Employees -sheesh- How Do Yoiu Combat The Job Site Wanderers?

pm_sup

My site super and head carpenter phoned in sick this morning, so I am on site in their place. (I am actually going to be working from our site 3 days a week from now on +/-)

Anyway the labourers, a bunch of them are doing the job site wander this a.m. I think it may be a symptom of ongoing instructions which have not been specific or clear enough from the site super.

Tools and cords etc not being put away, the day before. Annoying as h3ll. So much time is wasted just trying to get people going in the morning.
This is going to stop.

I am wondering what some of your experiences are/were in similar situations and what you did to rectify or try and rectify these types of situations.

We have pretty large sites so it's had to directly oversee employees, and keep an eagle eye on everything.

L. B. Condulet

You have a serious problem and not an uncommon one at that. Incentive pay for your lead men may remedy this.

WNYcarpenter

Perhaps the Pm and lead are trying to tell you something...There's a leadership problem...Now you see it!...It's not coincidental. Pull your top guys in and find out what the problem is!!! ...have your meetings privately and hear them out! But, Don't depend on your lead's or anyone's opinion because the Pm or leads could very well be the problem....

WNYcarpenter

This happened for a reason, be open minded. The PM and Lead don't just let things go like that...something is seriously wrong and no-one is willing to say it, they're hoping you'll figure it out.

steves

I"m a super. for a large framing co. When I was a foreman one thing I would do is make sure everyone had the next mornings assignment at the end of the day.
Now that I over see 2-8 foremen I make sure they do the same. The way I figuerd it at least 1 hr/man was waisted each morning. Now if we need them to do something other than what was planed the day before, at least their all busy untill they can be re-grouped for a different job.

d-rez

I agree with WNY. You need to talk with your supers. I recently went through this problem myself. You are paying them to manage your sites safely and efficiently, if thats not happening, find someone who can.

Magnettica

Lead by example and then give the lead guy a $200 bonus.

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KillerToiletSpider

The last high rise I was a superindent on I went through 40 plumbers before the building got to the fifth floor, because I did not have the patience to deal with slackers, I went through 65 plumbers total on that job (27 floors), and laid off all but ten when we topped the building out. I stuck around till the trim was 2/3 finished and turned the building over to the owner of the company, knowing I would never do that kind of work again. I deal with a seven man crew now, all of whom are good at what they do, and my life is a lot easier.

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wackman

INCENTIVE PAY. Make your problems their problems.

thom

Years ago I had a friend with your problem. He solved it.

He let everyone know, every monday morning there was a new guy. Every Friday afternoon someone was fired. If you were the guy who looked least productive that week, you were gone.

Do this for 1 or 2 months. Things will change, probably pretty quickly after the second week when the second guy gets fired. Don't back down.

Forget the respect crap. Forget the friend crap. Employees will take advantage of you. Employees will push you as far as they can. Employees will never stop testing the edge, until they FEAR you, and fear for their jobs.

Over the past few years this wouldn't work. They could leave and get another job down the road. Employees got accustomed to taking and Employers had to put up with it. Not today. Today the Employer is in charge. Today there is a shortage of jobs, a surplus of workers. Today is the time to take your company back.

wackman

F_ckin brutal, brilliant, but brutal.

tnt specialty

Been there, tried most all that.

As a couple have pointed out; What you may have is a form of "reverse delegation". Your field management wants you to fix it for them. When they're "well" and return to work, pull them aside and have a "come -to-Jesus" meet'n with em'.

Although it's generally not a accepted good practice to instruct your managers on specifics.....I like the phrase; "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail"....Your managers must also have "buy-in", as it relates to the well-being/benefit of the company.

My guess is that your "sick" field managers were hired-on with experience. My own experience has been the only really good managers I've had are employees I've trained from groung-zero.

d-rez

I don't follow this. They are already getting paid to run the job sites, so what is they extra $ for? To do their job well?

pm_sup

Thanks guys, some good responses

The thing that makes it tough here, is there is an extreme skilled labour shortage. They know, there is someone else who will hire them at the drop of a hat.

Lots of our lower end construction workers literally come from a skid row type environment. Some days if they just show up it's a bonus.

Subtrades are like that too. They have more work then thay can handle, some days you just have to swallow your pride to keep things going.

Can't wave a big bat or kick them in the @ss like we used to

wackman

Not extra pay, make their regular pay based on performance. Kinda like a salesman and commission. They get XX dollars for every YY they build. Give them the strict guidelines of how it's to be built and if they cut too many corners then they fix it on their own dime. Then give the superintendent some pay based on productivity and milestones. If those guys are wandering around and not being productive then it hurts his paycheck directly. It gives them incentive to work faster AND better and just generally builds a working environments atmosphere.

One job I worked at when I was a teen was loading trucks for Albertsons. We'd pick out all the stuff they ordered and wrap it up on a big pallet. We did everything by the case. You were expected to pull XX number of cases an hour in different areas to keep your job. They had a big board where they wrote down how many cases you had averaged over your whole time there, how many cases you pulled the night before and how many cases you had pulled that night so far. Then the guys who were fast were treated like heros and the slow guys were humiliated till they either quit or got faster.

We were working in a F_ckin freezer and it would get so competitive that I was taking my tee shirt off!

And we went home after all the orders were picked so really we were running like hell just to make less money for the same amount of work because we actually got paid by the hour.

Not much fun but a great way to create efficiency.

Wack

PARA1

The higher up you get the easier it is to fire someone before they hit the ground.

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