When a job goes over budget the blame game starts.
Was the estimate under bid? Did crews not hit their production rates? Was there some scope creep and crews spent time and material doing work that wasn’t in the contract? Do production rates need to be updated to account for higher costs?
Without data, there isn’t any way to tell what actually went wrong on the job. Crew members will blame the estimation process, office staff will blame crew leads for not being as efficient as possible. Often, resentment builds between the different teams and can create a culture of distrust between field crews and the people making estimates and selling work.
You can help prevent this at your company by sharing estimates and job costs with your crews. When crews go into a job knowing exactly how much time and material they’re expected to use, they have a target to aim for. It also gives them the knowledge they need to identify upcoming challenges to hit that estimate. Instead of two teams working separately, hitting the target becomes a collaborative effort.
In this webinar, Mark Bradley and Jason Drews discuss the benefits of sharing estimates and actuals with crews and outline some strategies on how to communicate these expectations effectively. And once everyone understands the goals, it becomes much easier to optimize the parts of a job that aren’t hitting the estimates.
If you enjoyed this webinar, we invite you to attend our weekly webinars live! Every Wednesday at 12:30 ET, we talk about problems that landscapers face every day. When you attend live, you can even participate in the live Q&A!
