Construction Equipment Owner

If the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association has its way contractors will be constructing, repairing, and striping more and more concrete parking lots as the concrete industry promotes concrete as a parking lot material through The Concrete Industry Parking Lot Promotion Plan. Launched last year, the plan has the support of at least 13 state ready mix associations and NRMCA hopes to increase the market share of parking lot construction to 15.1% in 2010, up from 9.1% in 2005.

The parking lot promotion plan was developed by a concrete industry working group that identified parking lots as the concrete industry’s largest promotional opportunity. Also part of the plan is NRMCA’s Parking Lot Design Assistance Program which the organization hopes will help specifiers who are not as familiar with specifying concrete for parking lot pavement as they are with specifying hot mix asphalt.

If you tried to get an after-work caffeine boost last night at one of the nation’s 7,100 Starbucks, you were out of luck. As detailed in a New York Times article, the company closed all stores from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm and gave employees a retraining on the finer points of coffee. Employees were encouraged to examine the color of each shot of espresso and reminded to use their ears in determining when their steamed milk is ready. Starbucks executives are trying to make coffee No. 1 again at their stores, reminding themselves, employees and customers that it was excellent coffee brewed with care that brought them success in the first place.

It’s interesting to see a huge company take the time to retrain employees like this. It shows the importance of customer satisfaction, and relates to any other business — including concrete.  No matter how big your company gets and how much money you make, you have to remember that it’s all about your customers and the concrete.

The culture you create within your business is one of the most important determining factors of how a business can retain employees. What’s the culture you’ve created? By providing a situation in which all employees have a stake in the success or failure of a business you will develop loyalties from your employees who will ride out the good and bad times with you.

Ty Freyvogel discusses how to implement this environment in your construction business and how it will have lasting effects in the second part of this two-part podcast.

 Employee Loyalty Part 2 [6:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (617)

Want to get a little insight into what your paving, striping, or sealcoating job might involve in the not-too-distant future? Take a look at what 52 towns and cities, six counties, and 10 regional governments have already instituted. The American Association of Retired Persons AARP Bulletin (I read it in the checkout line) reports that walkers, bikers, and the disabled might be the driving forces behind major changes to city streets and intersections.

In an article titled StreetSmart AARP focuses on Kirkland, WA, which it says might just have the streets of the future. Officials from towns and cities throughout the country are visiting Kirkland to see firsthand its use of wider, raised sidewalks; flowered medians; flashing lights imbedded in crosswalks; bike lanes; ramps to crosswalks and more. The Kirkland approach is termed “complete streets” and is designed to allow pedestrians, bicyclists, and riders of public transportation to safely share the road with cars and trucks.

The focus of our Construction Equipment Owner Podcast continues to spotlight employee issues in the construction industry. With a shortage of skilled labor rearing its ugly head, retaining your current employees is becoming a necessity that every business is forced to face. So it is important that you keep your crew loyal to you and your business or they will have no problem finding work elsewhere.

The solution to this issue doesn’t have to be costly either. You don’t have to pay your employees huge salaries to earn their loyalty. There are several tactics small business owners can use to make sure its employees remain loyal to the business - and many are low- or no-cost. It’s more about the work environment you create as the business owner than it is about bumping up paychecks.

Listen as entrepreneurial expert Ty Freyvogel discusses a variety of ways to create loyal employees who’ll stick with you through the ups and downs in part one of this two-part series of podcasts.

 Employee Loyalty [12:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (605)

I’m looking forward to my $600 rebate check coming in May – ”Bush Bucks”!  Tax rebates are a fairly straightforward and surely the most talked-about part of the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which President Bush signed on Feb. 13.  But Congress also included a depreciation bonus in the plan, allowing companies to increase their tax deductions on equipment and lower their short-term tax bills.  The depreciation bonus, similar to one allowed in 2002, was added in hopes of encouraging business growth and creating new jobs.  Were you planning to buy new equipment in 2008 before you heard about the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008?  Did the announcement of the depreciation bonus change your mind in any way?  

