How To Manage Construction Subcontractors Effectively

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You’ve probably guessed that subcontractors don’t work directly with investors and other end clients.

Instead, it is up to the main contractor to streamline subcontractors’ workflow, delegate responsibilities, and address paychecks and benefits.

Contractors set the standards and goals, and introduce training for newly onboarded staff.

In this article, we’ll explain why it is so important to manage your subcontractors. After that, we’ll go through some of the best practices that will help you achieve this goal.

The Importance of Subcontractor Management

Construction projects are extremely complex. First, you need to secure funding and create realistic timelines and budgets. After that, you need to make project outlines and hire a crew.

The Importance of Subcontractor Management

Given that you have to fulfill so many financial, engineering, and logistics tasks, bottlenecks are more than a common occurrence.

Construction companies have to think about potential cost overruns and delays before placing the first brick.

Among other things, businesses need to create a system that will streamline daily activities, prevent waste of time, and improve communication.

With the right managerial approach, construction companies can achieve the following benefits when working with subcontractors:

  • Better control of quality by using time tracking for construction, setting goals, and providing bonuses.
  • Putting the right specialists on the right tasks is a way of maximizing their experience and expertise.
  • Improving communication between employees is another point of emphasis; it eliminates backtracking and reduces waste.

The great thing about these policies is that you can use them for different projects. Once you create a workflow that fits your specific needs, you can reuse it whenever dealing with subcontractors on future projects.

6 Tips For Managing Construction Subcontractors

Here are six best practices that will help you keep your subcontractors in check:

1. Define Your Goals

As with anything else in the construction business, you need to start your managerial process with thorough planning.

Determine how many contractors you need for a project and what their specialization should be. We also suggest you keep several handymen in reserve if your needs change mid-project.

Contact subcontractors well in advance so they can make their own plans and reschedule other activities. Give them the expected timelines and highlight the risk of the project lasting longer than that. 

2. Hire Reputable Subcontractors

Take your time qualifying contractors in your area, as you’d want to find the best talent for the job.

We always recommend you start by analyzing their performance and other factors such as financial stability, experience, and safety levels. Perhaps the best form of checkup is asking for references from past clients.

It’s worth mentioning that subcontractor qualifications are a dynamic process you should work on prior to each project.

Even if you worked with a person in the past, you’ll have to check if their certification is still valid.

Some subcontractors change their teams and lose experienced staff members, which might affect the quality of their output.

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Asking for quotes is another thing you should always do before signing a contract with a person or company.

Given that budget is a major consideration, you’d want to hire the cheapest option on the market. Through public bidding, you might further lower the service prices.

3. Define Contract Details

Contract negotiations are one of the vital parts of subcontractor management. During this part, you define roles, responsibilities, and budget.

Define Contract Details 1

Depending on your ability to negotiate and sell, you can get some sweet deals that you can reroute toward equipment, materials, and other expenses.

You should deal with contracts as soon as possible, so there isn’t any misunderstanding mid-project.

The last thing you need is to go back to the negotiating table, as you’re spending enormous money on a daily basis leasing equipment and covering other costs.

Signing the contract early on will make subcontractors feel safe and motivated.

4. Consider Potential Risks

There are several major risk factors you must consider when hiring subcontractors. Perhaps the biggest issue comes in the form of scheduling conflicts, which are caused by bottlenecks and staff having prior engagements.

Site safety is another major problem, as accidents can incapacitate your workers, leading to delays.

Although you can’t address every hazard on the construction site, you can eliminate subcontractors that are, for this or that reason, perceived as a potential risk for the company.

As for the scheduling issues, you have to address these during the initial negotiations. Make sure that your future employees don’t have any other obligations and are able to complete the project even in the case of extended delays.

5. Introduce Reliable Communication

For the longest time, communication and task assignments have been a major issue for construction companies.

Given the large number of tasks and activities that a person has to finish during a work day, there’s always some sort of confusion on the construction site.

Every once in a while, you’ll find workers loitering around, with none of them having clear instructions.

With the right communication and project management software, you can easily streamline daily duties. Your subcontractors will be notified as soon as there’s a change on the site.

Furthermore, the communication software allows you to reroute the workforce from activities with low priority to tasks with higher priority.

The collaboration tools make teamwork much easier and eliminate common redundancies.

Most importantly, the software allows you to track how much easier a person has done during a day, which is vital for wages and bonuses.

6. Analyze Performance

Construction business is physically demanding, so it isn’t surprising that some subcontractors tend to slack off.

With the time tracking software, you can monitor what each person is doing in real-time and better assess their contribution to the project.

Another benefit of project evaluation is that you’re able to cut the staffers who aren’t pulling their weight.

Conclusion

Properly managing subcontractors is vital for any successful construction project. These people are the backbone of your workforce, directly affecting the quality of the end product.

So, take your time assembling the right team and tie them down with iron-clad contracts.