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Foreman Leadership Matters: 5 Keys to Drive Production and Respect in the Field
82 Plays10 days ago
Your foremen are not just running crews. They are running your reputation. In this episode, Brent breaks down five tactical leadership moves every field foreman must master: starting the day with a battle plan, communicating with authority, tracking production like a business owner, managing customer perception, and protecting safety and morale as if they were profit. Share this with your leadership team because the way your foreman leads is the way your company wins.
#LeadershipMatters #ForemanLeadership #ConstructionLeadership #DriveProduction #SafetyAndMorale #KPIsInTheField #ContractorSuccess #CrewManagement #BusinessGrowth #LeadWithClarity #Entrepreneur #BusinessOwner #BlueCollar #Podcast #TheBetterContractorPodcast
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You want to boss up your life? All you got to is get in with me. I don't even pay to get in the club. They know I'm a walking tee. I'm presidential leaving the club. We ain't stopping at no lights. You want to be a boss?
00:00:10
Speaker
You got to pay the price. Left wrist on frost.
Introduction to Foreman Leadership
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today, I want to talk to you guys a little bit about your foreman in the field. If you're like me, you realize that you have your management staff, you have yourself, and then you have them leading people.
00:00:29
Speaker
and it trickles down. And if you're like me, you realize that sometimes it is hard, especially if you have remote crews. It becomes difficult to keep that culture, that vision, everything alive as it progresses down.
00:00:40
Speaker
So this episode is a little bit more for the leadership team, but
The Role of Foremen in Production and Customer Retention
00:00:44
Speaker
including foremen. So guys, if you're an owner or if you're in the management staff, you need to have your foreman or person listen to this episode.
00:00:52
Speaker
um And what I'm going to do is basically look at five tactical ways that your foreman can lead better, boost production, and keep customers retained. So I can't tell you how many times personally where we've gotten a new project and it has just really kicked butt and we're doing great.
00:01:08
Speaker
And then maybe there is a customer issue. Maybe there is a production issue and we dive into it and we see maybe where the foreman let the foot off the gas.
Starting the Day with a Plan
00:01:18
Speaker
And if you're like us, you have con or not contractors, but you have employees who are working remotely, maybe two, three, five states away.
00:01:26
Speaker
And it becomes even more difficult to check in. So it becomes extremely important that this is done inside your company. It's one thing we've tried to do a lot better at LantaCorp is doing these steps that we're going to talk about here today.
00:01:42
Speaker
Do we have it perfect? Absolutely not. Do most people have it perfect? No. But should you try to go through and do these things and get your crew elevated? Absolutely. So Let's dig in. We'll look at the five things that you guys can do to really help your foreman in the field become better leaders, thus help meet your production safety, other KPI goals that you may have.
00:02:02
Speaker
So the first thing I would recommend is starting every day with a 10 minute battle plan. So guys, what does that look like? So I've been, because we do marketing with the better contractor, we've been on a other job sites with customers. I've worked other places.
00:02:19
Speaker
The number one failure that I see that foreman do not do is they do not start the day with just a plan. They just assume that everyone on the crew knows what to do. And that's not necessarily an uncommon thing.
00:02:32
Speaker
We should be able to assume if a person is skilled in this, they will go do this on the site. However, that is not all people. So the job of the foreman, the leadership team is to make sure there is a plan that gets executed.
00:02:45
Speaker
you need to review the daily target with your team, whether that is if you're a home builder, if that is, you know, knocking out, you know, these four walls, this room, the roof, whatever it is.
00:02:57
Speaker
If you're doing what
Effective Communication and Leadership
00:02:58
Speaker
we're doing, we measure our stuff in either miles or acres. So set that goal and then amongst the team, but then identify hazards, access challenges, other things that you know they're going to come across during the day.
00:03:13
Speaker
Identify that up front. So the crew expects it, but then also how you expect them to walk through that. Assigned task. I see that as not something as as common as it should be with most companies and most crews.
