Here's How Project Management Improves Job Site Relations

We’ve all been there, seeing or being a part of a strained relationship between crew members and project management. Quite frankly, it sucks. No matter what side of the road you’re on, it impacts you. Relationships are an inevitable and an important part of life, especially when it comes to business. All businesses strive to find the right project managers to run successful projects, but even with the best project managers, a project will fail without a good construction crew. Finding and keeping these team members is key for success in any business.

Just like your personal relationships, your manager-employee relationships take work too. How can you create and maintain a great working relationship with your crew members? Here are three tips we always find helpful.

Consistency is Key!

It’s human nature to appreciate consistency and routines. We function better, especially during stress and unpredictability, when we have a routine and eliminate unnecessary surprises. According to several studies, including one on mental health from verywellmind, routines, and consistency lower stress, form good habits, help increase focus and help increase productivity.

As a project manager, you help your construction crews establish a routine through published schedules and routine meetings. When your crew knows they can check their schedule for the week or month with a quick glance at their phone, you have eliminated an element of uncertainty from their lives. Calculating what time they need to leave the house each day, because they don’t know what site they need to report to until the morning of, puts stress on them, and stress on your relationship with them.

If you make changes to their schedule, especially one that might disrupt their routine, a quick notification to let them know is paramount. Don’t let them find out at the last minute, show up to the wrong site, or claim they missed work because you failed to notify them.

busybusy can help here. With the busybusy mobile time tracking application, your construction crews have their schedule at their fingertips. They know right where they need to be and when they need to be there. If you change their schedule, it will send them a notification to their phone and let them know. It’s simple, easy, and perfect for stress-free reducing and keeping your manager-to-team member relationship.

Celebrate the Wins!

We know how important it is to celebrate the wins! Show your construction crew how much you appreciate their efforts and hard work with acknowledgment and appreciation. Whether 100 days injury-free, workplace celebrations, topping out ceremonies or even a verbal acknowledgment for team success, being complimented helps teams feel appreciated, and they statistically put more effort into their work.

This is nothing new, but it’s well worth the reminder: acknowledgment helps motivate. Studies show over 80% of people are motivated by being told they are doing a great job, rather than waiting until they need to be corrected. Another thing to keep in mind is, as you compliment your crews when they deserve the praise, it helps them receive and respond well to correction.

Even without major milestones, take the time as a project manager to visit job sites, talk to your construction crews and let them know you see their efforts and their work. Show appreciation in an honest and sincere approach. Reward them with a company luncheon or handing out company swag when big wins happen!

Communicate Early, Communicate Often!

You can’t have a successful marriage without communication. You can’t have a successful manager-employee relationship without communication either. In fact, you spend more waking hours at work communicating with your crew than at home with your spouse, so maybe it’s even more important to communicate well at work. *Don’t tell your spouse I said that!

We want to take this one step further and encourage communication EARLY! Don’t wait for a strain between you and your teammates to speak up. Better communication can be achieved through routine communication and multiple channels. Be sure to eliminate the blockers to reach you. What I mean here is to eliminate the excuse that a team member had an issue and called you but you never called them back, etc.

Opening lines of communication goes beyond being available by email, phone, and in person, but being open to receiving input. When an employee comes to you with an issue, listen first, respond second. Avoid getting defensive at the information your team members bring to you, even if you disagree. Be objective and factual, and let your team know you will listen.

Be proactive about your communication too! Don’t wait for issues to come to you; don’t wait to find out good news until someone tells you about it. So how do you be proactive when you can’t be in the weeds with your team? Daily reports are your new best friend. Daily reports let you see the construction crew members on-site, the time they worked, what they did, and everything that happened, whether good or bad. . The daily reports help you stay in the know, communicate effectively and early, provide positive feedback, and encouragement for your team.

So, What Now?

Maintaining a great relationship throughout every level of your company can help in so many ways, and we’re here to make it easier. These three tips are easy enough and take only a few minutes a day to implement. With the implementation of busybusy into your organization, we increase the ease of achieving relationship success across your job sites and help you collect more information to support your efforts.

If you’re already using busybusy, see how you can use daily reports and our scheduling features to help improve the relationship with your construction crews. If you aren’t yet using busybusy, try us out risk-free for 90 days and watch the improvements across your company.

Click the link to get started with our 90-day money-back guarantee.