Tag Archives: Construction Business

The Construction Industry: Past, Present, and Future

The construction industry has been a driving force behind the growth and development of civilization for centuries. From the earliest days of human history, people have been building homes, roads, and public structures to meet their needs. Over time, the industry has evolved and grown, adapting to new technologies and techniques, and becoming one of the largest and most important industries in the world.

The construction industry has come a long way from the early days of hand-made tools and manual labor. Today, the industry is dominated by large corporations and multinational companies, using state-of-the-art technology and equipment to build some of the most impressive structures and projects in the world. From towering skyscrapers to sprawling suburbs, the impact of the construction industry on modern society is undeniable.

The construction industry has also become a significant contributor to the global economy. According to recent estimates, the construction industry employs millions of people and generates trillions of dollars in economic activity each year. The industry is a major driver of growth and development in many countries, creating jobs, boosting local economies, and helping to build the infrastructure that is essential for modern life.

Despite its many successes, the construction industry is facing new challenges and opportunities in the years to come. In the wake of the global financial crisis, many countries are grappling with economic uncertainty, and the construction industry is no exception. However, new technologies and innovative techniques are helping to revive the industry, and many experts believe that the future of the construction industry is bright.

One of the most exciting areas of growth in the construction industry is in the use of new technologies, such as 3D printing, robotics, and augmented reality. These cutting-edge technologies are making it easier and more efficient to design, build, and maintain structures, and are helping to drive the industry forward.

Another major trend in the construction industry is the focus on sustainability and green building. With increasing concerns about the impact of human activity on the environment, many construction companies are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint and build more environmentally-friendly structures. From solar panels and wind turbines to eco-friendly materials and water-saving technologies, the construction industry is leading the way in sustainable building practices.

In conclusion, the construction industry is an incredibly dynamic and important sector, with a rich history and a promising future. Whether you’re a builder, an engineer, or simply someone who appreciates the art of construction, there’s no denying the impact that this industry has on the world. From hand-made tools and manual labor to cutting-edge technologies and sustainable practices, the construction industry is constantly evolving, and we can all look forward to seeing what the future holds.

You can’t afford to lose efficient employees in the construction business

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Human resources are perhaps the most important resource in every industry. You can have good machines, may be rich with financial resources but as long as you do not have humans to control them and work on them, it is futile to have so much of resources at your disposal. It just does not make any sense. There should be a blend of all the resources to run a business which also involves humans. So when we talk about human resource, it should be limited to men who have the capability to perform the work given to them. You can’t expect anybody to do anything. For instance, you can’t expect an engineer to operate a machine for you. He is just not meant to do that work. His expertise lies in some other trade and you have to give him that work. Precisely in the construction sector as well, you are expected to follow the same rule. You should hire labor according to the nature of work and as per their expertise level.

Once you have hired the efficient workforce you should be cautious and treat them well so that they do not leave you for a better company. Just by paying them a high salary you can’t keep them content. They need a better treatment from you and if they get what they want then there is high chance that they will stay with you for long. Moreover, you also can’t afford to lose your men especially when they are skilled and hold an important position in your company. A good supervisor is very hard to be found. He is the one who has his grip on the labor. In order to get the work done, he will tighten the grip and when there is less work or no work, he will ask his boys to relax. He is also a person who has earned the respect of his boys and his boys will not say no to him when asked to work beyond working hours. This supervisor is an efficient employee for you and you can’t let him go for any trivial reason.

Be a boss with a friendly nature:-

When it is about people management, you can’t afford to be bossy with them. Professionalism is expected in every professional industry but at the same time one much also keep in mind that the guys with whom he will be dealing are men like him and they will delightfully do a work when asked in a friendly manner. If you maintain a friendly attitude towards all the employees of your company they will indeed work harder for you and will not want to leave you.

