Four Details You Are Forgetting For Your Business
Construction companies often do things at a faster pace than most other businesses for a variety of reasons. We have learned over the years that asking our construction clients to slow down is not going to get any results because deadlines are deadline. Instead, we have developed a short checklist of the basic things that our clients often forget to check or do in the course of conducting business. You would be surprised at how many of these basic activities your business is neglecting, and you would be even more surprised at the real cost it has for your business.
Make Sure Your Employees Are Qualified
One of the first little pieces of advice we give all of our clients is to trust in the facts. When a potential employee gives you their qualifications on an application, we don’t necessarily consider those facts. A quick check of a potential employee’s credit report can give you an accurate listing of their job history, and that can help you to get a more accurate understanding of their abilities and experience.
If you hire an employee for a specialized position, then check on their certifications and licensing before you allow them to work. Just because a potential employee hands you a piece of paper that looks valid does not mean they are giving you the real information you need. Checking a potential employee’s qualifications can be done quickly, but it is an action that could save your company money and time in the future.
Make Sure Your Equipment Maintenance Is Being Done
You want to trust your equipment maintenance staff, but making sure your equipment is always in safe and working order is critically important. To help keep your maintenance records straight, you should bring in a professional maintenance organization at least once every quarter to review your maintenance logs and make sure the work is actually being done. Faulty equipment can stop jobs and injure workers, and your company could be considered negligent if the maintenance was not done properly.
Audit Your Time Sheets
We find that many of our clients are unaware of just how important accurate time sheets are to mitigating risk and investigating accidents. If you have a supervisor who allows employees to sign in for each other to preserve their paychecks but those employees are not on the job, then you have a problem. In some cases, these types of issues can only be audited by putting someone on the crew to report time sheet activity. We can offer suggestions on how to audit your time sheets and make sure that your jobs are getting the coverage they need to keep your workers safe.
Comply With OSHA
There are certain areas of job safety where companies can bring in certified experts who are not necessarily experts in the way OSHA does things. One reason construction companies use these types of experts is because the experts are less expensive and they are still considered compliant. We always recommend investing the little extra money in an OSHA certified safety expert to make sure that your jobs are as safe as they can be.
A construction company works fast, and that is often because it has to. But we still recommend that our clients stop and attend to these important details to help mitigate risk, protect their workers, and avoid costly mistakes.