Construction projects, regardless of their scope and size, rely on communication and cooperation between various internal and external stakeholders. To facilitate this crucially important function, business leaders have given workers and employees free rein to communicate on their platform of choice, often without any corporate oversight. This has created the opposite of the intended outcome.
Without proper communication standards being applied and enforced by business leaders, miscommunication has been directly responsible for more than half of all construction rework Yet, construction managers still sometimes underestimate the importance of establishing effective lines of communication between all stakeholders in a project. Here are three reasons business leaders should consider communication essential to their operation.
Why communication is important for the construction industry
Poor communication standards reduce on-site safety
Construction sites are understandably noisy and chaotic, and that may create a poor environment for communication. The resulting miscommunication can lead to an increase in adverse events on-site. Between jargon-filled terminology, limited time for communication, and lack of contextual information, it can be difficult for on-site workers to receive and share the right information.
This problem extends beyond the job site. Considering that most safety and operational policies are made off-site and communicated to site managers after they have been finalized, establishing clear chains of command and communication can help make safety requirements and procedures much clearer to workers on the ground.
Weak communication links negatively impact productivity and collaboration
Time is often a scarce resource in construction and projects rely on employees and stakeholders to maintain high levels of operational efficiency. However, employees can sometimes be overwhelmed by the amount of information associated with a project. A recent study revealed that over a third of employees simply don’t know where to find the information they need to do their job effectively.
The dynamic nature of information in construction projects can also make data sharing a complicated process if effective communication channels are not in place. Outdated and misplaced information can also lead to miscommunication between stakeholders, which in turn harms relationship building and collaboration; which 39% of employees believe there isn’t enough of in their organization anyway.
Information silos consistently exclude external stakeholders
Business silos have always been a bane for any company that wishes to encourage open communication and collaboration between teams. This problem has only worsened since the beginning of the pandemic, with firms having to react to different remote work setups and social distancing rules. A common mistake business leaders make when creating communication lines for their business is excluding external stakeholders.
Construction projects require contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers, site managers, on-site workers, and remote employees to share information and data among themselves. However, internal communication channels and data sources are, because of the closed nature of corporations, exclusionary. This means that external stakeholders often receive their information from individual pieces of correspondence and scheduled meetings. This can create inefficient data sharing processes and leave on-site employees to work with outdated information, thereby increasing the likelihood of rework.
3 ways to improve communication in the construction sector
Always refer to information from a singular source of data
Communication, regardless of context, can only be effective when all parties share the same foundation and context. For construction businesses, this can be challenging as the different stakeholders in a project often have their own set of information sitting in different email chains, spreadsheets, or shared folders. For business leaders to facilitate higher level discussions between different construction teams, they must first eliminate the need for employees to identify, retrieve, then share the correct and most updated files before they can begin any conversation. Currently, employees spend over 24 hours a month simply collecting and updating information from multiple sources.
Business leaders must consolidate all the information relating to the project in a single source of data that is current and accurate. Whether managers choose to do this using a cloud-based solution or on-premise storage will depend on their individual needs, but the key to improving communication is the consolidation of data.
Communicate on the right platform
Despite easy access to cloud storage, with the rise of modern communication tools, and mobile devices being regularly issued to employees, more than 80% of workers still choose to conduct communication across email, text, and phone calls. These methods of communication usually take place between a limited number of participants and do not contain complete contextual information to facilitate well-informed discussions.
Integrated communications platforms allow team members to conduct correspondence including live links to shared documents, addressing only the relevant individuals, and keeping the rest of the team in the loop. Business leaders must ensure these applications are available to all employees and stakeholders and effectively communicate the benefits of using them.
Facilitate information sharing across operational silos
With stakeholders using disparate communication channels and not participating in an inclusive and integrated discussion, project leads struggle to create a shared vision across different teams and divisions. Therefore, business leaders need to adopt integrated communicated platforms that remove barriers for internal and external stakeholders to collaborate and share information in real time.
As remote work becomes more commonplace, integrated communications platforms ensure that communication between teams is easy across geographic locations and time zones. With team members connected to one another, construction teams are more likely to identify areas for improvement, reduce safety incidents, and improve efficiency through better information sharing.
Ultimately, communication is the process that allows construction teams to respond to rapidly evolving business environments and changing customer briefs. Fully integrated communications platforms allow construction businesses to consolidate information sources, improve inter-team correspondence, and increase collaboration between stakeholders.
Author Bio
Tom Stemm is the CEO/Founder of Ryvit. Tom leads a team of integration developers, application enthusiasts, customer heroes, and sales superstars on a mission to eliminate duplicate data entry and rampant data errors from the construction technology world.