Increase the pay on an annual basis:-

It is needless to say that we all work for money and one expects a slight increase in his salary at the end of each year. At times, you have had a bad year with no much business and hence have not earned enough profit. In such a situation, you should take all of them into confidence and explain the reason why there will be no increase or a minimal increase in their package. There is high chance that they will understand your position and will stick to you.

Look for promotions in the construction business

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We never want to work in the same position as it gets a little monotonous doing the same work every day and over and over again. We do not work only to get money at the end of the week but we also work to get a sense of satisfaction from what we do and this is what drives us ahead in life. Moreover one should never make a comfort zone and live in it. That can be dangerous especially when it comes to forming a great career. Great careers are never achieved by living in the comfort zone. One needs to get out of it and strive hard to achieve something in life. Promotions are given to only those who want to do things differently and have the ability to work in an environment which is not so friendly. This is what most entrepreneurs look for in an employee. They want people who can take up challenges in life and can convert every calamity into an opportunity.

Promotion can bring a rise in your salary:-

There are 2 ways to bring a rise in your salary. The first is not an advisable one but still worthy in few scenarios and it is to leave your current company and move to the next one in search of better package. The second one sounds to be more logical which is to work hard and take a raise in your levels. Whenever you get a promotion, your package is increased. Other than the annual appraisal that happens in most of the construction companies, any hike due to a rise in the position is phenomenal. This is what your aim should be when you join a company. Try to know the different levels of promotion and how hard you have to work to get to the place you want to see yourself.

You are known and respected because of your work:-

If you perform and deliver high end results, you will be known amongst the various levels of management. Once that is done they can pitch in for you when asked about your performance and will give positive feedback. Many companies follow the tradition of checking with various departments about the performance of an individual before promoting him to the next level. Only if they get positive responses from basically all the levels of management, they go ahead with the promotion. Once you are known and you continue to carry the good work, you will be also respected for it. As and when you attain seniority in the company, the respect that you have amongst the masses will only grow.

Generating a good rapport with almost everybody in the company:-

Promotions are also given to a person who is a team’s man. If you are a person who can gel up well with your team members and with members of other teams, you are gaining popularity. Good rapport always comes handy during good and bad phases on life. So always maintain a good rapport with almost everybody and ensure that people know you for good reasons. This will help you to climb the ladder quickly than ever.

Rejections should not demoralize the owner of Construction Company

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We do not always get what we have wanted. There are many times when we have to hear No from people. Guys especially from sales have to deal with this word quite often. But they deal with it and do not get dejected. The moment you get dejected after rejections you tend to move out of the league and that is probably the end of your journey in that industry. Rejections are part of life. You will come across numerous instances where your idea or your effort will be rejected just because the other person did not find it worthy. However, this certainly does not mean that it was not a good idea or you have not done a good work. It is just that the idea or the work you have done did not go well with the situation at that point in time and has every chance that it will go well if you try it again. It should not let you down and force you to think negatively. That may go completely against you and you should avoid such thoughts coming to your mind.

The construction industry has its share of good and bad phases. When the industry is doing well you will not see people rejecting you but the moment the bad patch makes its way in the industry is when you will come across a lot of rejections down your way. You will not get enough work and people for whom you have worked with delay your payments or will pay you less. Moreover, big construction companies also fail to enroll you on a big project. They may simply not have much work in their hands which is why they can’t give a share to you. These factors are certainly annoying for a small construction company who depends on these big guys for work and also when you do not have small projects coming your way it can be really frustrating.

You should not let rejections become a factor to demoralize you. When things are not going well in the industry it will affect all and not particularly to you. You are bounds to hear rejections as well as say No to others as well. However, that is the time when you do some research on the industry. Spend more time in developing your website. Check the company’s performance in the last few months or years. Take into consideration all the factors that led to high profits in the business and also what went wrong when the profits were down. You need to dig in deep to get the real reasons out. This will help you in a big way to avoid repeating any mistakes that you have committed in the past. When you are busy with work you do not realize mistakes made in business. You just move over it committing it again.

