The First Projects “How recruiting and training begins.”
After a contracting company gets underway, the founder rarely works on the job site. In the startup stage, the founder is usually involved in procuring materials and looking around the market for the next job. He/she may directly supervise the work from time to time but eventually they will promote a trusted skilled employee to a supervisory position to take up the office tasks, billing and collecting payments, etc. Apart from perhaps a daily visit to the job sites, founders usually begin to spend more time on office tasks and procuring the next and bigger jobs.
The founder eventually passes the office work off to a trusted friend or relative and focuses on estimating and procurement. Without realizing it, the founder has already established the first two professional positions:
job superintendent and office manager or accounting clerk.
The Second Group of Projects
When the second group of jobs kick in, the volume of paperwork doubles and the office manager needs an assistant. The second group of jobs needs another superintendent, and the founder needs to fill this position fast. Usually recruited from the skilled labor ranks of the first jobs still underway.
With two superintendents watching the work and the office manager and assistant paying bills and collecting payments, the founder heads down to the bank. The company needs more capital to keep more jobs going simultaneously. Without any formal business training the founder must negotiate this transaction on their own.
Four Positions: Now we have four professional/executive positions in the company functioning without formal training, but as long as they handle the workload on the job training seems to be enough. The first projects are wrapping up and at this point consuming capital, not supplying it so more jobs are needed.
The Third Group of Projects and Five Positions
The founder tasks the office assistant with studying the Dodge Report daily to see if anything looks promising. The overworked office manager asks to hire another assistant to take the position of the soon to become head of a new marketing department. Now we have five executive positions, all requiring on-the-job training to prepare them to handle growing complex administrative issues.
The founder is running from pillar to post checking on the performance of the nonprofessionals put in key executive positions with little or no training. Trying to train them personally may work for a while and keep the company going. Until:
Little Things Begin to Go Wrong
The first large job has run over schedule because of a litany of contentious extras that the designer is refusing to pay for. It’s starting to look like this project might lose money. The founder blames the first super for this snafu, and the super begins to look for another job.
The most recent large job has developed a labor shortage problem that is disrupting sub-contractor coordination and creating work stoppages and delays. The founder is spending more time “in the field” trying to sort out these problems and keep things going close to schedule.
Six Positions
Another trusted tradesman is promoted to superintendent after the first super leaves for greener pastures and the founder’s son joins the company in a newly created position of project manager. The son, a college graduate and heir apparent with only limited experience working summers as a laborer, will have to be trained on the job. The founder has created the sixth key executive position without noticing and is starting to run out of rope. Who trains all these people?
Some readers who have headed up a closely held or family-owned contracting company may see themselves in this case study. Even after closely held companies grow quite large, they seldom adopt a formal approach to human resources. They seem to want family members (or friends) to fill all the key executive positions. Without considering if the family members require any professional qualifications, most seem convinced that family members are entitled to these positions.
A Team of Experts
Contracting is in essence, a team of expert professionals who provide construction consulting services to their clients. (We don’t own the projects.) Start-ups may be a one man show, but as they grow larger and more complex, it’s the professionalism of the team members that will be responsible for their success or failure.
Next Week we will talk about when it’s time to recruit and train business professionals.
For more information on hiring management, read more at: HIRING
For a broader view of the training, read more at: TRAINING
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