Construction companies are seeking ways to work with what we’ve got. We have a labor and skilled trades shortage. You can’t control some things, but construction worker productivity is something you can manage.
Financial services professional Gary Bartecki says your competitors want to leave you in the dust when bidding on projects. Improving construction worker productivity may be one of their tactics, but it could also be a strategy for your construction business bidding. Leave them in the dust.
The definition of productivity is:
Total Output ÷ Total Input = PRODUCTIVITY
Example: Your company generated $80,000 (output) utilizing 1,500 labor hours (input).
80,000 ÷ 1,500 = 53
This means your company generated $53 per hour of work.
“You could also look at labor productivity in terms of individual employee contribution… Instead of using hours as the input, you would use the number of employees,” says smartsheet.com.
“Let’s say your company generated $80,000 worth of goods or services in one week with 30 employees. You would divide 80,000 by 30, which equals 2,666.” Each employee produced $2,666 for your company per week.
Another formula is to measure annual, quarterly, or monthly revenues divided by full-time equivalent employees (FTE) and gross profits divided by FTE employees. The most productive use of this measurement is to apply a trailing 12-month cycle. Every month, you add that 2023 month’s activity and subtract the 2022 month’s data. This running trend process can spot a problem — and you can make adjustments now — without waiting until year-end.
Reducing movement and saving time is a metric worth investigating. How much time is being wasted by workers leaving a task to ask questions (because of unshared/inaccessible communications), or finding tools and parts?
“…A tech went through 118 movements to change the oil in a piece of construction equipment,” said Bartecki. “It was hard to believe the 118 movements actually took place.” But they did.
Improving construction worker productivity can give you an edge over your competition. Productivity management can empower more aggressive project bidding. For other tips on ways to be more competitive, contact Construction Monitor.