I live in Madison, Wis., and yesterday we (or shall I say “Mother Nature”) broke the all-time record for annual snowfall. So far this year Madison has seen 77.3 inches of snow (I do not have a snowblower). And last weekend I was skiing in Wisconsin’s north woods, braving a 20-degrees-below-zero night with negative-50-degree windchills in a tiny cabin with an outhouse (the cold woke me up about four times in the night, reminding me to put wood in the stove). What does this have to do with pervious concrete? While pervious installations have been increasing in popularity across the South, Southwest and many warm clients, it hasn’t been so quick to catch on in states like Wisconsin where many people are skeptical of the application’s abilities to hold up to the climate I just described — feets of snow, extreme cold and freeze/thaw conditions. A recent study, however, has found pervious concrete to perform well in freeze/thaw conditions with little maintenance required. The study also found that pervious concrete actually increases safety in parking lots and roadways by reducing icy conditions as melting snow runs through the pavement rather than re-freezing on it.

So, skeptics, here’s your proof that pervious concrete is a viable option in cold-weather climates. Of course, proper design and installation is important in ensuring a pervious concrete is working up to its expectations. To learn more about pervious concrete, attend one of the NRMCA’s educational seminars on pervious, or be aware that the PCA is offering free PDF downloads of its handbook “Hydrologic Design of Pervious Concrete” until March 31.

NPE ended in Nashville on Groundhog Day, and while I’ve been back a week now I’m only slowly, like a groundhog, ready to try peaking my head out from under my piled-up desk to see if life (and work) is still going on as I left it.

It is…but before I get back to it, a quick shout-out to all the great folks I had a chance to talk with at NPE in Nashville. For me you folks are one of the great pleasures of this job and I truly enjoy meeting you and all my conversations with you (however brief they sometimes are) as I learn about each of you and your businesses. You’re an engaging and thought-provoking bunch and I learn enough at each of these shows to fire up the magazine (and future seminar programs) for another year.

So to speakers, contractors, exhibitors — old friends and new — thanks for taking the time to talk with me, sharing your concerns, complaints, successes, and hopes for the future. I appreciate it and look forward to doing it again, just like the groundhog, in another year.

There has been a lot of talk about what 2008 will bring in terms of construction spending. From the chatter I’ve heard, the response has been reluctant to positive about the upcoming year. On the high end, I have not seen anyone calling for a record year and I don’t think anyone in their right mind would expect this. On the flip side, the good news is that I’ve yet to hear anyone calling for doom and gloom (As a note, I must say I am generally speaking towards non-residential construction as is the focus of this website).

I spoke with Ed Sullivan, Chief Economist for the Portland Cement Association at the 2008 World of Concrete and he is more on the reluctant side of the fence. Overall for the concrete industry, he believes the residential side of the industry will still be down with a possible turn-around in sight. He also sees some hot non-residential segments for 2008 such as the hotel industry.

Speaking of a more positive outlook is Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors. He notes that employment and spending in non-residential continues to rise despite a slowdown in other construction markets.

So what’s going to happen? I can’t say for sure. The buzz has continually gotten louder about the industry finally hitting a decline. Yet I’ve seen spending on non-residential construction continually buck predictions of decline over the past few months and there are strong indicators that public construction and other non-residential segments will continue to stay strong. I’m going to stay on the positive side of this discussion and expect the industry to continue to prosper.

Linda Hanson, one of ForConstructionPros.com’s regular contributors, is our guest on this episode of the Construction Equipment Owner’s Podcast. Linda talks about how the shortage of skilled employees is affecting the construction industry and the factors that can contribute to reducing a business’ turn-over rate.

For more information on Linda and her company’s services - LLH Enterprises - visit llhenterprises.com.

 Retaining Employees [7:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (696)