Incentivise builders to speed up?

[Gargamel]

HotJambalaya said:

That is hilarious. Four breaks, one before they've even started. Thats about an hour gone from every work day. Assuming you have a larger build going on, with 9 workers thats a days work gone. Pay for 9 workers get 8, plus, have the privilege of feeding them! Overall certainly more then a fiver.

Its basically attitudes like that that have me employing eastern europeans, they work NON stop from 8am to 5pm. A couple of times I've been they've even forgotten to eat their lunch (a quick sandwich), or accidentally carried on past knocking off time because they've been so engrossed in their work.

Back to the op, sorry the carrot approach doesn't work with most builders, use the stick. Put financial penalties into contracts for missing deadlines. Why are they pulling workers off your building? -because they have another contract somewhere else where someone has stuck penalty clauses in and they're rushing more workers in to finish his work off.

Edited by HotJambalaya on Wednesday 6th May 09:27

I have worked on a building site in my youth, when I was properly fit. It is hard physical work. A few pit stops along the way enable you to work better the rest of the time.


Most office workers come in to the building and go and find a tea or coffee. There is some weird double standards on PH

[RobinOakapple]

HotJambalaya said:

That is hilarious. Four breaks, one before they've even started. Thats about an hour gone from every work day. Assuming you have a larger build going on, with 9 workers thats a days work gone. Pay for 9 workers get 8, plus, have the privilege of feeding them! Overall certainly more then a fiver.

Which of course all turns to nonsense when we remember that they are on a fixed price, not day work.

[Neil - YVM]

F3RNY7 said:

Neil - YVM said:

Maybe Bobtails suggestion is a bit ott, but without question looking after anyone working for you is always a good idea. But a few coffees throughout the day is usually sufficient.

Bribery or just good manners?
Whilst I agree it should not be necessary, goodwill is always worth generating.

There's a difference between good manners and providing your workmen with 3 square meals per day!

Can't remember my boss ever making me a bacon sandwich, but funnily enough I can't use that as an excuse to not do the job I'm employed to do!

As I said, a few coffees is usually sufficient.

[kryten22uk]

dazwalsh said:

They dont need full meals but the odd cuppa and a custard cream will do wonders for their morale.

Our builders get furnished with plenty cups of tea/coffee, and biscuits/kitkats etc as the missus is home much of the time. On one of the rare occasions when I worked from home, I went out with a plate of biscuits in the afternoon and they were sat on their truck getting out Tupperware boxes of fruit and carrot sticks. I almost laughed at the contra-stereotype.

[dazwalsh]

kryten22uk said:

dazwalsh said:

They dont need full meals but the odd cuppa and a custard cream will do wonders for their morale.

Our builders get furnished with plenty cups of tea/coffee, and biscuits/kitkats etc as the missus is home much of the time. On one of the rare occasions when I worked from home, I went out with a plate of biscuits in the afternoon and they were sat on their truck getting out Tupperware boxes of fruit and carrot sticks. I almost laughed at the contra-stereotype.

Fruit!?!!?, shut the back door....

I would call the police, imposters I tell thee. Everyone knows builders live on a staple diet of tea, lager, bacon sarnies and fish n chips.

[bobtail4x4]

Did I mention I`m a Bco?

40 some years of watching some people upset the builder, and others getting a good job, and a few extra small jobs done for free, for a few quid a day.
"btw mrs that verge needs pointing, the lad will do it while we are up the scaffold" etc.

I just had my dormers re clad, while he was doing it he offered to paint the windows, "while up there" all in the price.

[Cyberprog]

I think the 10 mins or so from the working day you'd lose for a bacon buttie mid-morning, and some cakes mid-afternoon, you'd more than make up in increased productivity. When my Garage project happens I'm going to make sure that the guys doing the work get whatever they need to ensure the job's done properly, and if that means bacon butties and cakes, so be it.

[bobtail4x4]

good idea, just keep them away from the Mrs.

[ex1]

roofer said:

bobtail4x4 said:

when they arrive on a morning,

make tea, provide bikkies,

mid morning bacon butties +tea

lunchtime a few sandwiches, +tea

afternoon more tea with buns/cake,

you will be over run with willing builders.

trust me I have seen it work lots over the last 40yrs in building.probably cost a fiver or more a day thats all.

Simple as this. Helps if you have a fit wife too.

I have a mate who came back to find the plasterer hanging out of the back of his mrs. Needless to say they didn't complete on time.

[stuart313]

Best bet is to stay friendly with the builder/trades and don't take the piss. There is one woman at the minute that is an absolute idiot, the snagging list gets bigger every day with things on it that are nothing to do with the build. Its a kitchen extension and one of the snags was loose wardrobe doors upstairs. None of the trades want to go back because she is such a bh and she won't pay the builder the rest of the money until she gets everything she wants.

I told him to just pack up, take back what he can and leave her high and dry, I would even be willing to take a hit to do it, but he wont, he just wants to get out of there. See customers can be cowboys too.