00:03:28
Speaker
But if you have a five person crew, each person when they start that day should be very, very aware of exactly what they need to be doing that day from start to finish. They need to be able to know when I finish this,
00:03:42
Speaker
this task, I move to this. When I finish that one, I move to this. If I finish all of them, I don't just stand around. I go back and I ask my foreperson, what do you need me to do next?
00:03:54
Speaker
Or you give them the ability to say, a I know this needs done. at the end of the day, if you finish all these tasks, you don't see anything else to do. This at minimum needs to be done.
00:04:04
Speaker
Maybe that is cleaning up the job site. Maybe that's putting some stuff away, cleaning something. Maybe that's sweeping the deck of the trailer off so you don't drop rocks on the road and break windows. Whatever that is, make sure your crew is aware of that.
00:04:19
Speaker
The other thing I would recommend, this is big in my industry. It's not big in all contracting industries, but i think it should be. Have a quick safety moment of some kind. We're all contractors.
00:04:30
Speaker
There's risk at every single job site. At minimum, you need to be doing some sort of safety talk and get your team's head wrapped around the risks that are on site, but not just that they're there, but also how you expect them to mitigate it.
00:04:46
Speaker
So guys, the goal of number one is to basically win that day before you even start it.
Tracking Production and Meeting Goals
00:04:52
Speaker
You guys need to be creating that battle plan that your team knows, hey, this is exactly what is expected.
00:04:58
Speaker
Number two, You to communicate like a leader, not a buddy. This is something I've also seen quite a bit over the 16, 17, almost 20 years I've been doing something like this is the buddy system once you're with a crew. And I get it.
00:05:14
Speaker
These are people you're with every single day. You are likely going to become friends of some sort, not just acquaintances because of the pure amount of time that you spend with these people. But... I'm telling you, there is a balance there and there needs to be a balance where you are still the foreman.
00:05:28
Speaker
You are still conducting, managing and leading that crew. You can still be friends. I do believe that is possible. I'm not one of those people who's to sit here and say, you can't be friends with your employees. I do not believe that.
00:05:40
Speaker
But there has to be a mutual respect back and forth that you guys are out there as a boss, as a friend, but you're also there to lead the crew. So how do you do that? Number one, you speak with clarity.
00:05:53
Speaker
You can be short. You can be direct. You can be confident. But what you're saying can be bullet pointed. And that's easy for me to do because I naturally go through and I bullet point everything anyway.
00:06:04
Speaker
But the reason I say that's important is because it helps people to remember the key things. um You don't need to fluff stuff. You do not need to make stuff nice. Keep your work stuff to the point. Respectful.
00:06:15
Speaker
But just keep it to the point. Give the why. that's one thing i like to do a lot. And I think the reason this has been helpful for me and helpful for my management staff is giving the why basically makes it to where you're allowing them to understand.
00:06:31
Speaker
You're not just barking orders. Most people want to know the why behind stuff. Most people are curious. They want to know the goal that you have. They want to know the vision that you have. And when you can communicate the why of the task that you're doing, you will get more buy-in and buy-in is critical.
Managing Customer Relationships
00:06:48
Speaker
um you need to deliver feedback in private. So one thing with that is I've seen some foreman have a power struggle or they've had issues with someone in the crew and they put that out in public.
00:07:00
Speaker
That destroys the foreman's ability to lead the crew effectively. It destroys the respect that your crew has for you because you're airing that laundry out in public. Now, there are some things I think you can collectively talk to the group about, but if there is something very specific to an individual, I think you should pull them aside and say, Hey, I think you should coach them and in that, in that time.
00:07:21
Speaker
It's not something you call out in front of every single person. But I think that being able to communicate clearly, being able to communicate concisely, don't underestimate that guys. That is probably one of the best things that you can learn to do is to be able to communicate to your crew, the vision, the direction, the plan,
00:07:40
Speaker
production safety, but yet doing so in such a respectful way. So I've always said there's two things with leading a crew. I'm curious to see which, which even word to use, but you have managing, you have leading.
