A client called in today to share a little union problem he was having to put up with. It was making it very difficult for him to work.

Have to give the union credit for its approach.

My client is a non-union pavement maintenance company. He has struggled to buy mix the last week because his local mix plant has been the target of a rather ingenious picket.

The asphalt plant has its own paving crew, which is unionized. The local decided to put up a pseudo-picket whose method is to make sure that no non-union trucks are loaded.

The plant is taking a beating because its sales are down about 50%. The strategy hurts the non-union pavers as their trucking costs sky rocket as they are forced to drive to an across town non-union plant…the only one in the area.

The union really is playing hardball here as the typical non-union paver works mostly on patching jobs and small commercial jobs. The type of jobs that are almost cost prohibitive when staffed with union workers. Property managers generally will not pay the higher rates, such as driving a $2,000 fix to $3,000.

In all fairness, the union’s job IS to keep as much work as possible for the union. This particular local is deploying a brilliant strategy to do just that. Love them or hate them, you’ve got to give them credit for the strategy. I certainly do.

You can learn a lot about a contractor’s job costing system by looking at the company’s time cards. Those little things are an oft overlooked hurdle blocking effective cost tracking.

The first thing to look for is whether the time card has a place to write down a cost code. Stunningly, most don’t. How in the world is an estimator going to have the cold hard data he needs to build a realistic estimate when the time cards don’t break out the work activities?

The next common mistake I see is having no place to record the amount of material that was installed. A less important item to track, but valuable none the less, is the length of time equipment was run on the job.

The time card is the ideal place to capture all of this data.

Now for the really tricky part. You need to keep it as simple as possible or your crews will record garbage. The total hours will be right, if not overly generous, but the rest of the data will be useless.

Since projects vary in length and scope, the one size fits all time card is hard to find. consider using multiple time card designs. Two or three versions is usually plenty.

It boils down to this: if you don’t collect good information in the field, your estimating, scheduling, project management, and budgeting will all be baseless. Your time card is your one and only tool for getting the right information. Is yours doing the job?

A couple of months ago, I attended the annual trade show that many of my former employer’s clients go to. It was great to visit with several old friends and meet several new ones. It also brought Guy Gruenberg (Grow Consulting) and I together which is something you will be hearing more about in the near future.

Several of these individuals are avid readers of my newsletter (thank you for the support). Each mentioned he or she was surprised at the frequent focus on sales, marketing, and people management. I was surprised they were surprised. So, being the curious sort, I asked why they were surprised.

They were under the impression my only expertise was data analysis and performance review systems. That perception cracked me up but it did make sense.
The owners of my the consulting practice were SUPERIOR speakers. I mean these two gentlemen were about the best in the industry. Before starting the consulting practice, both had carved out highly successful livings traveling the country delivering seminars. Both were featured speakers at the World of Concrete for years. Both tended to focus on and speak about leadership and management.

So, being the engineer I am, it only made sense for me to slide into the data analysis and system design role while working for them. I was brought on board to balance out the team. And it worked quite well.

It also left our clients with the perception that numbers were my primary interest, focus, and skill.

That is the danger of perception. It can lead you to draw an incomplete picture of your staff’s capabilities and cause you to overlook one of the greatest resources for competitive advantage…the people who are already working for you.

Many of your workers could probably excel at several different types of tasks and in several different roles. Just because a worker is great at one role doesn’t mean he can’t be great at a completely different one.

Be careful making a final judgment on one of your employee’s skills and abilities when you have only seen him in one job. Frequently, employees are either miscast in the wrong role or they are capable of performing many roles equally well. Moving them to a new job often reveals starting new results and alters your perception of the talent you have working right under your nose.