[grumpy]

Sorry I can't help on getting them to speed up, I know what it's like. I had a promised 3 week downstairs toilet conversion for my mother turn into a 3 month job. My mother had broken her hip and was in hospital waiting to return home. No amount of phone calls could speed thing up

When he finally finished, I couldn't fault the work, I told him that I was waiting to be paid for some work I had done before I could pay him, this should take three weeks. Every time he made contact I'd say the same thing "I haven't been paid yet". Three months later I gave him the money saying something like "funny it took the same time for me to pay you as it took you to do the job".

Childish I know but it made me feel better.

[Alucidnation]

If they are working (near enough) to the schedule, what's the problem?

Anyway, supplying copious amounts of tea and biscuits will not make the job progress quicker.

These are expected.

[roofer]

ex1 said:

roofer said:

bobtail4x4 said:

when they arrive on a morning,

make tea, provide bikkies,

mid morning bacon butties +tea

lunchtime a few sandwiches, +tea

afternoon more tea with buns/cake,

you will be over run with willing builders.

trust me I have seen it work lots over the last 40yrs in building.probably cost a fiver or more a day thats all.

Simple as this. Helps if you have a fit wife too.

I have a mate who came back to find the plasterer hanging out of the back of his mrs. Needless to say they didn't complete on time.

That's what plasterers call 'bonding the thistle'

[stuart313]

I've come to the conclusion that the reason trades wont go to a job is because the customers are total and utter dheads. They don't know what they want, don't have the stuff on site ready, draw diagrams of stuff they don't want and generally arse about. Apart from all that it seems only fking weirdos want building work doing.

[Alucidnation]

Maybe you should choose your clients more carefully, or your employer should

Being self employed, i never have an issue.

[stuart313]

Alucidnation said:

Maybe you should choose your clients more carefully, or your employer should

Being self employed, i never have an issue.

I've come to the conclusion that one of the builders I do stuff for is getting the clients that no-one else wants. Maybe its me because it seems to me that everyone else does everything backwards. A couple of weeks ago we were doing a kitchen and as you know its quite critical to get everything spot on. The kitchen company emailed me a plan of the kitchen stating this was the plan they are no longer working to. They then emailed me the updated plan. I ask you why, why send a plan that is wrong and not needed, there is scope for a mix up.

This latest job though, I asked for the kitchen plan, instead of a CAD drawing the bloke has tried to draw his kitchen on the walls in spay paint, got it totally wrong, drawn it again and then altered it all again, he pointed to it and said can you understand that.

I also get many many texts and emails that waffle on and on and on about nothing in particular.

[Greendubber]

I can second the the brew and biscuit thing.

I even got them a kettle, set up a little table in the garage and made sure there was always a good supply of tea bags, milk, biscuits and even cakes in there.

Its hard manual graft in stty weather so a hot brew and a slice of cake is fine with me. I've just an an extension finished and the horror stories the builders came out with about some previous clients was horrific.

Little things like brews on tap make things go a lot smoother IMO and certainly didnt slow things down.

A crate of beers for each of the lads at the end and a BBQ on the final day was also very well received....... luckily non of them shagged my Mrs either (that I know of!)

[Squiggs]

Having a builder in is a lot different to builders on an estate site .....
On an estate site materials, supplies and 'jobs to do' move up the road from new build to new build.
On an extension you may have a brickie or two - whilst they're getting on with that there isn't a chippie (sparks or whatever) sitting round the corner with their feet up waiting for the brickie to finish so they can come in all guns blazing.
If a chippie was booked in to start on 'this' date and finish on 'this' date but the brickie took 2 days longer to finish his part then you'd have a two day over-lap of paying a chippie to sit around.
All the trades want to keep working to get paid - they won't book 'some days work' on a promise of some work only to turn up to find that the last trade has over run meaning they can't get on with their work meaning they can't work - which in turn means they don't get paid.
So 'a builder' schedules his tradesmen with some leniency - and the tradesmen he enlists only need to jump when they've not got anything else on.
In short everything could happen as soon as it needs to happen - if you're willing to pay people to wait around until what they need to do can happen.

(My experience from having an extension built - enlisting my builder friend, and talking to the blokes that actually built it.)

Edited by Squiggs on Friday 22 May 21:18

Edited by Squiggs on Friday 22 May 21:19

[Collectingbrass]

OP, what's it worth to you for them to finish on time or earlier? Offer them a share of that. Even a happy mrs is worth the price of the handbags / shoes / tat she doesnt buy. Do though bear in mind that waht's worth to you might not go far for the builder. £1,000 bonus might not cover a weekend day's work at overtime rates.

When you agree what finishing early means, agree what you mean by finished. Ideally clear of crap & tools and snag free, but make sure you agree and document it. It might be that you agree small stuff or the final clean is something that you'll do rather than have the builder do it.

I agree on the tea and biscuits. Treat the blokes like humans and you will get a better job.