When the business is slow you get the time to ponder on these things and ensure that you avoid doing them and continue your endeavor to get more work.

Things one should avoid in the construction business

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Every business has certain norms and the guys who are conducting the business need to follow those norms religiously. People have to follow those norms as it is and things that are not allowed just can’t be practiced in reality. Apart from that, there are certain things that are advised to do and few things that one should just avoid doing. In the construction industry there are many things that one should simply avoid because if they try to do that it can lead to serious complications.

Breaching the law of the land:-

In the construction business, you will come along people who in order to simply things from themselves do not abide by the law. They take their chance but in the end they also pay a price for it. To go against the law of the land is something that you should always avoid doing. If there are certain rules laid to conduct business, it becomes the moral duty of others to follow those rules. Right from taking sanction to building houses as per the limit laid by the law, one should follow every minute thing. Remember you are always being watched and if you play foul you will get caught someday or the other and once you get caught you may have to end up losing your business license. It is recommended that you do not enter that zone.

Securing your jobsite:-

One should have enough security measures to secure the jobsite from mischievous elements. Your heavy equipment are rested at night and there are chances that someone can break-in to your jobsite in the death of night and can steal the machines. Heavy equipment are expensive stuffs and they have good value in the grey market. You should avoid taking such chances. Hire good security personnel who can guard the jobsite once everybody has left the site. Install cameras in key locations. It is not feasible for the security personnel to keep a watch at every corner of the site. With the help of the cameras, the guys can do a marvelous job and can keep a watch on all the items. Moreover, you can number all the equipment present at the site. That will help the guys to take a count at the beginning of the day and also at the end of the shift. So security is something that you should never think to avoid.

Take important decision without consulting others:-

Important business decisions should be taken keeping the management in loop. Moreover, their feedback also matters a lot. Taking important decisions without letting the management know about it can have severe communication issues within the organization and can become really nasty. You should avoid making this mistake.

Financial irregularities:-

Any kind of financial irregularities should be avoided at any cost. To avoid this, one should keep a track of the accounts on a monthly basis and question if he finds something suspicious or questionable. Financial irregularities have the ability to eat up a might business enterprise in no days. So better take care of it at the bottom level.

 

Over aggressiveness can cost you the business

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It is believed that the one who is aggressive in the construction industry can only make it to the pinnacle. Others just form a part of it. Being aggressive is a want in this form of a business. There are other qualities that are also required to become successful in the construction business but out of all the other qualities, being aggressive is required the most. Now the word aggressive can give you many meanings and when we talk about the industry demands aggressive guys, it does not mean it is asking for hot headed people who can’t keep their cool and in this process take decisions that turn out to be utter failure. Aggressiveness here means not letting out the spirit in you die in any circumstances. You will get to see a lot of ups and downs, failures and hiccups coming down your way, but you fail the day you lose your spirit to get up and get going.

The moment you are crushed down, you should be determined to get back with a much greater force and this is what aggressiveness is all what. However, being over aggressive can pose lot of threat to your business. There are numerous examples where people have incurred huge losses as they went overtly aggressive and some even had to pay the cost by completely winding up their construction business. Over aggressiveness is displayed at many places. For instance, you feel like having too many heavy equipment as you foresee a lot of projects coming up. But you may go absolutely wrong on your calculation and rest will be quite traumatic. So you got to be patient enough before being aggressive. You can get everything in just one single day. Projects also take time to come and if you expect a lot to come, you got to strategize and plan with your people if they are ready to manage more projects.

Planning forms an integral part of your business. You need to get everybody into confidence before you take up any decisions. Also understand the challenges posed in front of different departments before you take any important decision. These things are quite critical in nature and overlooking them in any way can cause huge damage to the business.

