OPERATIONS: Staying on Target

While this is not the time of year to implement new systems or changes, it is time to review what you’re doing and begin to plan the changes you’ll make this winter. Let’s review a few key points that will help you become a better, more efficient contractor.

1. Are you comparing your financials to a budget each month? If not, create an annual budget with a monthly breakdown for all your expenses next year. This is an absolute must if you are to work on your business instead of in your business.

2. Are your estimates created via a system that incorporates production rates and difficulty factors? Do you measure properties, count obstacles, measure lineal footage, etc.? If not, consider developing this type of estimating program for 2006. If you’re already using this system, now is the time to get out your stopwatch and measuring wheel so you can review your company’s production rates.

3. Are your clients happy? Are you sure? You’ll be renewing maintenance contracts soon and you always want to have referrals from your current clients. Considering that, start making friendly phone calls to all your clients now to check their pulse. And guess what? You might even sell them some extra work to complete before winter.

4. Are your employees happy? Are you sure? Have you held a cook-out or company outing lately? Now is a good time for these types of events while things are a little slow. If you have seasonal employees, be sure that you’re all on the same page relative to when they will leave you for the winter. You don’t want them to leave in the middle of leaf season or at the first sign of cold weather. Communicate.

5. Are you managing your crews with budgeted vs. actual hours? Budgeting hours is one thing that I recommend every day. Track crews’ actual time on jobs against the hours budgeted for the work and do this in a manner that lets each crew know how they’re preforming week over week. If you’re not doing this, develop a system that makes it part of your business. This is a great winter project and a must if you want to make money.

6. What is your quality, really? Your crews’ work quality will dictate the future growth and reputation of your company. As the owner or manager, get out there now and visit each site. You don’t have much time left to make corrections before asking for a renewal or a referral. Do you have a specific Quality Judging Program that enables you to judge a site and give it an overall score to report back to the crew? Take the winter to develop this program as well.

7. Do your employees know what’s expected of them? Job descriptions are important for all employees. Communicate what your expectations are of the individuals in your organization.  They will be happy to finally know what’s expected of them. Involve employees in the development of job descriptions.

8. At what point do you make the seasonal layoffs this fall? Do you have a plan? Will the budget dictate? Yes, the weather contributes to when layoffs must begin, but too often I see companies keep employees on from one to six weeks too long and it really costs. Discuss the layoff plan with your team and get at least a tentative game plan together. Attach your payroll dollars to your plan so the impact of keeping people too long is clear. Remember also to be fair because you’ll want these people to come back in the spring.

All business owners must continue to grow in order to provide opportunities for their employees and their families. To do this, companies in this industry need to be quality, efficient, profitable machines. Step back for a minute and evaluate where you are now and look at how you really do things. We can always improve.