Effective delegation in construction: Strategies for success

Delegation in construction is a vital skill for residential contractors. It can allow business owners to effectively distribute responsibilities and tasks among their team members. Although that might sound inconsequential, it’s important for business owners to dedicate time to improving their business – and, according to a recent construction industry poll, only 11.7% of builders can currently do so.

Still, the idea of delegating and delegating is easier said than done, especially during a time when labor is still hard to come by. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help business owners and residential building contractors improve delegation skills to benefit their businesses.

What is delegation?

Generally speaking, delegation is the practice of assigning specific tasks and responsibilities to different individuals within a construction project team.

However, it’s so much more complicated than that. For successful delegation, you need to have a clear understanding of the team’s expertise, skills and roles to ensure that those tasks you’re letting go of are handled in the right way and at the right time.

Benefits of delegation for construction projects

By sharing the workload more effectively across your team, your business can experience many – and human resource-improving benefits.

How delegation in construction improves efficiency

• Resource allocation: Delegation helps improve the overall balance of your team’s workload. This can lead to reduced burnout and boost productivity.
• Work overlaps: One of the downsides of trying to do it all yourself is that it can inevitably lead to confusion among the team and duplication of efforts. Delegation reduces miscommunication that can lead to overlapping work among your team.
• Quality control: As delegation efforts increase, the amount of time available for quality inspections and control efforts also increases. It also provides more time for project managers to fix identified quality or code issues.
• Scalability: Delegation in construction can improve you company’s ability to take on larger and complex projects, and diversify services. This can help support overall growth and expansion.
• Risk management: As a construction business owner, it’s important for you to dedicate time to the safety and compliance areas of your company. This can help reduce your company’s exposure to accidents, disputes and legal liabilities.
• Strategic initiatives: Delegation enables business owners to focus on higher-level tasks, including project planning, process improvements, recruiting efforts and industry trends.

How delegation in construction builds up your team

• Morale: As a business leader, ensuring your team feels comfortable, prepared and confident to handle tasks that you’ve historically completed can help build trust and empowerment in your team. When employees see that their contributions are valued and their expertise is trusted, it can foster a more positive work environment.
• Coordination: When construction business leaders delegate tasks and allocate resources efficiently, it ensures that the right people with the right skills are deployed to specific job site tasks. This not only enhances the team’s overall productivity and performance but also fosters better communication and understanding between administrative team members and the construction workers at the project site. As this collaboration improves, each project can experience a workflow and a stronger partnership between all stakeholders.
• Retention: As the overall work environment within your construction company improves, your team members will experience higher job satisfaction. This is critical, as employee retention is one of the best tactics available for preventing gaps in your workforce – and on your projects. As job satisfaction improves, you can also expect to see a correlating drop in absenteeism, which is a leading factor in why company owners are feeling the need to step in and complete day-to-day tasks themselves.

Tips for improving the delegation process within your construction team

1. Leverage project management tools to drive success

Part of why many construction owners struggle with delegation is because they don’t have the tools in place to ensure their team can access, track and manage relevant project information.

With software, you can ensure everyone can access project documentation, make comments and send notifications on tasks, communicate with clients and subcontractors, and monitor milestones for quality assurance. You can gain peace of mind that you won’t have to redo any of the work they have taken off your plate.

One action item could be to research construction company software that can handle all of these business functions and support mobile access, so your team members access this information no matter where they are during a construction process.

2. Establish action plans, project goals and accountability

Just as communication is a critical component of success with your clients, subcontractors and vendors, you should also have a transparent line of communication open with your team. When you allocate tasks, be clear about the expectations, what timelines correlate with their action items and what intended outcomes should look like. That way there’s no confusion on what expectations are and when they should be completed. This also helps in the case where tasks won’t be completed on time.

Although not ideal, things go off the rails sometimes during a construction project. As long as there is a transparent forum for accountability, you should be able to spot these problem areas with enough notice to minimize disruptions. This could be as simple as establishing a daily team huddle – in person, via phone or video conferencing – where all items of work within the next seven days of a project’s timeline are reviewed to help spot any red flags.

3. Monitor progress against milestones

Part of being accountable is knowing what your key performance indicators (KPIs) are for success. As you delegate some tasks off your plate, you should be able to invest more time in the measurement and reporting of your project’s KPIs.

Some examples of these could be downtime percentages, supply delivery rates, rework costs, income per labor hour, incident rates and more. Other reports you should be tracking with regularity include project work-in-progress documentation, such as accrual and cash reports.

This level of accountability can help you focus more attention on understanding your cash flow and profit margins, informing what your next steps are in taking on projects or negotiating contracts.  

4. Invest in training

As a business owner, it’s important that you continually strive to build the skills of your team. The more skills they have, the more ownership of work can be shared – and the more opportunity for growth they’ll experience in their career. Invest in training time to help them build these skills in the fastest and most efficient way. This might look like investing in role-based training for your project managers, office managers, designers and salespeople, as well as workshops for your construction crews. 

Delegate better with Buildertrend

Construction owners can improve their delegation practices with Buildertrend construction company software, which offers several features designed to enhance task management and delegation.

• Task assignment: Buildertrend allows owners to assign tasks to specific team members or subcontractors. This feature ensures that responsibilities are clear and that the right individuals are accountable for specific tasks.
• Document sharing: You can share important – and version-accurate –  project documents, plans and designs through the software, making it easier for team members to access and reference essential information related to their delegated tasks.
• Deadline setting: Buildertrend enables you to set deadlines and milestones for tasks. This feature helps in establishing clear time frames for delegated work, allowing for better project planning and monitoring.
• Mobile accessibility: The software offers a mobile app, enabling team members to access task assignments, documents and updates while on the job site. This ensures that everyone has the information they need –  even while away from the office.
• Communication: Buildertrend includes communication tools such as messaging, notifications and comment features, allowing owners to stay in touch with team members, answer questions and provide guidance regarding delegated tasks.
• Financial management: Buildertrend helps owners with financial delegation by tracking budgets, expenses and payments. This is vital for overseeing cost control and financial accountability, especially when subcontractors or suppliers are involved.
• Collaboration: Buildertrend fosters collaboration among team members, subcontractors and owners. It streamlines communication, making it easier to work together efficiently, share insights and resolve issues related to delegated tasks.
• Reporting and analytics: Buildertrend offers reporting and analytics tools to track the overall progress of the project and assess the performance of delegated tasks. Owners can generate reports to evaluate task completion rates, time frames and any issues that may need attention.

By utilizing Buildertrend, construction leaders can move forward with a structured, efficient and reliable system for task assignment, monitoring and communication, ultimately leading to improved project management and better collaboration among team members and stakeholders.

Learn more about how Buildertrend can help you develop the perfect balance of task ownership – and the achieve the benefits of delegation – within your team.