3 Smart Tips to Boost Your Commercial Construction Company Performance

The construction industry has seen significant shifts in the last decade, from stricter building code requirements to heavy attendance at industry trade shows and updates in technology.

That can all be overwhelming if you’re trying to pave the way for company growth and keep performance levels high but manageable. Commercial construction company owners can ensure the stability, growth, and sustainability of their firm by keeping a few scaling strategies in mind.

1. Grow Your Network (and a Support System)

Boosting commercial construction company performance requires commitment from the whole team. But if you need to grow your firm, think bigger when it comes to your local community.

Construction firm owners can help guarantee the success of their company by investing resources in team growth and networking. There are effective ways to reach out, such as through online marketing and offline (in-person) opportunities. It’s easier than it sounds!

• Tools like LinkedIn and Twitter let you reach potential customers online through your existing business connections. Share company updates or helpful information regularly to build those connections further and engage with other professionals or customers.
• Keep a regular blog about topics that are relevant to the audience you serve, and share them on your company’s Facebook account. Spread the word further through paid ads or inbound marketing campaigns.
• Make sure opportunities are available to the team to attend industry trade shows. “These events provide unfettered access to jobsite tours, hands-on demonstrations, networking opportunities and access to products and services promoted by exhibitors,” writes Zachary Smith for Construction Dive.

Connecting online with customers and at events with other industry professionals helps pave a bigger future for your firm. What helps more is keeping your entire team focused on that growth.

2. Keep Your Team Happy

Employee retention is key to a company’s growth and continued success: keeping your current employees engaged means you won’t have to spend the money that it takes to recover from employee turnover, which is a problem in today’s construction industry.

“Construction companies large and small are flush with projects. Yet, their ability to fulfill those projects could be jeopardized by the realities of today’s labor market, in which workers are in such high demand that both candidates and current employees are being actively targeted by job recruiters,“ according to Construction Business Owner.

Finding skilled trade workers has been hard enough for commercial construction company managers, but keeping stable employees on board is also an issue for firms across the board.

You can stay ahead of the industry by taking a hard look at your employee programs and benefits. According to Construction Business Owners, there’s been “an increased interest in strategies to reduce attrition, rehiring and retraining costs, and to create long-term workforce stability.”

What do those strategies look like? They start with excellent communication:

• Ask your team members what matters to them.
• Build a culture of more transparency between team members, and encourage productive meetings and communication.
• Provide training so job roles and healthy workplace culture are priorities.
• Find and invest tools to help support clear and consistent project communication.

The tools you use will also play a significant role in how quickly you scale your company’s growth.

3. Find Ways to Save: Technology Tools

The construction industry is known for its inefficiencies and costly mistakes. From unexpected project costs to wasted hours and missed deadlines, some commercial firms are hemorrhaging money because of these oversights.

“While the industry still trails broader digital adoption maturity, the continued adoption of digital technologies could alleviate some of these issues,” reports Deloitte. Streamlining team communication and project management can be effectively supported through the right technology platform.

That means getting the whole team to adopt new technology as well. With the right technology partner, however, that’s not as overwhelming as it sounds. The results extend beyond a more productive team and better communication.

According to Deloitte, “a persistent theme throughout all of this is the value of partnerships within and across the ecosystems in which these firms coexist.” Those partnerships help create a strong foundation for growth within the company, which might make scaling (and surviving) growth pains a little less daunting.

Keep Your Growth on Track

Technology like ProEst has helped commercial construction companies everywhere stay on track with cost estimation, team communication, and productivity, saving them hundreds of staff hours (and even more money).

Working in ProEst Takeoff software allows Jeff Gay, Vice President of Estimating at Good & Roberts, to speed up cost estimation, which he reports: “has revolutionized our estimating process.”

Using ProEst helps commercial construction company performance stay on track and accounted for and benefits your team in a few ways:

• It improves productivity by providing access to digital takeoffs.
• Printed takeoffs help protect against undocumented changes.
• Automated methods help with sorting and selecting subcontractors who bid.
• Access to RSMeans makes cost estimation easier.
• It makes accurate final estimates, and greater efficiencies save firms hundreds of staff hours each year.

Make your commercial construction company’s performance a priority, and learn more about how a tool like ProEst can support its growth.

ProEst is a cloud-based pre-construction estimating platform that helps you create accurate estimates and digital takeoffs directly from blueprints quickly, allowing you to determine the most favorable rates for your company within the estimation process. There’s no guesswork involved. ProEst makes quality project estimation assurance in commercial construction companies effortless. You won’t have to engage your entire team to be sure your numbers are accurate.

To learn more about how your commercial construction company can increase its profits through company-wide alignment that drastically improves business performance, reach out today and schedule a 1-on-1 walkthrough with one of our specialists!