00:07:53
Speaker
Leading is basically getting people to want to follow you through the fire, through the thick. Managing is giving the plan. You have to be able to do both. You cannot just be a manager or you will not have people want to follow you and you'll have retention issues, morale issues, culture issues. You have to be able to do both.
00:08:12
Speaker
Number three, you need to track production daily. So you're most likely 99.9% likely you're working for a company that is for profit. So tracking production daily is obviously important.
00:08:26
Speaker
can't be the only thing you have to be safe um you got to do a quality of you know quality work or the customer will never call you back but you need to be tracking production daily with your crew so what i would do is when you have that meeting at the very beginning of the day i would set your production goals for that day if you guys take a launch let the crew know hey this is where we're at in comparison to what we probably should be at at midday if you're Just for easy math, if you wanted to accomplish 10 of something today and your lunch is your halfway point and you're not at five, you probably need to be having a discussion with the crew about how you can make that loss production up in that afternoon.
00:09:06
Speaker
And then the end of the day, I would have review, hey, guys, we hit our 10 or we hit 12 or we only hit eight. And I would talk about why you hit more or why you hit less.
00:09:17
Speaker
If you hit the target or above, I would thank them for their efforts. Acknowledge it. If it's less, find out the reason and address that reason so that tomorrow you can make that up.
Safety and Morale
00:09:28
Speaker
If it was me, I would also then go through and say, hey, we've missed our target by two today. So now, and let's say it's Tuesday. So now the rest of the week, we need to increase our production by whatever that is, a half ah or a one for the rest of the week, however long of work days you guys work or how many days a week you work.
00:09:46
Speaker
But get that average back to wherever it needs to be so your production for that week is met. But you have to communicate that. It is a very black and white thing, numbers.
00:09:57
Speaker
And it's something you can use to help drive that production. Number four, manage customer relationships and perception. So in my industry, and I think that probably goes for almost all contractors, there's two ways you're going to grow your company.
00:10:14
Speaker
Growing the company for you guys, As foreman is important. It's not just about the owner. The owner wants to grow the company because he owns it. He or she owns it. You should want to grow the company because going to give you more opportunity as time goes on.
00:10:28
Speaker
If you are a foreman and your company stays exactly where it's at, guess what? You'll probably always be a foreman. So you should want the company to grow. So the way it grows is two things.
00:10:40
Speaker
You add customers, but guess what? If you only just go through and add and you don't retain, you're probably to stay where you're at. So you have to also retain. And that's where this comes into play. The management staff can do so much to add new customers, to give them an experience. But if you guys don't deliver in the field, that customer will leave by the end of that job or never call you back.
00:11:01
Speaker
And that's a failure on your part. It's a failure on the upper management's part. You have to be able to retain. So how can we do that? i To me, that is making it an experience for the customer.
00:11:11
Speaker
So if the customer is on site or near you, When they come up, actually take a second to go greet them. Shake their hand. Look them in the eye. Talk about the projects a little bit. Ask them what they think of it.
00:11:23
Speaker
You don't want this to be a, you got to be careful of that because you do not want it to be something where they're trying to create change orders during that conversation or ask you to do more than what was the scope of work was for.
00:11:36
Speaker
If that's the case, you'll have to have a little bit of a reset. But I do think you should be saying, hey, are you happy with things so far? Let me show you this that we just got done with. That is creating that conversation, that engagement, that relationship with the customer that hopefully is going to keep the interaction real in real time. So if there is an issue, you can deal with it before you get a lot deeper into the project.
00:11:59
Speaker
um But it's also letting them have buy-in as well. So that customer relationship is what's going to bring them back to you after that project is done. So if you're a home builder, let's say you're doing an addition or you're building a house,
00:12:13
Speaker
You want that relationship to be so strong that when they get ready to do the next project, they don't necessarily want to bid you out and go low bid. Their experience and time with you on this project was so amazing that unless you were like double, that they want to come back and work with your team.
