At an American Subcontractors Association (ASA) lunch box meeting attended by several subcontractors and a prominent regional general contractor, one of the specialty trade contractors asked the GC if it experiences any common problems with subcontractors. I believe that many of the specialty trade contractors were somewhat surprised by the GC’s answer. According to this GC, the No. 1 common subcontractor problem that it observes time and again is that the superintendents and/or foremen struggle with a lack of proper support from the office. And by office, I mean the project management team.

In my work, I conduct confidential employee relations assessments, and the collected responses from the field employees affirm this GC’s answer. Lack of appropriate office support is a serious issue that is draining profits from contractors.

‘Time Is Money’
Several real-life examples illustrate this problem. I was a construction manager for a division of a national, publicly traded contractor. Our division was very successful, and we consistently made the corporation money. My project management team operated under the philosophy that I advocate today: The role of the project management team is to support the field operations.

Most of our customer base was heavy industry, such as power plants, refineries and manufacturers, and our area of specialty required plant outages or shutdowns to perform the work. We had definite time frames in which to complete the work. Asking for an outage extension wasn’t done. Preplanning each project was paramount. We wanted our crews to focus on the task at hand and not worry about the logistics part of the project. That was the project management team’s job.

We knew that time was money. In fact, we knew exactly how much a lost man-hour, man-day or crew-day cost the company. This focus on “time is money” created a sense of urgency throughout our group. Not having the materials, equipment or people when needed was not an option. As an office, we were setting the tone. We made sure that the foreman and crew had what they needed, when they needed it. We were making the foreman’s jobs as easy as we could as we all worked together and shared in the pressures of meeting these outage dates, while making the corporation a profit. If the project management team continually fails to do its job, can you expect the field workers to act with a sense of urgency?

Lessons Learned
Later, I had the opportunity to move to the West Coast and open a sales office. Unfortunately, the replacement construction manager didn’t share the same philosophies; he got caught up with being the boss. He must have felt that the project managers and field employees were there to serve him, instead of him serving them. Within one year, our reputation in the marketplace began to deteriorate as outage dates were missed due to poor preplanning and failing to get materials, equipment and people to the jobs when needed. Poor field morale and unmotivated work crews that resulted from this lack of office support also contributed to the problem. We went from being a very successful division in the company to losing a lot of money by the second year.

So what changed in those two years? The field people were mostly the same, but the philosophy of project management changed. Project management was no longer supporting the success of the field – it was hindering it. Profits that were once counted on were sucked out of the corporation. By this time, the project management team of our division was the perfect example of what that GC at the ASA meeting was talking about.

Defining the Role
Just what is the role of the project management team in a specialty trade contractor’s organization? The PM’s actions create a sphere of influence by setting the tone for the job. A project manager’s responsibilities broadly boil down to the following:

• Provide the resources when needed (i.e., materials, equipment and personnel)

• Address problems with a sense of urgency

• Create a forward-thinking environment by evaluating the impact of today’s decisions on future progress

• Follow through on what he or she says he or she is going to do

• Preplanning the project

• Conducting a thorough kick-off meeting with the foreman and providing a complete work packet

• Anticipating potential problems as the job progresses

• Working together to determine corrective action plans when necessary

• Handling difficult customer relation issues

• Making sure that performance expectations are clearly expressed and understood

• Maintaining consistent contact with the foreman

• Listening and following up on issues in a timely manner
• Keeping the foreman informed of any promises that were made to the customer
• Recognizing achievements with praise when appropriate

Obviously, the project manager’s responsibilities are much more involved than what’s listed, but focus on the big picture of providing support to the field. It’s easy for a project manager to get lost in all the tasks and duties of the position and lose sight of the overall responsibility, which is to support the success of the field operations.

If you want to keep your firm’s competitive edge, there are key questions you must answer; How are your project managers doing? Do they tend to blame everyone else, such as the field or the estimating department, for productivity issues? Are they so busy putting out fires that they don’t have time to plan? Is there a cooperative spirit between the project management team and the field? Do your project managers know the cost status of the projects that they manage? Can they tell you the projected final costs of their projects? Do they know what is going on at their jobs? Can they recognize when a job is not going well in time to take corrective action?

Perhaps the most important question you should ask yourself is whether or not your project management team and field operations are your competitive edge. They should be.