Tag Archives: Employees

How to evaluate the performance of your employees

It has been always difficult to evaluate the performance of an individual who is working in your company or organization. You may have certain expectation from him and if at all you find the person to be anywhere short in fulfilling those expectations then you presumably mark him down in that parameter. However, he may have been exceptional in all other activities and therefore perhaps do not deserve the score. Therefore while you evaluate a person you should take into consideration his overall performance and not single out instances where he was not able to fare well. it actually does not go well with anybody who have been working from the core of his heart and then in the end gets to know that he is marked down on one such instance which was in no way crucial or have caused any harm to the prospects of the organization.

In the construction business where you have a lot of men working for you, it becomes tougher to evaluate the performance of every individual. It is just impossible to keep a track of the performance of all the employees and then rate them. This is why you got to create a system where you can easily track the performance of your employees and can justify the scores that you give to them. Supervisors should stringently monitor the performance of the employees in their respective teams and present the report to their managers. The managers in turn will approve the ratings and will decide the rise in pay of the employee.

Punctuality should be a crucial check:-

All the employees in the company should adhere to their respective shift timings and late comers should be tolerated. The message should go loud and clear to all the employees in the company. Construction workers who arrive late at the site can eventually become the reason for delaying the work. Any delay will then have to compensate by overtime which means the company then needs to pay its employees more for allowing them to work for extra hours for the fault of few guys who had arrived late at the site. The company should take this very seriously and must mark down the latecomers during their evaluation.

Their overall behavior and willingness to work:-

Employees who have worked hard for the success of the company should be rewarded and it is the onus of the supervisors to pluck out people who have made commendable contribution. The supervisors should keep a close watch on the employees and check who is willing to work harder. Guys who have the quest to learn more about the business are the ones who should be given more opportunities and also should be given good ratings during evaluation. The behavior of the employee also plays a crucial role while assessing his performance. One should check how good the person is in bonding with his team and the kind of rapport he shares with other teammates. Employees possessing these qualities should be rated more than others.

Negligence of any form can turn out to be fatal in the construction business

Right from our childhood we have the tendency to neglect things and feel that we can do it later. We just skip things for now and believe that someone else will do it for us or we will get it done some time later. We grow with the same tendency and then it starts getting costly to us. We can’t have the same approach that we had during our childhood days in our professional lives. It can have a nasty impact on our businesses and can hamper it big time. We need to take special care of things that are pending for a while and need to know the reasons why they are not done yet. Negligence of any form is fatal for any industry but when it comes to construction industry; it can become more damaging than ever. Here if you neglect important things there is every chance that it will back fire you and you end up paying a heavy price for it.

Negligence towards heavy equipment:-

Negligence of work can be of many forms. One can even be negligent towards heavy equipment. For instance, every machine do give some sort of signals become breaking down completely. Now, it is not a rocket science to comprehend those signals. One can easily understand those signals and work accordingly to fix the stuff. But if you are negligent towards fixing the machine and feel that you will do it later then there will come a time when you will not be able to get that thing to work. That will be followed by calling up a mechanic who might diagnose problems that can be fixed only if you change certain vital parts of the machine. In other words, it means that you now need to be ready to shell good sum of money on something that could have been managed effectively at the very moment you realized something wrong with it.

Negligence on part of stock keepers:-

Stock keepers are the ones who keep a stock of raw materials and whenever they feel that they may go short of materials they give an order to the suppliers who in turn transport the stuff to them. Negligence has been found by stock keepers who for some reason fail to provide orders of raw materials in time which leads to no work for a day or two. One needs to understand that the suppliers may also run out of stock and this is why it is important that you order the stuff in advance so that the suppliers have ample time to send it to you. In case of any eventuality, you do not run out of stock and the work continues. One can’t ever afford to be negligent during monsoon and winters as during these two seasons we experience numerous issues related to road blocks and accidents which can delay the delivery of raw materials. Keeping these things into consideration one must pro-actively order materials in advance and don’t fall into unnecessary chaos.

It is Christmas time. Shower your employees with gifts

Christmas is an occasion of rejoice and having fun with your near and dear ones. Calling your family at home and having a sumptuous dinner or taking your loved one in a posh restaurant and having a lavish meal. Buy gifts for your family; give your child the special gift that he always wanted to have. Christmas is all about fulfilling the dreams that you have seen along with your family. Being the owner of a construction company, it also becomes your responsibility to see that your employees have a great time during this season. If you make their Christmas special they will definitely want to stick with you for long and you got to understand the importance of the people working for you. Right from the senior most persons in your company to the junior most labor, you have to ensure that you give them the best gift to make their Christmas special.

