Whether you work as a superintendent, foreman, project manager, or president, every decision you make impacts your bottom line.
Trying to increase ROI is a constant battle, and that effort can be hindered by a variety of factors, including poor communication, poor resource management, and outdated processes.
Tight budgets for a tight market
If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you know that now is a fairly turbulent time in the construction industry. Economic uncertainty has led to a tighter market and increased competition, making it more important than ever to monitor your budget.
In fact, hiring in the construction industry has gone down by about 10% in the past year, making effective and budget-minded decision making more important than ever.
How to cut costs
It’s important to monitor your costs and keep a tight rein on your budgets. Out of control spending can derail any project and negatively affect your business’ overall health.
Here are some ways you can effectively reduce unnecessary costs:
1. Streamlining payroll and time tracking
So much time is wasted on tracking time. Why? Because a lot of companies either still rely on physical time cards and outdated payroll tools, or they simply have a hard time entering all of their employee hours into payroll.
That’s why digital time cards are so important. They make it easy for employees to log their hours on either their own mobile device or a shared device so that those hours are immediately available to the payroll team.
A good payroll software that syncs with your digital time tracking is key too. That’s why, in addition to our digital time tracking tools, we integrate with leading accounting software for seamless, pain-free payroll.
2. Digitizing daily reports
Studies show that construction companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on what are referred to as “non-optimal activities,” including fixing mistakes and construction rework.
By switching from outdated pen and paper reports to digital daily reports, not only do you reduce the likelihood of human error (or miscommunication due to sloppy handwriting), you also increase cohesion between workers in the field and the office with real-time updates and jobsite data.
Some digital dailies, like the ones we provide here at Raken, even allow you to attach time-stamped photos, videos, and other attachments. Our reports even allow you to capture weather data so that you can ensure everyone gets the full picture of what happened at the jobsite that day.
Construction companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on “non-optimal activities,” including rework.
3. Tracking material and equipment costs
It’s easy to lose track of material costs on the jobsite. Especially if anything gets damaged or stolen. With tools like digital daily reports and production dashboards and insights, you can monitor progress and measure material usage against estimates.
Likewise, it’s always going to be cheaper to keep equipment regularly maintained than it is to shell out for major repairs or even replacements. A good digital equipment management tool can help you stay on top of maintenance and track budgets and usage.
4. Effective labor allocation
Your workers are your most important resource. Their unique skills and daily efforts are what keep projects on track, and nothing would get done without them. But how you leverage their skills changes everything.
With digital tools like resource scheduling, you can easily schedule one-off or recurring shifts and a calendar view to see who is scheduled and when. That way, you can avoid scheduling conflicts.
More advanced tools, like our certification management and labor map features, enable you to track what skills your workers have and what jobsites they’re working on. That way, you can make sure you schedule the right workers at the right locations.
5. Improving safety
Maintaining a safe jobsite is hard work. And worksite injuries cost the industry hundreds of billions of dollars a year. With digital safety tools, you can cut back on those costs and take care of your workers.
Worksite injuries cost the industry hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Proactive solutions like toolbox talks and custom checklists can help inform workers of potential hazards they’ll face on their jobsites and ensure processes are done correctly. And tools like incident reporting and observations can help ensure that problems are sufficiently recorded and addressed in a timely manner.
In addition to these tools, Raken also offers detailed dashboards with real-time data collected from a variety of sources (including checklists and observations. You can set KPIs and analyze trends over time to continue improving performance, as well.
Cut costs without cutting corners
You don’t have to sacrifice quality to reduce expenses. Raken allows you to take a proactive approach to budgeting by increasing team collaboration, eliminating outdated processes, and closely monitoring progress. Find out how we can help you cut costs and improve ROI.