00:12:32
Speaker
The goal for you guys as foreman should be that, hey, if that customer needs another job or service that your company provides, that number one, they call your company, and number two, they ask for you back.
00:12:46
Speaker
That should be your goal. Number five, protect safety and morale like profit. So in my industry, we work inside the oil and gas industry.
00:12:56
Speaker
Safety is pretty important. If our scores get off, it's hard to get projects. But that should apply to all contractors, not just us. And the reason being, number one, you should care about your employees.
00:13:08
Speaker
You should want them all to go home at the end of day. Number two, it helps to build morale because they feel like you care about them. Number three, it can actually help your work comp rating and cost. So I've seen companies where they have not put a lot into it because, hey, safety talks take time and time is money.
00:13:27
Speaker
They don't want to buy the PPE because the PPE costs money and they have high turnover and you can't always use all PPE from person to person. So every time you hire an employee, you have whatever, 500 bucks in PPE, personal some protective equipment.
00:13:40
Speaker
that does not just be given to the next person. And when that's the case, that drives up your cost. But guess what? One major incident can, depending on how how big your company is, but one major incident incident can cost a $70,000 workers' comp, and that's not that much. Issue, well, guess what?
00:13:56
Speaker
Your premiums are going to go up the next year. You're going harder to insure. Instead of 10 companies wanting to insure your workers' comp, Only five may want to look at it. And those five may say, this is high risk now.
00:14:07
Speaker
Their EMR rating, employer mod, is now at a 1.2, which means you're 20% more likely to have an incident. You are going to pay for it one way or the other.
00:14:18
Speaker
So guys, I would get a safety plan in action. What does that mean for you, foreman? That basically means you should be walking out the job site, looking at hazards, talking to your crew about those hazards, and then telling them how to mitigate those hazards.
00:14:33
Speaker
You do not want safety to be simply a reactive process. You want it to be a proactive
Leadership vs Management
00:14:38
Speaker
process. So guys, make sure safety is paramount. When I mentioned number five, I also mentioned morale. And the reason I brought that up is contractors, we're doing hard work, period.
00:14:52
Speaker
The burnout can be high because hard work over and over and over is draining, especially if it's hot, especially if it's cold, you're working outside. It does get old, even if we love doing. it you've got have the morale up. So guys, keep an eye out for that morale. You as the leader, it is your job to cast a vision. It is your job to motivate.
00:15:12
Speaker
It is your job to be the loudest voice in the room. So if you're not someone who thinks, hey, you know what? This crew is just going to do what they're going do. or you think that, you know what?
00:15:24
Speaker
They seem happy. I'm just going to go jump in and work along with them. And that's great. I like the foreman that will work alongside them. But your job is actually to get out there and motivate and lead and direct.
00:15:37
Speaker
And if you're not doing that, someone else may step into that role and that person may not be or may not have the vision that you have. So you got to keep an eye on the burnout. You got to keep an eye the production. You got to keep an eye on the safety.
00:15:50
Speaker
But at the end of the day, you guys should view this job site as an extension of you. It is the company doing it. But if you're like me, your name means something. and if i and part of a project, I want it to be good at the end of the day.
00:16:06
Speaker
I want somebody to drive by and like, man, who did that? And if it's my name or my crew, then I want it to be good because I want us to stand for that. So guys, you guys are the standard bearer for your crews.
00:16:19
Speaker
And what I mean by that is you as the foreman, you are setting every single standard out there, whether that is production, whether that is safety, whether that is the morale of the crew or the or the culture of the crew.
00:16:30
Speaker
How you guys interact with people that come on site, whether that's the customer or if you're working like in a residential area and maybe a neighbor or a landowner comes over, you guys are setting that culture all day long. You're setting that standard of what your crew looks like, of how they interact with each other, how they interact with the public.
00:16:50
Speaker
Do they stand around? Does a neighbor drive by and like, hey, these guys have clean trucks or maybe they don't have clean trucks. Or, hey, every time I drove by my neighbor's house and this crew was working, three of the guys were sitting on the edge of the truck and three of the guys were working.
