WFM business model - ready or not.

For some businesses, Work From Home (WFH) is the primary business model. Companies have built an entire culture adapted to this lifestyle and ways to measure work-life balance. For the remaining businesses, they have been thrown into the deep end of the pool, and not only expected to tread water but to swim with relative ease. To keep everyone afloat, there are good lessons we can learn from experienced businesses and workers.

The key to working from home is clear communication with your boss – and knowing exactly what’s expected of you.

According to a great article on this subject, Coronavirus: How to work from home, the right way, the primary key is communication. The key to working from home is clear communication with your boss – and knowing exactly what’s expected of you. Whether you are working from home as a job description or feeling quarantined due to the coronavirus, a work routine and scheduled communication with your manager/supervisor keeps everyone aligned and connected. Here are some other good tips:

Employee:

Treat WFH like a job. Keep your routine as close to possible as to when you prepared to leave for work. Make your bed, your coffee and dress for success. Take physical breaks with mini-workouts even if it’s a walk around the block.

Stay in touch with your boss. They used to be around the corner, so stay in touch by phone or video call. Make sure you have clear objectives for the day and every day of the week.

Find a location where you conduct work and keep it a work zone. This way you can turn it on and off when needed. Try to avoid migrating around the home working from bed, the sofa or areas where kids and other family members tend to congregate.

Change your modem password and create a more secure 12 character password. Always download the most current software for your computer. Always use a VPN service to encrypt website data. Don’t mix business and personal communication and files on the same computer. Always be suspicious of phishing and email impersonation emails. When possible, work from a cloud-based software platform that provides a firewall between your work and your computer.

Stay positive and take breaks to enjoy your family members if they too are staying home.

Employers:

Set the agenda and the examples of what to expect between you and your associates. Establish times to connect on phone or video calls that are part of the routine. You are responsible for keeping morale up and a sense of teamwork. Prepare for every call. Include personal interest in your follow up to make your associates feel empowered and appreciated.

Provide the necessary tools and equipment for WFH employees and consider the details. Do they have a company computer, printer, paper supplies, and communication software/hardware tools? Proper training on the various cloud-based business platforms to conduct work is critical to being productive, including letting your software companies know that training at home is allowed.

Stay positive and make sure that if you are the manager working from home that you follow your own advice to stay healthy and productive.

Performance Bonds - Prepared for the Coronavirus

Force Majeure

This may be a trigger that comes into play for the unexpected delays caused by the Coronavirus - the first time around. But now that we have been told this is a pandemic are we protected for new contracts?

So let’s ponder this for a moment. But not too long if you are still signing contracts. An uncontrollable event usually triggers the execution of a performance bond and with some leeway to acts of government. Performance bonds take into consideration labor, materials and the ability to work. In a recent article written by Surety Bonds, Performance Bonds and the Coronavirus what may be overlooked are the shortages of face masks required for laborers to perform their work. Further in the article, it states that three causations are required to pass legal scrutiny.

• The event was unforeseeable

• The event was unavoidable

• It was impossible to overcome

Well, for newly penned contracts, can a contractor even get past the first criteria if the CDC and WHO have declared otherwise. Also, a pandemic starts somewhere, and in this case China. It may not take a pandemic if the next virus outbreak begins in the U.S. as an epidemic and we take the same course of action again.

Now would be a good time to include specific language about viruses and even a Coronavirus, since (these have been around a long time (check your Clorox cleaner label). Contact your legal counsel and maybe Surety Bonds to see if you would be protected for contracts you are willing to sign after January 2020.

Formal notices about Coronavirus required - NOW!

The construction industry is fraught with land mines and tripwires with every step and every turn. Flooring contractors often take the brunt of these “explosions” because they are in the crossfire. As a finish trade, the GC has very little knowledge about the complexities of flooring products and their installation, combined with their acute knowledge on how to get a project open on time with relatively little regard for the casualties. For these and many more reasons the time to notify a GC about delayed work, labor, and even product is NOW…actually it was before now.

Whether the action you take is right or wrong, the outcome is often better than waiting.

The coronavirus is unnavigated water for all of us. But weather threats, activism (campus and government sites) are also targets for necessary notice. So quick action is almost always the best policy. Whether the action you take is right or wrong, the outcome is often better than waiting. So now is the time to send your formal letter of required delays to the GC and/or owner and let everyone be on notice. You may also want to take inventory of work that is not complete or even started and have letters prepared - just in case. Your mother was right, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

For more on this subject, check out this link from the National Law Review.

Using 'My Libraries'

ProMat libraries are one of the most under utilized features of the platform. Many subscribers are overly impressed with their ability to use the Project (Palette) folders to speedily create binders for bids, close-out packages and O&M Binders that they forget to “snoop around” and discover the other attributes of this platform.

So let me direct your attention to My Libraries for just a moment. How many customers do you have that give you repeat business? Do they use the same products? Do they use mostly, the same products?

Well, guess what? After you have completed your first project with this repeat customer you now have all, or most of the products you will be using for this customer’s next project. One option is to simply duplicate your current Project Folder and start again. Another option is to place most, or all of the products in a Library. Chances of you using the same products (especially sundries) is very high. Put them in a library for safe keeping. When that next project rolls around and they pick - oh I don’t know - a blue carpet instead of that traditional beige carpet, then all you have to do is create a Project Folder and upload your finish schedule with that blue carpet and we will have it ready, lickety-split!

Now, go to your (customer name) Library, click on the products you’ll need for this new project and click “Add to Palette”. DONE & DONE!