If you want to give some gifts to the construction laborers, you can give them some thick hooded t-shirts that will protect them from cold weather or probably a pair of boots. A lot of companies prefer giving t-shirts. You can also distribute a bottle of wine or sweets among them. At the same time, you can also preferably offer them some money so that they can buy some things for their family thus showcasing that you not only think about their wellbeing but also about the wellbeing of their families. This can give them lot of happiness and a very good reason to continue with your company.

One of the most instrumental persons working with your company is the heavy equipment operators. You should also due credit to them and probably give them more gifts. The operators are the ones who work relentlessly inside the cabin which at times can be quite saturating. They do not care of their aching leg and continue to do their business. These set of people deserve some special recognition and gifts and what better timing it can be than to offer them this recognition at the time of Christmas. One more thing that can be done is holding up awards function where you will be giving awards to people who have shown an outstanding performance throughout the year. You can appreciate their hard work and the efforts they have put to make the company what it is now. In the same pretext you can also give away the Christmas gifts to them and possibly throw a party just after the award ceremony.

It will be a good get-together where the families of all your employees are coming in and having a good time. They can see their husbands or sons receive awards which will definitely make them proud. After which they can have dinner before departing for their homes. This will be an unforgettable experience for each one of them. After all it is Christmas time and you can certainly shower gifts on your employees to bring smiles on their faces.

Different departments should work in tandem

The success of any business lies on how collectively different departments of the company are able to work. To work as a team is quite a crucial component for the success of any business and when it is about the construction industry, team work becomes all the more important. A big construction industry has a lot of things to take care of and all needs to be in sync with each other for smooth functioning of the business. If any of the department lags then it will have a hard impact on all the other departments and they will face a tough time to deal with the shortcomings of that one department. This is the reason why if at all a department lags behind or is not able to cope up due to some issues that needs to be addressed then and there so that it does not lead to any further complication.

Collective effort from Admin and payroll team is needed:-

The Admin and Payroll team of a construction company plays a big role in managing the office expenses as well as ensuring that all the employees are paid fairly and correctly at the end of every week or bi-weekly as they receive the amount. The payroll team has to be very stringent with records keeping and stuff so that they do not overpay or underpay anybody. Problems and confusions do happen in a big company and if any employee experiences such an issue then that should be cleared at the earliest. Also steps should be taken to ensure that such mistakes do not happen again. To avoid mistakes or confusions, these 2 departments have to work very closely with each other. It becomes the responsibility of the head of the departments to check that things are moving smoothly and if there has been problems check the steps taken by the team to resolve it.

Growth of construction business:-

Growth of construction business largely depends on effective communication between several departments and effective communication is possible when people from different departments know each other. For instance, the operators who are in-charge of heavy equipment should know people from the support team (heavy equipment mechanics) as they are dependent on a large scale on the support team. Simultaneously, the support team should also provide quick response to any issue that has come up in the site. Heavy equipment are bound to fall sick. The mechanics should provide their help by getting things right on the machine.

Loopholes if any should be weed out:-

Any type of loophole that a department experiences should be taken care of in the first level itself. It should not be allowed to creep any further. If there is a situation that can’t be controlled in the first level and needs involvement of guys from another level then that should be informed to them in advance. They should be aware of the situation so that they can take necessary steps and be prepared to deal with it. This kind of collaboration is required the most in a construction segment.

Periodical trainings may help employees to perform better

It is perhaps not heavy equipment but the human resource that plays a pivotal role in the making of any successful business. The employees of a company can shoot their productivity to a new level if they are happy and content with the treatment that they get by the company and also by their bosses. The role of the management will be to ensure that the employees are well trained and can complete their work with utter accuracy. In an industry like construction, the role of the workers is very crucial. Right from the laborer to the civil engineer, they all require adequate training to understand what they are doing and how crucial their role is in the company. This also gives them a sense of importance and they take up their responsibility quite seriously. Even the guys who sit at the top require training on how to handle the labor force. The guys in the management have a bigger role to play in the overall performance of the company.

Construction laborers once they go skilled get ample of opportunity in almost any construction company. It therefore becomes the responsibility of the management to ensure that the guys do not leave the company for trivial reasons. Now to lower the attrition is a challenge that many top level managers find difficult to counter. In a construction business, it is not just the labor but there are many other people who hold such important departments that make the job of the top level managers tougher to hold them back. This is where their training comes into picture. These guys should be trained on a periodical basis on how to handle the vast labor force and ensure that they do not leave the company and stay productive. Keeping everybody happy is a difficult task and also requires lot of skill. The top level managers should be trained to acquire those skills and keep the guys happy.

