Communication in Your Construction Company Is Key to Employee Morale
I am not an actuary or a statistician, but my guess is that overall morale in our industry is quite low. Employees who once worried about climbing the ladder of responsibility now feel that they are fortunate to have a rung to hold onto. Business owners fear making payroll. Production managers who used to fear they wouldn’t get all of the work on the board completed and on time may now struggle to keep people busy. Even if your company is maintaining performance metrics, the evening news is filled with down notes.
I often discuss corporate culture in this blog and the vast impact that a sound culture has on a company’s bottom line. If employees “buy in” to the program that the company promotes, everyone benefits. Folks get to work on time. Jobs can be finished quicker. Pride in ownership displays itself. But I believe a part of this equation is employee morale. This is a tough time for all of us, and many construction business owners who are struggling to fill job boards and make payroll don’t have much sympathy for staff. But your staff, even if they aren’t directly feeling the heat from reduced hours, pay or benefits may still be struggling.
I recall a time in my life when interesting projects that involved the use of my seldomly used timber framing tools was all that was needed to keep me motivated. Working on many of the house museums in Savannah, GA, also helped me get excited to work each day. But then marriage and family came, and my focus changed with their arrival. Setting a timber truss wasn’t the only thing I needed to stay motivated. I needed other things - job security, insurance and a check each week. Our staffs are feeling these same pressures coupled with a deep uneasy feeling that something in our economy just isn’t right. They may not be able to address it in scientific terms, but they know that something just isn’t right.
Now is not the time to withdraw to the daily struggles of the corner office and wall yourself off from staff. To the contrary, now is the time to interact with them, and get a solid feeling of your construction company’s working pulse. Meet with carpenters, team leads, superintendents and project managers. Most of all, communicate to your employees every bit of information that you are willing to divulge. Empowering staffs with information won’t make them cut and run – instead, it will help them to better understand fundamental economics that are impacting their career and employer. Ignoring questions of staff morale will surely lower it.
Tags: economy, Management, morale, staff
August 5th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
what about the guy who doesnt get along with anyone what do you do with this one
August 6th, 2010 at 10:37 am
A solid Human Resource program would approach a problem employee the same – Recognize the problem; counsel the employee and allow them an opportunity to discuss the issue; Offer training or an alternative track (perhaps a differenct crew?) if available; allow them an honest opportunity to correct their deficiencies; then, if all else fails, remove them from your company. A belligerent crewmember will do more damage to your company in lost morale and productivity than his or her skills could ever pay for.
But protect yourself by documenting, documenting, documenting. Each state has unique HR rules and regs – and union vs. non-union shops have a totally different set of people that need to be in the loop. The key is managing the problem employee and not letting their bad attitude spoil your entire team. Counsel; document; allow for positive change; counsel again (either positive or negative); document; remove or reward as necessary. Don’t ignore the issue and hope it goes away, But, conversely, don’t just terminate without some form of due process. In promoting a standardized approach to dealing with problem employees, your organization develops professionally, appears fair and completely above board and you may discover some areas that the company can improve upon to improve the workplace – thus morale, production and efficiency.
Thanks.