How to Save Time in your Construction Business

One of the most valuable resources at the disposal of any small business is time. There’s only a limited amount of it available on any given day, and it’s the job of key decision-makers to ensure that maximum productivity is squeezed from every available second.

Time management is particularly important in the construction industry, where any delay can have knock-on consequences. Construction tends to be a sequential industry, where one job can’t be started before the previous one is completed. You can’t start laying bricks or threading cables, for example, before the foundations are laid and the scaffolds are erected or flooring and finishing before roof laying.

So, what steps might a construction business put into place to ensure maximum time-savings? Let’s run through a few of the more effective suggestions.

Ensure everyone is on the same page
You’ll need to ensure clear lines of communication are kept open at all levels of the business to make sure everyone including architects, engineers, and contractors is on the same page. If an unforeseen problem has come up on site, then upper management will need the opportunity to address it. This might mean maintaining an ‘open door’ policy, so that workers can raise an issue at any time, and for any reason, without fear of repercussions. This is very important to prevent any accidents too.

Don’t argue
There’s a difference, however, between constructive discussion between professionals, and pointless bickering. The more time workers spend arguing over different approaches, the more delay you’ll introduce. There is so much work in the construction industry already with limited time, don’t waste your time on arguments. This is where decisive leadership can be critical. Take the advice of those around you, but then be decisive.

Invest in tools and technologies
The right tools can make an enormous difference on a construction site. Using inferior-quality equipment will mean more breakages and malfunctions, which can introduce significant delays. It might also result in an inferior quality of work being done.

In some cases, a good tool can make a huge difference to productivity. For example, a quality milwaukee nail gun will allow for nails to be hammered into place an order of magnitude more quickly than a traditional hammer-based approach.

Keep quality high
Another advantage of investing in the right tools is that they will allow you to keep the quality of work high. This means that you won’t have to make any unacceptable compromises in pursuit of time-efficiency. Don’t be tempted to take shortcuts; set high standards for everyone.

This is where spending extra on experienced, skilled labour can be worthwhile. It’s better to pay someone forty pounds an hour and have them do a job that’s ten times as good as someone who’s on twenty. This applies especially to experienced members of the team. Grant them the holiday time and flexible hours they need to stay on for longer. In the end, savings on labour might turn out to be counterproductive if they lead to higher staff turnover.