Accurate Time Tracking Is So Much Easier With Workyard
Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day? While you can’t materialize more time out of the ether, you can make better use of the hours you have.
Effective construction time management keeps clients happy—and keeps you under budget. Conversely, ineffective time management leads to disappointed customers and unpredictable labor costs.
Construction managers use a variety of techniques to manage the time constraints of their projects. For the most part, the challenges that construction managers face are similar. Construction companies must balance client expectations with reality by getting a job done as quickly as realistically possible.
Most Common Problems With Construction Time Management
Problem | Cause | Solutions |
Employees don’t know what they’re doing, make mistakes, and have to redo work. | Poor communication | Relay objectives to employees early in the project. Hold meetings at critical milestones. Use task management software to keep track of employee progress. |
Delays are introduced through subcontractors, weather-related issues, and the unavailability of essential materials and tools. | Overly optimistic estimates | Refer to prior reports to estimate the time a project will take. Include a buffer when drawing out estimates to cover any unexpected events. Respond to unexpected events quickly. |
The project scope keeps changing, and the client is unhappy with the work that’s being completed or continues to change their mind. | Undefined scope | Be clear about the project scope from the beginning. Carefully document any changes to the project scope and reassess both your budget and timeline. Document all work completed for the project by employees. |
There are too many projects to handle, projects frequently conflict, and employees find themselves racing from site to site. | Poor scheduling practices | Make sure employees know when they’re scheduled.Create a time-tracking system to track employee time.Leverage scheduling software to optimize the time between jobs. |
What To Do
Without effective construction time management, you can’t scale your business. An effectively managed project is a profitable one. Still, it can be hard to manage your time when there are so many moving parts.
To effectively manage construction time, you need to accurately track time spent on each of your projects. The more information you have, the more accurate your projections and schedule will be.
You also want to:
- Make a schedule and stick to it. Refer to reports from previous projects to create more reliable estimates for future projects. Regularly check in with team members to verify that the project is still on schedule. If the project isn’t on schedule, make a plan to get it back on track.
- Break projects into tasks and milestones. Breaking a large project into a sequence of smaller steps makes the project less overwhelming and easier to manage. Workyard provides consolidated task management and reporting—so you always know the status of your project.
- Communicate expectations to team members. Team members must be aware of the schedule and held accountable for their tasks. With Workyard, you can manage employee schedules within a real-time, consolidated platform. You’ll always know exactly how many hours employees have spent on site—and how far they’ve progressed.
It’s the construction industry. There will be delays. Whether you’re rained out of a job or you have to deal with a contractor who isn’t quite delivering, you need to have the flexibility to adapt built into your schedule.
What Not To Do
There’s no shame in being set in your ways. In many areas of construction, that’s exactly how you get things done. But if you find yourself regularly falling short when it comes to your construction time management, it may be time to make some changes.
Are you committing any of these “construction don’ts”?
- Being too optimistic about your scheduling. It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver. If a project took 40 hours in the past, don’t bid 30 hours unless you truly believe that you can improve your efficiency by 25%. Check your project cost reports to get a better feel for how long the project should take and how much it will cost.
- Pushing employees to compensate for tight scheduling. Stressed employees skip their breaks, make mistakes, and get injured. Not only is that dangerous and counterproductive to employee morale, but it will only delay your project further. A workforce management app like Workyard can help you get the most out of your crew by giving you the information you need to optimize your scheduling.
- Allowing for scope creep without revising your schedule. Sometimes clients aren’t happy with the work that’s been completed. But any change to scope requires that you revisit both your schedule and your budget. Otherwise, you may find that the reworks you agree to push you out of profitability.
It’s much easier to fall behind a schedule than it is to keep up with one. Maintaining your construction time management takes constant effort. But with the right technology and processes, you can get it done.
Leverage Apps To Improve Your Construction Time Management
Construction time tracking software helps improve your time management today. Plan and manage employee schedules, accurately track time, track your job costs and check on each project’s milestones and tasks—as quickly as they are completed.
Workyard protects your time by making it easier to manage your employee scheduling with a consolidated solution—identify potential conflicts within your schedule, confirm that you’re still on target, and manage your labor costs all in one place.
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