When you are over aggressive, you tend to leave the people who are a bit slow and can’t match up with your pace. Well, that is not how it should be. We all have our own way and speed of doing things. You feel that it is better that you move ahead by leaving them behind or else they will hold you back. However, look at it the other way round. A leader is the one who takes everybody along with him. A person who is aggressive with his business will always ensure that his employees are on the same page and if anybody is having issues with catching up the pace, helps is given to them.

Foresightedness is a pre-requisite in the construction business

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For any business to thrive, the managers of the business should possess the quality to foresee things. They should be in a position to anticipate what may happen next. An important decision taken by them can have certain ramifications. This should be construed well in advance by the people who are responsible for the growth of the company. Businesses that are volatile in nature are more prone to risks and if the business owner is not careful about his decisions, he may have to pay a heavy price for it. We normally take decisions taking into account in current situation. We do not know the future and therefore it is quite difficult to assume things in advance. We can however assume few things if not all. People who have been running the business for long, they kind of get a hang of different situations and are somehow in a position to predict things. It is perhaps they have witnessed similar things in the past.

The current situation may be a little different from what the person must have witnessed years ago but he can still assume the result and can plan his stuff accordingly. To run a construction business, one requires great deal of experience in hand and apart from that, the capability to foresee things. There is significant amount of volatility in this business. During turbulent times, small construction business owners do not have to face the music as much as the big companies have to. They really see a sharp decline in the graph of the company which is only because they were not able to foresee those turbulent time in advance. You get hints before a major catastrophe hits your business. You need to understand those hints and frame your strategy accordingly. Failing to act at the right time can even cost you your business.

Rise in the price of raw materials and fuel:-

Though both raw materials and fuel prices do not rise at the same time; however, if either of this happens and you have not stocked them, it can cost you heavily. Now, no one can assume when the price of either of them will increase. This is just not possible. However, one can predict the rise through means of what is happening in the market, keeping an update of the government policies and other factors. The crux here is how knowledgeable you are with the current affairs. If you possess sharp knowledge and the information that you get is correct, then your assumption can never go wrong. There may be a slight miscalculation where you have predicted an “X” amount of increase but it only rose to “Y” amount. That is understandable.

Prepare statistics to understand the position:-

You have plenty of softwares which you can use to prepare statistics based on the information that you get from your sources as well as from business magazines. These statistics will help you to come to a conclusion on where the construction sector is moving and will eventually lead you to foresee or predict a thing.

 

Take rational decisions when it comes to budget of your construction company

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The success of every business is largely determined on the way you plan it out and also the manner you execute those plans. It is evident that the actual will never be at par with the estimate, which means that things will never go exactly the way you planned it will work. There will always be some sort of deviations from what you have estimated. The ground situation will differ from what you have contemplated; but the thing that is crucial is the difference between the estimated and the actual. If the difference is huge then it is a problem. This means that you do not have complete control on your work and there is a chance that it is going in a haywire direction. Pertaining to construction business, one can never afford to let his budget go haywire. It will cost him more than anything else. Also, the company needs to ensure that the completion of the project happens within due course of time because if it kind of lags then it will eventually cost to the company.

Plan by considering every possible situation:-

When you prepare a budget for a construction project, you should take into consideration every minute detail. Right from the operating cost to the miscellaneous everything should be accounted. If you foresee any increase in the price of raw materials that should also be included in your budget. Try to keep your budget on a higher end so that if price of any commodity shoots up in the mid of the project you should not get a shock of your life and should rather take the inflated price comfortably. Also consider the cost that the company will have to bear for any unknown reasons. For instance, during monsoon if it rains a lot leading to blocking the roads then you might not receive the materials in time which will delay the work. However, you still have to pay your employees for the day. There may be other such instances that may crop up which will be temporary in nature but can have quite an effect on your business. So it is advisable to account those situations in your budgetary.