00:17:07
Speaker
You don't want to hire that. So, guys, image, perception, and all of that matters and you as a form of the one directing that. If you think that at the end of the day, you know, people are just going to naturally go do, like, let's say you have, let's say you're doing dirt work, for example, and you have an operator on a dozer, an operator on an excavator, maybe a couple of guys doing dirt hand work or work on the ground, and you think just because you assign them to the excavator that they will just run that all day long, that is not the case. You have to be the person giving the plan.
00:17:38
Speaker
If I had one takeaway go to go back to again, there is leadership and there is management. You have to learn how to do both. You have to learn how to lead, which is communicating, getting people to respect you, your authority, getting them to want to follow you through the fire.
00:17:54
Speaker
That is important. And a lot of people can do that ah okay. A lot of people do not manage because they they feel like that's telling people what to do. They feel like it's being bossy. Unfortunately, that's part of it, but there is a good way to do it.
00:18:06
Speaker
It's simply creating and and executing and giving that plan to people. Guys, it is key. And it doesn't really take that long. 15 minutes at the beginning of a work day, lay it all out there. If you have the ability to have a whiteboard on site or something where you can write it down,
00:18:21
Speaker
or maybe it's in your notes app on your phone, something, even if it's just bullet points, share that with your crew as well, but let them know, Hey, if you get to a stopping point or you're done, come to me.
00:18:32
Speaker
So guys, very simple, five basic points. If executed and you do it and you do it well, this can transform your role as the
Improving the Blue Collar Industry
00:18:42
Speaker
foreman. Hopefully that moves you up the ladder.
00:18:45
Speaker
Uh, if you're a contractor and you're the owner and you're looking at this, this will help your team in the field execute your vision. And I think that is the key to a lot of successful contracting companies is they have they have the the owner who's casting this big vision. Then maybe there's a management team. So maybe the owner's bat at 100 as he conveys that down. And some companies, that gets watered down. So if you're at 100 as the owner, your management team's at a 90 and your foreman team's in at an 80,
00:19:15
Speaker
you got a 20% loss, but if it's 190 and 40, you got a 60% loss. You have to get your foreman to be on your team. And by doing that, these are the five steps that I would highly recommend. So contractors, if you got ah owners, if you got something out of this, share it with other owners, share this with your team, have your foreman list in this episode.
00:19:38
Speaker
At the end of the day, It is your name, your company name on the line. Foreman, it is your name on the line as the quality, the production person in the field. So guys, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it.
00:19:51
Speaker
My goal with this podcast from day one has to make has been to make the blue collar community better. It has been to elevate contracting. As I go around, i get And when that's the nice thing about this podcast. I get the opportunity to talk to other contractors more now than I ever have.
00:20:07
Speaker
there's a lot of underlying issues. Low bidding is one of them. But another one is contractors as a whole, and this is not all, as a whole have been people who have done something well and decided, you know what, I want to do this on my own.
00:20:21
Speaker
And that's awesome. They still are excellent at doing that on their own they're not always excellent at running a business. I want to see that change. I want to see contracting be a or blue collar in general.
00:20:33
Speaker
Be something that can be as proud of that that, that we can build real companies, make a good living and get rid of some of the stigma where people just hate contractors. But that, that's, that change starts with us.
00:20:46
Speaker
It starts with us doing something differently. And it starts with us saying, Hey, this, as it has always been, it works, but it doesn't work well. So what can we
Applying Insights and Sharing the Podcast
00:20:56
Speaker
change? That is my goal with this podcast and sharing these little helpful tips, not saying I'm perfect.
00:21:01
Speaker
But we've done a lot of stuff right. We've done some stuff wrong as well. But I'm here to share with you what I think works well. And hopefully you guys can take that into your businesses and grow them as well. So guys, if you like the episode, share it.
00:21:15
Speaker
Otherwise, i'll talk to you later.