reason do every possible thing to retain them. Now you can’t force them to quit but you can certainly offer them something that they can’t refuse. It simply does not make any sense to lose your employees who have been in the company for the last many years.

The importance of employees is largely felt in the construction sector. Competent employees are paid real well and if one gets a chance to work for a big construction house then he can definitely expect a better package. In this entire situation, there is someone who is at a loss and it is the construction company who is losing an employee. They call it attrition. There are some construction companies whose attrition rate is really high. This means that the company is either not doing well which is why people look for other prospects or they do not take good care of the employee.

Every construction company should value their employees. The loyalty of the employees really matter and if you do not give them their worth then they will search for it at some other place. You have to understand that if an employee is there with the company for many years then he has also set some expectation and it is the duty of the employer to fulfill those expectations. Don’t take their loyalty for granted. Do not ever think that they are with you because they do not have anywhere else to go. If you think this then it will only hurt you in the long run.

Treat your employees with dignity. Try to at least offer your smile and if someone wishes you reply to him. By this you are respecting them and treating them with dignity. Make them feel that they are important to the company. They should be excited to come to work every day. The day the excitement ends, they will start looking for other options.

When you have an employee who have been with you for the many years and has now offered his resignation, you should probably sit with him and try to know the reasons why he wants to quit. If he wants to start his own business, you should probably wish him all the best but if he is intending to switch to some other construction house then you should try to know what you can do to retain his loyalty. You never know he may stay with you if you offer him something wonderful.

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Risks of not following safety instructions

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Till date, there have been a number of incidents where a sudden unexpected explosion or a fire takes place in a chemical factory, and leads to numerous deaths and heavy financial loss. Also on daily basis the machine operators meet with either minor or major accidents (where the worker loses his hand or even his life). This reason why such unfortunate incidents occur is due to failure to follow safety instructions at the work place. There are dangers associated while performing certain tasks. If appropriate care is not taken while performing these tasks, they turn out to be risky for life. Hence, care needs to be taken by following safety instructions. Safety instructions make a user/worker aware of risks in their work and guide them how to avoid injury while performing those tasks. Failure to follow the necessary instructions can cause serious injuries or even lead to death.

Manufacturing, construction, mining, production and warehousing represent a few examples of industries where a number of daily tasks are full of risks. For example, welding work generates fire of high temperature, drilling requires use of heavy equipments, use of heavy machinery to lift, load and unload and destruct things on construction site, working at heights and so forth. There is risk associated with most of the tasks, hence the worker needs to follow the safety instructions and use safeguards such as the use of safety glasses along with a protective shield, footwear, protective suit while entering the boiler cabin and hearing protection. Chemical industries use different types of chemicals. Some chemicals are marked with ‘X’ on them, indicating that they are poisonous and hazardous and safety instructions are written below them. The user is required to follow them while using these chemicals. Some chemicals are to be opened only in a chemical hood. Similarly every chemical has a specific storage condition. Failure to follow the safety instructions leads to permanent damage both to the user and others too.

Therefore, it is necessary that safety instructions should be documented at work place for risky procedures and implement training for hazardous tasks. While making these safety instructions they need to be reviewed by experienced workers. Proper implementation of safe procedures involves training and supervision. The workers should not just read it but also follow it. To ensure the same supervisors or managers will need to constantly instruct and monitor the workers. If the worker does not follow the safety instructions then he needs to be counselled and trained again. If the risk associated with a procedure can be minimized then it should be implemented. For example, if instead of manual drilling work, if mechanical lifting device can perform the same with safety, then it should be used. Similarly if less hazardous solvent serves the same purpose as the hazardous, then it should be purchased. Further the work procedures need to be reviewed periodically and modified.

Thus, safety instructions when followed, allow to perform the risky work with care and minimize accidents and lead to a safe work environment.

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Give your employees the opportunity to grow

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People ideally have the notion that construction sector is a highly rewarding sector and if they are able to perform in this industry, then they can really make it big. They see a lucrative career in this industry and hence try to stick with it even during turbulent times. Therefore it also becomes the responsibility of the employer to reward employees who have performed consistently for the last few years. They should be given with additional work and if they are able to perform well at all times then should rightly deserve a raise in their position.

Giving opportunity will help them learn new dimensions:-

Construction industry is a wide and dynamic sector and it may take ages for one to learn it in totality. Deserving employees should be given the opportunity to learn new things in this sphere. Before you give them the chance to learn anything new, check if they are interested in widening their horizon to learn more about this industry or they are happy doing the same work but just want to lead a team. The aspirations of your employees matters a lot when you want them to take up any additional responsibility. At the same time, you should also check what they are good in. Are they good leaders who have the potential to command respect or they are good in managing administrative work or simply desire to learn the next level. Whatever the case may be, you got to take the onus and understand what they want.

If needed, you arrange your human resource team to speak with outstanding employees and check their field of interest. The people from the human resource may be in a better position to understand their desires and accordingly you can chalk out something for them.

Provide them with options and let them pick up that suit them:-

It has been noticed that lot of times employees do not know what is the next level of work that they should be learning. After having worked in one kind of work, either they get bored of it or they become so used to it that they do not want to leave doing that. They like to stay in their comfort zone and doing anything else apart from that is a strict no. It is important that they become comfortable with their job but do not devote their entire life doing just that. You have to take them out of their comfort zone and hand over few other works. This process will help them to develop and learn more about the business. It is advisable that you give them options and guide them on what they should pursue. This will play a vital role in their overall growth in the construction industry. These men will then become valuable asset for you and there are chances that they will also remain loyal to the company.

Your employees are one of the most important resources of your company and taking initiative to help them grow will eventually help your company to grow.

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