If you’re like a lot of people right now, you might bit unsettled by the extra time you might have on your hands. The key to dealing with that feeling is to fill that time with something productive. If you do, when we come out the other side of this, and we will come out the other side, you’ll either be prepared for the new norm or you’ll be racing to catch up.
One of the key things you can do right now as a business owner is to dive in deep and take a good look at how you’re using technology to maximize efficiencies in your business. And really, think about it—is the way you’re using technology making your business management processes easier?
If not, then it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work figuring out some real solutions to help take your business to the next level. If so, great, but there are probably still some things that you can be doing to improve your processes even further.
Looking at the Tools You’re Using
The first step you should probably be taking is to take a look at the tools you’re already using and thinking about how those tools are contributing to productivity at the job sites. Construction time tracking is an essential part of your business—we don’t have to tell you that. It informs multiple aspects of your business from calculating payroll taxes to understanding your overall labor cost, your profits, and help you figure out the total work hours you need out of your crew. You need the right tools to help you accurately calculate your burden rates to ensure you’re able to make proper estimates in preparation for bid management and much more.
This is why having the right time tracking app is a pretty smart move. If you haven’t already moved to the use of mobile time trackers rather than paper timesheets to keep track of time on your job sites, this downtime is the perfect opportunity to start researching the options available to you.
In addition to being woefully inaccurate, paper timesheets are often forgotten at the end of the day. On top of all that, adding up all the data from those timesheets is a pain in the… well, you know. With the right construction management software, one that incorporates mobile time tracking, you can easily create data reports that include all of the information you need, quickly and easily.
And then? Well, then you’ll finally have the time you need to catch up on Tiger King.
Improving Your Procedures – Do It Now Rather Than Later
Another thing to think about now rather than later—how are the procedures at your job sites doing? While we’d all love to say that day-to-day processes at our job sites are fine and dandy, we all know that job site procedures can always use a little bit of improvement.
Think about little areas where things sometimes go awry and how you can implement changes to solve those problems. What are the issues that keep coming up, time, and again? Do you keep having issues with using more fuel than expected in your equipment? Or not knowing who was using your equipment and at what job site? A GPS time tracking system enabled with additional features such as equipment tracking can be of great help to you in helping solve these kinds of problems.
Of course, it’s not just issues at the job site that you should be thinking about, think about problems that may be occurring in the office as well. This might be a good time to search for budgeting tools that can help you examine ways to shift your expenses, making sure they’re used in the best way possible. Especially when you consider the largest variable cost on every job site is labor, so why would you not have a labor budget for each project?
And then there’s proper document management of course. This can really help you keep track of important information, everything from your latest time entries to the labor burden costs you’ve estimated. On top of all that, it can be an excellent time to make sure you have the management tools you need to keep everything up and running smoothly so that when things get busy again—and you can bet your biscuits they will—you’ll be able to keep things moving along. You won’t have to start and stop what you’re doing every five seconds, scratching your head, trying to find that time card you had five seconds ago.
Making Sure You Have the Software You Need
All this is to say—right now is the time to be sure you have the software you need. It doesn’t have to be a massive undertaking, and if you want to take a moment or two to relax, that’s fine. Trust us, we’ve had a drink or two ourselves while we’ve been dealing with this whole social distancing thing.
However, if you take the time to find good construction project management software now, you’ll be in a much better position in the future. In fact, busybusy offers a 100% money-back guarantee that says we know we will make your profit soar so if you just want to test the waters with our time tracking app then we are ready to put our money where our mouth is.
If you’d like to ask us any questions or learn more about how busybusy can help your business, contact us today!
