5 Ways to Reduce Administrative Burden for Office, Shop and Field Employees

David Sombrio

Redundant work, convoluted processes and inefficiencies do more than cause frustration, they waste time and money, ultimately negatively affecting your business’s bottom line. Implementing construction technology to improve operations reduces administrative burden, freeing employees to focus on their key job functions. 
It can be intimidating for companies to know where to begin. Here, we’ll explore some current technology upgrades that alleviate double-work, maximize productivity and increase profits for construction companies. 

Collecting, Reviewing and Processing Employee Timecards
Employee time is one of the largest business expenses. 

How a company records employee time heavily impacts accuracy and how readily payroll is disbursed. While multiple methods of time collection can be convenient for employees, it adds unnecessary strain on accounting personnel, foreman and project managers when it comes time to review, approve and process timecards. 

By consolidating collection and review to a single software application that integrates with the business’ accounting software, companies drastically reduce administrative burden and improve the quality of data collected.

Conducting and Authoring Daily Reporting
Switching from keeping reports in logbooks, journals, or Excel spreadsheets to modern project management software saves time and money. Still, many construction companies have not upgraded to full digital reporting.

A superintendent or foreman’s daily report goes beyond contractual requirements. Daily reports contain valuable information for tracking productivity and trends, and also help protect the business from potential lawsuits. Daily reporting software increases convenience by allowing field supervisors to collect information on their cellphone or tablet and take photos on the jobsite. 

Supervisors can save hours per week in writing reports, uploading photos and calculating productivity by using daily reporting software and apps.  Most daily reporting apps seamlessly share the daily report with operations executives and clients, saving field supervisors hours per week writing reports, uploading photos and calculating productivity. 

Refining Invoice Routing and Approval 
Routing, approving and processing invoices is tedious and distracting from necessary everyday work. In many cases, accountants are busy with reviewing and approving invoices. Fortunately, accounting or ERP (enterprise resource planning) software make digitizing and routing invoices simple, fast and accurate. 

Accounting tools reduce administrative burden and allow for additional visibility on the status of invoices.

Expediting Certificates of Insurance Collection and Tracking 
The convenience and time-saving impact of COI software can prove priceless to companies!  

Collecting COI (Certificates of Insurance) from vendors and subcontractors can be very time-consuming process. When subcontractors or vendors haven’t submitted their required documents or don’t have sufficient insurance limits, contractors waste time using email and phone calls to request and collect certificates. 

The method of manually submitting, reviewing and storing COIs on a shared drive with an Excel document is approaching extinction. COI software helps businesses automate the collection, review and storage of certificates, then automatically requests updated documents when an expiration date is approaching. 

Integrating Software Limits Manual Data Transfer

The lack of software integrations cost companies employee time.  Manual transfer of data is not only time consuming, storing the same information in multiple platforms (a common practice among construction companies) is an unnecessary redundancy. The initial cost of implementing integrated software may put some leaders off. However, ROI is quickly recovered with automated data transfer in the form of fewer employee hours and other resources spent on manual transactions. Software integration are available “out of the box,” but sometimes require some custom development. 

Technology Reduces Administrative Burden  
Whether it occurs in the field, shop or office, administrative burden impacts more than a company’s bottom line. Outdated processes and tedious paperwork affect employee morale and can lead to higher turnover rates among frustrated employees who desire to work in a more modern workplace. High turnover rates cost a company money while further contributing to low morale.

These five simple steps to relieve administrative burden will help improve your operations, your bottom line and your employee satisfaction: 
•    Utilizing a single payroll software to improve efficiency 
•    Automating daily reporting and photo capture 
•    Improving COI tracking with software
•    Expediting the invoice process with new technology 
•    Reducing time wasted duplicating with software integrations

Modern methods and software reduce the burden of manual processes and positively impact profitability. Now is the time to make changes to improve your company.