The Construction Company Owner Can’t Do It All

A blueprint for making successful hiring decisions for your construction company.

After coaching construction business owners throughout the years, I have learned that most have a common fear of hiring the wrong person. They postpone hiring for months and even years to avoid making a mistake.

Business owners who avoid hiring additional staff often spend too much time on tasks that could be handled by other employees, such as writing checks, getting material quotes, calling subcontractors, organizing monthly invoices, handling equipment maintenance, doing takeoffs, typing letters, organizing job correspondence and scheduling meetings.

When business owners handle these tasks, they do not have time to focus on other important functions, such as sales, business development, meeting with potential customers and improving field productivity. As a result, their businesses do not grow.

Delegation Dilemmas in Construction

The following examples show problems construction business owners face when they take on extra work instead of hiring additional staff.

• Dan owns a concrete company and spends an additional 20 hours per week paying the bills, writing checks, doing payroll, balancing the checkbook and going to the bank. His best skill is selling and finding new customers, but he does not devote enough time for this, and as a result, he continues losing money, and his field operations do not produce results.
• Bill owns an electrical contracting company. To save money, he eliminated his office manager/contract administrator a few years ago. Now, he has to do the secretarial and administrative duties required to keep his company running, plus manage the foremen and jobs. His customers, suppliers and employees now call him directly on his cell phone, which keeps him overworked (he typically works an 80-hour workweek). Consequently, his sales and profits have dwindled.
• Jason is a co-owner of a heavy civil construction company, but he usually does the takeoffs and calls subcontractors and suppliers for bids and estimates. These demands have depleted the time he needs to spend in the field to keep jobs moving. Therefore, his company is not winning new contracts or meeting the budget. 

Solutions

Your company will only grow if you delegate tasks. The more you do, the less your company will profit because you will not have time to focus on business growth. I would give the following recommendations to these construction business owners:

• I would advise Dan to hire a part-time professional bookkeeper to come into his office two days per week. This service should cost around $1,500 per month. With an extra 20 hours per week, Dan can then sell an additional $50,000 to $75,000 of work per month.
• Bill needs to hire a full-time construction project administrator/coordinator. He could delegate the everyday tasks he performs so that he can focus on customers and productivity. The small investment of $35,000 per year will allow his company to grow by at least $1 million in sales if he spends his time networking and seeking new customers.
• Jason could hire a recent college construction management graduate to help him with project estimating and act as an assistant project manager. This small investment of $45,000 will allow him to take his company to the next level.

Filling Construction Positions

Make a list of all the tasks in your construction company that you should not be doing. After sorting the “should let go of” list, decide what new position would produce the most time for you to focus on business growth. Then, hire someone for that position, and hold him or her accountable. Write a compelling ad listing out exactly what you need. For example:

Construction Administration:

Growing construction company seeks responsible energetic construction administrator and office manager to organize and handle multiple tasks including: phones, computers, submittals, contracts, correspondence, customer service, paperwork, graphic design, jobsite meetings and billings. Construction knowledge, Microsoft Office and blueprint reading experience required.

Place an ad on a low-cost online employment website. When you receive resumes, sort them by experience, relevance, salary and longevity at their previous employers. Then, email them to schedule a short phone interview, and ask detailed questions about their experience, knowledge, teamwork, responsibilities, strengths and weaknesses. Also, ask about their time commitment, salary requirements and benefits they expect.

Next, schedule a face-to-face interview with promising candidates. Always have someone else meet them during the interview process—two heads are better than one when making hiring decisions. When you decide to hire one of the candidates, have the employee go through a 30- or 90-day probation period to determine if he or she will be the right long-term person to help your company reach the next level.