Clean & Safe

  So its no real BIG secret that a clean job site is a safe job site. We call this in our industry a "101" item.  We have a lot of other items that also fit into the "101" category, but I'll save those for another day.  What I really wanted to focus on today, during my normal project daily visits, was the cleanliness of each site.  I want to make sure that we, as company, are doing our best to keep the remodel neat and tidy, free from clutter and especially free of any safety issues that could cause harm to the homeowners, their children, their pets and/or our employees and sub-contractors.
  We continually work with our employees regarding keeping a site clean.  Keeping the sites clean shows the homeowners that we respect them and their property.  Its not always our guys though who left a site messy, sometimes its one of our sub-contractors employees who have left some trash/debris laying around after they have completed their work on site for the day.  There are many trades in the remodeling industry and each trade can have multiple people working on the same site.  This is why its sometimes difficult to control the cleanliness and safety of a large project,  Most of the time is it is simple lunch wrappers and plastic bottles that seem to have no previous owners and have just magically appeared onto the site. It seems at times that "It's someone else's trash", is the motto for many sub-contractor employees.  I've also had the pleasure of hearing the "Do you want my boss to charge you for us to clean up after ourselves" statement from one of my plumbing contractor's men.  Ha!!!  Yeah, not the greatest words to tell a project manager.
  Whatever the mess or safety issue is, its important to realize that everyone working on a project, no matter who signs the front of their paycheck, is responsible for keeping a site clear of trash and especially safety issues.  This was not the case at one of my stops this morning, where I found more than one issue.  Not that any of the issues were safety issues, mainly they were all just loose items that are laying around.  A nail here, a scrape of wood there, all these things in of themselves is not much, but as a whole it detracts from the overall project and starts setting a bad example for others to follow.  Now, I could have called one of our guys to come to the site and pick up all the items, which would have worked, or I could just spend a few minutes picking up the items myself and set an good example for the people who were there working.  You just have to make sure to ask them to do the same as you are doing or they might think your their mother and think you'll start picking up after them.

 A clean project site is not only a "safe" one, it also bestows a great deal of confidence for the general contractor to the homeowners, building trust throughout the project and forming long lasting friendships.