I read this past week that employment rates may be slower to rise due to the fact that employees have become more productive.  I assume these analysts mean more productive due to layoffs and that fewer employees are expected to get more done. Employees are doing just that, mostly because anyone with a job is just happy to have one and scared of losing the one he/she has.

Some of this increase in productivity may be due to investing in technology, some may be due to the fact that people are working a lot more overtime and some may be due to the fact that some businesses were overstaffed before the recession hit. 

Businesses are slow to rehire after a recession.  If you have had to lay off staff or not replace staff lost due to normal attrition, you tend to be hesitant to build that staff back for fear of starting the process all over again.

If you are in a position of trying to decide to hire again, take the time to evaluate what your current staff is doing.  Can you use outside employment/labor services to assist you in the busier times and avoid increasing full-time year-round staff?  Do you even know what your staff is doing? Work on your organizational chart, and write out new job descriptions for your staff. 

During this very tough business atmosphere, you may have stretched people thin with little thought of what assignments and responsibilities were being assigned where.  People just took up the slack, with no consideration of strengths and long-term employee or business growth. And you may think that if work is getting done, then what’s the point of hiring? The work may be getting done, but is it getting done the most efficient way? Sometimes one smart new hire can pay for hiscompensation and put profit on the bottom line in a very short amount of time.

Is your business now organized and positioned for maximizing long-term growth? As business begins to pick up, truly evaluate how the workload is allocated, and rework those systems and job descriptions with a forward-thinking approach. 

You may well not want to do things the way you used to do them, but you will always need the right people on the right jobs to build your business.

Stationed in Germany with the Army over 12 years ago, I remember eagerly placing “x’s” on my short timer’s calendar.  Each day spent was one day closer to “freedom” and, ultimately, home.  While living in Europe was the opportunity of a lifetime that I will forever cherish, I could not wait for the day when the road that got me to the barracks in Schweinfurt converged with the road that was headed back to my home in Michigan so that I could cash in my “mulligan” from round one of my life after high school.

I worked in the construction industry during summers of my high school years and thoroughly enjoyed it, but my big dream was always to become an airline pilot.  I packed away my tool belt after high school graduation and headed for flight school in northwestern Michigan armed with big goals and big ideas, but a very humble pocket book – and a looming recession in the early 1990′s.  After a year and half or so and a private pilot license later, that humble pocket book ultimately became the demise of my professional flying career and the incubator of my immediate future as soldier Mike.  Needless to say, I was devastated at not fulfilling my goal.  I even caught myself languishing in self doubt and doubting the premise of success by working hard and playing by the rules.  I had failed at the first big thing I set out to do as an adult, not for lack of effort, but by circumstances that I felt were beyond my control.  The wisdom that comes with age would ultimately allow me to learn that few situations are beyond one’s control but those that are still must be dealt with - but at the time I hadn’t been acquainted with that concept.  I raised my right hand and signed up for the college fund with Uncle Sam.

That choice, made by a 20 year old during a tough time in my life, in hindsight was one of the best decisions I ever made – and helped to clearly shape not only my future but those of my future wife and children.  I was forced to take an ample dose of humility and become nothing more than a recruit.  I got into great shape, was forced to re-analyze my life goals and get focused on the task at hand.  The goal of basic training is to tear the pseudo confidence down and rebuild it with an iron will.  Life experiences do that to each of us over time, basic training attempts to do it in two months.  The parable to life in general is quite obvious.

Where am I going with all of this?  Many, if not most of us are going through some of the most difficult times in our careers right now.  We doubt the decisions that led us to manage or own a construction business.  We see only the forecast of bad news with very little sunshine on the horizon.  We will make decisions now, under duress that will affect us for the rest of our lives.  Those businesses with systems in place that operate with proper business fundamentals are able to read the tea leaves much better than those that fly by the seat of their pants.  Those that practice forecasting, job costing, keep a work in progress schedule and bill accordingly (not too much ahead or too much behind) manage their precious cash flow and have an edge on the rest of us to capitalize on the next upturn or stabilization in the market.

The key point I want to offer is that now, during a time of stress, take the time to develop your plan of action, your next steps and avoid knee jerk reactions.  Perhaps some benchmarks or milestones could be useful.  Make these decisions with every available resource and planning tool available.  During that year and a half of flight school, the term “Trust your instruments” was pounded into me over and over.  These instruments, with backups, cross references and redundant mechanisms, won’t fail and must be your guide.  Now is not the time to count on false confidence or to close our eyes and hope for the best, but to count on our training and our systems. Sometimes the choice we make might take us down a completely different road than we initially imagined.  Hard times such as now are often credited with building character.  Even more importantly, I believe they reveal it.

I wish those that may read this a pleasant and blessed Thanksgiving holiday. I am thankful for the opportunity to communicate via this blog and welcome any comments or suggestions.  Unfortunately, we are not currently equipped to accept tomato throwing or spitballs.

Wall Street and business owners like to talk in units.  Cost per unit; profit per unit; production time per unit, etc.  These are all important aspects and help us increase shareholder value.  But let’s face it – to the family that purchases a home, the startup company that hires us to build their first office or either that engages us to remodel their current one, we are selling much more than a product – we are helping them define their lives for many years.  Our job as business people is to keep track of the units and costs – but let’s not lose sight of the entire experience that we are selling.  If we can tap into the emotive part of the process and try to “think like a client” – we can increase shareholder value and build a lasting reputation.

Many of us are, by nature, what I would call realists.  “It is what it is” may be our most important catchphrase.  But the fierce competition that envelops us in this industry requires us to be more than an A to B faciltator.  Good communication with our clients means involving them in the decision-making process as much as possible.  Many production builders disguise “choice” as pre-priced “packages” and “upgrades” that leave little more than color and finish options to buyers.  This is smart business in the near commodity production home building industry.  Folks in this example are more than willing to walk down the street to the next community if they don’t like what they see or sense that the price/value equation is out of whack.  The custom guys have a similar problem – lots of capable contractors competing for a few precious clients,  different subsets of the industry and very similar end results.

That is where we must think like a client in order to differentiate ourselves.  From the initial contact through an interent search engine or referral through the final sales call – what is it that differentiates your business from Joe down the street?  If you aren’t selling merely on price, why should this client choose your firm?  If a client signs a contract with you, what is the process you offer aside from the intended project?  In other words, the Golden Rule speaks volumes in today’s (and tomorrow’s) market.  Ask yourself what experience would you appreciate during a sales call?  What information would you like to be given?  How would you like the presentation to be oriented? (Powerpoint, bound documents, etc.)  As contractors, clients are purchasing our process as much as they are the product that we deliver.  This “process” we offer has boat loads of value potential in it and will make or break our companies.  Do not be afraid to make a list of how you would like to be treated during a construction project and balance it against your clients’ perceptions and the perceptions of your staff.  To our accountants and bankers, a project is measured by units.  To our clients, the project is measured by the entire experience from the initial phone call to project completion.  The value in an excellent experience is immeasurable.