
In a previous article we answered the tough question, whether it’s more important to retain work or retain workers? My answer, given grudgingly, was that it was more important to retain the work. After all, if you don’t have work you don’t need to retain workers!
So let me share a few work-retention strategies that might also positively impact the retention of workers…although that’s not my main purpose for this article.
1. Senior leaders MUST “touch the client”
I’m almost ashamed to bring up this first point, but over the past year or so I’ve witnessed fewer owners and senior leaders making the time to touch the client with a phone call, visit, etc. While any contractor wants the client to really love his or her project team and crew, the owner and/or senior leader should make it a high priority to “touch the client” to reassure him you are aware of him and are committed to him as a client.
2. Deliver a documented plan of completing work
For the general contractor, this is a given. However, for many specialty contractors, a written plan is not always required or preferred. For many smaller contractors a discussion about the job while standing around their work truck is about the extent to laying out the job. But no matter the size of project, a written plan should always be executed. This strategy is first and foremost a plan for the team tasked with constructing the project. It’s never a bad idea to supply the client with your plan for execution.
3. Engage your workers to plan and share with client
This strategy actually has multiple benefits. One, by engaging your workers to share in the planning effort you are building smarter workers about what they will be executing. Two, by engaging your workers you are allowing them to ask more questions and offer ideas BEFORE they begin work. Third, by engaging your workers to share the plan with the client you are making the workers more important to the project and more important in the eyes of the client (i.e. worker retention).
4. Develop formal client follow-up plan: 1-30-90-180 day
This strategy takes more commitment and scheduling, but it should none-the-less be considered a great strategy for client retention. The individual who was primarily involved with winning a project should re-engage the client at the day of completion. This might be done on the actual day or the first day following.
Then, he or she should plan to touch base with the client after the first 30 days to see how the customer is still enjoying the project or at least the portion of the project that the contractor completed.
Then, at the 90-day time frame, make another contact to see if there are any further needs on the project completed 90-days earlier and for the contractor to inquire about future work or referrals from the client.
Finally, at the 180-day time frame, this contact might include inviting the client to another completed project to take a tour or involve the client in a Q&A discussion with other leaders in the same construction company.
5. Share opportunities that client might engage
Now, this strategy is more focused on those clients that might do other work, look for construction experience in other areas on other projects. For example, one contractor I work with has brought new development opportunities to a developer friend of his. In return, as some of the new opportunities have materialized, my contractor client has picked up additional work through an effort that he made on behalf of his client.
There are countless other ideas to retain your clients, such as giving away tickets to ballgames, sending holiday baskets of goodies to help them remember you, etc. Let me finish this article and address our original question: Is it more important to retain work or the worker?
One serious consideration that every contractor will find himself or herself addressing is: If I don’t have work then there is no need for workers.
We need to work hard today to keep our workers from leaving us for another opportunity. However, we can’t be so obsessed with employee retention that we take our eyes off the client, forgetting that it is the client who gives us the opportunity to retain workers. No work…no workers!
As contractors and construction leaders, let’s review our client retention efforts and rethink strategies that may very well strengthen our workload, backlog, etc. This effort will give us more confidence that we have the work to support workers who are also looking for security.
Let’s retain work first and retain workers as a really close second!