Review the ground situation with the estimates:-

Once you have laid your plan, it is highly significant that you review the ground happenings with the estimates on a periodical basis. This will let you know if you are falling short or if things are in your control. Also, if you figure out any complication then that can be taken care right at the beginning. You should weed out any problem right at the beginning and not keep it for the last minute. This is possible only if you do a reality check periodically. While you are reviewing the plan with the actual, get involved the men who are in charge of different departments so that they all know the ground reality and can pass on the message of the meeting to the lower ranks.

Take suggestions before starting a construction company

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Before you get into anything big that can either shape up your career or can ruin it, it is very important that you sit with someone who knows about the subject and take adequate suggestion from him. Do not do anything in haste and for something that is so crucial for your life and career you just can’t take any chance on it. You have to be more than 100% sure of what you are doing and why you are doing. As long as you do not have the answers for your questions it will not be wise enough to get into it. We all want to have a business of our own where we do not have to work on other’s instructions. A place where we can take our own decisions and will not worry about what the boss will say. But to start your entrepreneurial journey you must ensure that you know the first step that you should take.

People who start their construction business are also found to be working with some other construction company. They may not be able to give their 100% to their business but they ensure one thing and that is they will have a source of income even if the business does not work. Now there are few people who are smarter than others. What they do is they stick around with a construction company but work there for few hours in a day and the rest of the time they devote it to their business. People come out with real smart ideas but the fact is they also get some ideas from others. They take sound advices from their peers and accordingly apply their mind to come out with a great idea.

Construction sector is one such business where you will not be able to understand the entire business in one life. It is pretty complex. People who have spent their entire life in this business at times learn a thing or two and also encounter situations where they have to seek for advices. They do have a team of advisors who are experts in their respective fields and they help the owner of the business to come to a decision. So when you intend to get into something as complex as this it is inevitable to not look for advice from an expert.

If you are already working in a construction company and have great rapport with the guys who are older than you and also far experienced than you, it makes ample of sense to approach them with the idea of starting a construction company. They will be the right folks to advice you on it. Their advices will be quite in-depth and will hardly miss out on any crucial point. Right from heavy equipment to hiring competent construction laborers they may speak to you about everything under the sun. Most importantly you should ask them to advice you on how to tackle the various challenges that you may encounter. You will learn the rest with experience.

Construction workers should know their worth

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To know what we are really worth as far as our profession is concerned is a matter of pure confusion. Why it is confusing is because we actually do not know what the worth of your services is and this is why without knowing much about our worth we get ready to offer our services for a lesser price. This should really not happen because at the end of the day after having worked in a company for a couple of years when you actually know your price and also the fact that you are getting paid much lesser than what you should have been it causes great deal of frustration within yourself. Some even start to get the feeling of being cheated and then they start looking for some other organization again without knowing their current worth. It is therefore crucial to know how much you should be paid for your services keeping into consideration the talent and skill you possess and the amount of experience you have under your belt.

When we talk about the construction sector the most neglected genre of workers in terms of being the right amount of salary are the construction laborers. A construction laborer at the start of his career is paid quite low. That should be alright with them as they are gaining some experience and learning new things but as they grow a bit older in the company their package is not increased in the appropriate scale which leaves them with a poor pay package. Now as a result of this many construction laborers quit their job in the middle of a project and join some other contractor who pays them more than what they were getting. It often leaves the former company in a pickle and their project comes to a standstill.

Construction companies have taken this seriously and are now paying the laborers at par to the industry standards. The worrying part is not all construction companies are following the same route. There are still few small time companies who are exploiting the workers right left and center and the workers who do not know much about the worth of their services stay in the same company. Well the laborers should know about their rights and also what they should be paid. There is a standard rate across the industry and the companies are expected to pay their employees on those standards. The workers on the other hand should also check government websites that speaks in volumes about the rate per hour that should be paid to the laborers. Projects are completed on time because the workers work hard to get it done on time and if they are paid less then they have all the liberty to leave the company any moment.

They will also get work easily as they need not be highly qualified. All that is required from them is the knowledge to construct a building and if they possess that knowledge any construction company is ready to take them by paying them the standard rate.