It’s so much easier to go to work when you’re beside a crew of friends. Laughing and joking are nice, but it’s that camaraderie that leads to knowing everyone is doing their job so that the project rolls along smoothly.
You know that feeling, when even if things go wrong, you don’t have to worry because the whole team knows how to adapt and pick up the slack.
Until everything goes sideways.
What happens when you need to pull back and discipline the people you just had happy hour with the day before? It’s not just awkward for you; there will be feelings of resentment and anger, even if they did mess up.
Being close with your team creates an awesome work environment, until it doesn’t. You need to be fair to avoid causing strife with other team members, but chastising your friend is tough. It’s easy to remove yourself and build a wall between you and your team, even if it’s miserable.
Instead of building those walls, what if you embrace those family-like bonds and simply adapt your approach to communication? With the right strategies and tools in place, you can preserve construction crew relationships while maintaining business standards.
The Drawbacks to Getting Too Close to Your Crew
Navigating construction crew management can be challenging when the lines between your personal and professional lives blur.
You’re afraid of losing a friend, they’re afraid of disappointing you, and everyone could end up worse for wear. Understanding what could go wrong and how to navigate those challenges feels impossible.
Maybe it’s easier to keep your distance, and maybe you’re not wrong when you consider everything that could happen.
It’s Tough To Make Difficult Decisions
When you’re close to your team members, it can be difficult to make the tough professional choices. You want to foster loyalty, but you also need to consider what’s best for the project.
Being able to see the big picture makes it easier for you to make the best decision for a project, until you factor in the impact on long-term crew members.
What do you do if your decision could upset a member of your crew? It’s easier to commit to any business decision when you don’t have to consider the personal implications.
Blurred Boundaries Make for Awkward Encounters
Setting boundaries can be a contentious point on any job site. People who share close personal connections carry that familiarity onto the worksite.
- It might rub some crew members the wrong way, making them feel excluded and creating resentment.
- It could put some crew members in a precarious situation if conversations turn too familiar, especially if they venture into inappropriate topics.
- Favoritism could become an issue and create strife between crew members.
The last thing you need is your team at odds with each other because that defeats the purpose of creating a family-like work environment.
Tackling Performance Issues With Your Best Friend Isn’t Easy
The supervisor-crew member relationship is one of the most stressful aspects of the job. It can make or break an individual if the dynamic is thrown too far off balance.
Depending on the relationship, crew members may have difficulty understanding their roles and either overperform, leading to a job overload, or underperform, leading to poor quality work. Either way, you have to have a conversation with the team member in question.
When there’s an emotional attachment involved, those conversations can be uncomfortable at best. How do you tell one of your best friends that he’s messed up a project?
Why Working With Your Chosen Family Is Worthwhile
It’s easy to focus on the downside of being close to your employees. The fear of broken bonds and lost relationships can leave you scrambling to build walls to avoid that pain.
However, there’s no understating the impact of building a solid team that works well together and looks out for each other. Companies notice distinct advantages when long-term construction crews develop family-like emotional bonds.
Loyalty
Employee turnover is expensive in any industry, but when you’re a smaller construction crew, you can’t afford to keep interviewing replacements.
Dedicating time to get to know your employees and make those personal connections makes them feel wanted, needed, and respected.
Loyalty keeps people coming back, and construction crew members are no different. Building a family-like environment creates a loyal team that is less likely to leave. There’s no question that higher retention rates translate to better profits and growth potential.
Trust
Building trust takes time, but it’s fundamental to a successful construction crew. Deep personal connections imply that there’s a certain level of trust that doesn’t exist between strangers.
Establishing trust creates transparency because your team communicates better. Fewer miscommunications create a safer, more productive environment on every worksite.
Additionally, when you and your crew members trust each other, there’s less room for uncertainty and hesitation.
Knowing that you can trust your crew members to pull their weight and make the best choices for a project means you don’t have to micromanage. You can pull back and focus on higher priority tasks.
Safety
Nobody wants to see a team member get injured, but there’s something deeper when employees establish tight bonds with each other.
Getting to know your team and encouraging them to know each other creates an emotional connection. When your crew learns each other’s tells, it’s easier to spot trouble before it becomes a disaster.
Think about a sports team that runs like a fine-tuned machine. The chances are good that at least some of the players have worked together long enough to predict their teammates’ every move.
Transfer that level of connection to a construction crew that operates heavy machinery in positions with higher-than-average injury rates. When you and your team establish that level of familiarity, it’s easier to
Beyond that, establishing a family-like emotional connection means it’s easier to identify mental health concerns earlier. Given that 83% of construction workers report having experienced a mental health issue, and that the industry boasts the highest suicide rates of any industry, that level of familiarity could mean everything to your construction crew.