Training the staff is another crucial segment that should not be skipped at any cost. The people from the Admin, HR and other such crucial departments should first understand the importance that the department holds and the positive impact that they can have on the people belonging to other departments. They should then be trained on how effectively they can make the working atmosphere in the company livelier. Organizing a small function or a health camp right on the jobsite can have a huge impact on the workers. The guys should be trained to come up with innovative ideas and put them to effect.

Lastly the laborers should be trained regularly on issues like health and safety. These are probably the most neglected areas that should be addressed. The trainings should be scheduled once every fortnight or once in a month and the attendance of all the employees should be mandatory. The employees will learn many things in this process that will help them to grow as a person and also in their career.

Treat your employees fairly

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.

Motivate your employees through ways of cash and kind

Paying salary to your employees is perhaps not the only way by which you can motivate them to stay and work in your company for years. Though paying salary on time will keep them happy but definitely that will not act as a motivational factor and they will never have the love for the company and will also not be displayed through their acts. Their psychology is simple. They deserve to get some extra benefits that are apart from their wages. Those extra benefits need not be through monetary gains but can also be through other virtues shown by the employer. Knowing the name of your tenured employees is one such virtue and speaking to them often for at least a minute can spark a feeling in them that the company wants them to be a part of it. Also try not to be harsh with them when they goofed up with things. Instruct your men to speak gently but sternly with them and try to get things done rather than bossing on them.

Paying bonuses can give them a good feeling:-

If you have sufficient projects in hand and are also doing well in your business, then it will be a good gesture to announce bonuses to your employees. The workers will especially feel happier by hearing such an announcement. They are often paid less than other employees in a construction company and therefore when they get to know that the company has declared bonus to all, they are probably the lot who becomes happier than the rest. However, if the company has not generated enough profits in that year and could not declare any bonus, that also should be informed to all the workers so that they do not lay any wrong expectation and later feel hurt.

Organize dinner for your workmen:-

This can be work as a good get-together where people from various departments will meet at one place and perhaps for the first time they will not talk about work and business but will be there to have fun and make the evening a memorable one. You can even organize some cultural shows where the participation of the workers will be a must. This will also allow them a chance to display their skills other than what is required in their work. Programs like these will help in strengthening the bonding of the employee and the employer. These activities do not usually happen in many construction companies and if you take the initiative and organize these activities, it will lead to lower the attrition rate of the company.

Give gifts or shopping vouchers to your employees:-

Construction companies often get shopping or restaurant vouchers from many sources. The companies can distribute those vouchers to the top performer or if it wants to give it to everybody it can do that as well. In order to motivate your employees, you do not have to spend money from your company’s reserves. It’s a gift that you get from someone and you give it out to someone else and make their day.

Veterans should focus on new entrants and guide them throughout

In every industry the role of veterans in nurturing the business cannot be ruled out. They play a pivotal role in shaping up the future of the company and also the career of many individuals who learn from them. At the same time they also earn a special place in the company and if ever the company goes through a rough patch, it is the veterans in the company that secures their place in the company. They are probably the last one to be kicked out. The experienced ones however have to make this place for themselves by giving their time and paying attention on the new guys. It is the experienced lot who can train the new guns about the systems in place and the process of work along with the culture that is followed in the company. In a nutshell they have a big role to play irrespective of what industry they belong to.

Veterans have a stronger role to play when it comes to the construction sector. This sector being quite vast in nature, it takes years for a person to learn things and to master them. People commit lot of mistakes when they are new to work and with every mistake they take a step forward in learning something new. Veterans can make things a bit simple for them by providing them with proper guidance and showing them the correct way to get the assigned work done. Construction business is not only a vast one but also quite complex and the newcomers will for sure find it difficult to comprehend things in the beginning. They need someone who can walk them through the initial phases and be with them whenever they need their advice.

Try to become their mentor:-

The newbie who get into the construction sector look for people who can turn out to be their mentors. They may come across many people who will help them. The new guys will try to pick a mentor out of the many people whom they feel is able to guide them in the most appropriate manner. The work of a mentor is undoubtedly a difficult one as he will be bothered with all sorts of questions. It will be a real test of his patience and he needs to prove his credibility by being calm and answer their queries as and when it shows up. After spending anytime between 8-10 years in an industry one becomes a veteran but you need special qualities to become a mentor and not everybody can become one. It is only those who have sound knowledge about his work and can calmly impart it to their juniors and subordinates can ultimately possess the quality of becoming a mentor.

Be a problem solver:-

Day in and out the new guys will come across new things and that will indeed riddle them and compel them to ask questions. Now if they turn up to you, they come to you with believe that you have the potential to answer them. This is when you also need to do your best and try to solve the problem they are in. Try to be a problem solver. This will mean a lot to them.

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Loyalty of employees is important in the construction industry

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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Make this Christmas special for your employees

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.

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