Close-knit construction teams communicate more effectively than a crew of strangers. Providing your team with the right communication tools can boost safety on every project.
How To Find Balance Between Personal and Professional Relationships With Your Construction Crew
Understanding the benefits of balancing the personal and professional relationships with your construction crew is one thing, but it’s another to make it a reality.
With the right strategies in place, you can build a professional communication system that preserves relationships while maintaining standards.
Create a Culture of Fairness
Part of establishing trust and loyalty involves creating a workplace that’s fair to everyone. You want to avoid extending favors or being partial to some crew members over others.
Setting a precedent and following through with it, regardless of the crew members involved, will earn your team’s respect and loyalty. After all, nobody wants to feel like they are always stuck doing the worst tasks or carrying more than their weight on any job.
One way to do this involves equitable scheduling. It might take some effort to work out a balanced schedule, but taking the time to ensure nobody is overly burdened is worth the effort.
Investing in scheduling software could make your life easier while reinforcing those valuable personal connections with your crew. When everyone can see the same schedule, people know their roles and where everyone else will be to avoid confusion.
Leveraging an app with crew scheduling features gives you better oversight over what’s happening on a project. It allows transparency and reduces the time you have to spend setting up the schedule each week.
Be Consistent
Consistency is key to creating safe work sites and delivering quality work to your clients. It should also be something your team can rely on.
Establishing clear procedures for your crew to follow on every worksite serves several purposes.
- Ensure that everyone knows what to expect.
- Helps everyone remain accountable for their parts and tasks.
- Supports teams with filling in gaps when somebody is off or they need to adapt to an unexpected change.
- Allows you to identify potential safety concerns or gaps that could create project delays.
When your team follows standard procedures, there’s less room for somebody to go rogue, putting you in an awkward situation or endangering your crew.
If you’re already considering a platform for scheduling, why not look for one that supports your safety needs? Look for an app that offers robust tools, including identifying topics to review with your construction crew and scheduling safety meetings to keep projects on track.
Set Boundaries
Part of balancing personal and professional relationships with your team involves setting boundaries.
Having a close-knit construction crew can be beneficial if you all agree to keep some things off the worksites.
Being close enough to joke around and check in with each other is one thing, but taking things too far can push into uncomfortable territory. Successful construction crews avoid gossiping about each other and respecting each other’s privacy on personal matters.
Finding the balance between being personal enough to have each other’s backs and not taking things too far to make others uncomfortable isn’t easy. It is worthwhile to make the effort, though.
Remember that you set the tone for what’s acceptable. Communicate your expectations from day one and reinforce them every day afterward. It’s okay to establish personal connections, but be careful with what you share during a team barbecue versus conversations on a worksite.
Focus on Clear Communication
Systematic communication preserves relationships while maintaining professional standards. Like the other strategies, clear communication fosters trust and loyalty through transparency and openness.
The more you can do to communicate clearly with every member of your team, the better everything will be on each project.
You need every team member to have access to the same information so nobody feels left out or misses critical insights.
Team text messages offer a way to keep everyone in the loop, especially when sharing critical information about a project. However, if you have crew members using different phones, like Apple versus Samsung, there might be some technical barriers.
You might consider an app or platform that works on all devices, so people don’t have issues getting the messages. A team chat feature supports clear communication in real-time so nobody misses the memos when they come through.
Choosing a platform like Contractor Foreman can help you navigate the challenges of working with your chosen family. With robust features, including team chat and safety meetings, you have the tools you need to seamlessly manage personal connections and professional standards.
Chosen Family Can Make the Best Construction Crew When You Do It Right
Spending years working together on project after project can bring construction crews close together, especially if you spend time together outside of work.
In some ways, it’s easier to set strict boundaries and leave all personal connections outside of work. Some owners may never get too close to their teams. However, there are some notable benefits to embracing personal relationships.
As you’re considering your approach to construction crew management, think about the benefits of your team as your chosen family. Loyalty and trust are priceless and can make a smaller construction business successful.
With the right strategies, you can embrace those close relationships and still maintain your professional standards. Creating standard processes and boundaries coupled with clear communication can make all the difference.
It’s your company, and you can choose to keep the distance from your coworkers or navigate difficult situations due to your personal connections. However, you have options to keep those relationships intact while retaining a professional construction crew management system.
Contractor Foreman features the tools you need to keep your chosen family close without compromising your business.
Book a demo to explore the robust tools that could make your business run more smoothly.
