Opening up a can of worms...

Do you inspect every job that your roofers work on? If not....How do you combat a lack in work ethics when crews are not being inspected?

Robby the Roofer Said: Soldierboy......Do you periodically inspect the roofs that your 30 yr exp. forman is running. My experience over time leaves me to believe that the foreman will become over confident in his abilities and slowly regresses from watching over the other crew members. This is about the time problems on the roof pop up. I have seen even REALLY good roofers begin to think about the extra buck at your cost and will finds ways to become faster (making more money) until that loophole is cracked down.

I know..I know...you would fire the dude. I have found, though, by retaining that good roofer and retraining the area that he failed upon is less costly than hiring another. As an owner, you cannot overly depend on your crews to do whats right without inspecting them personally to keep them in check and reducing your liabilities.

Sometimes you have to have the utmost confidence in your foreman or cresw...but in the end...it is still your responcibility.

Yes, I am at times the "salesman", the "project manager (regardless of who sells them)", sometimes I run supplies "Goffer" that might be needed extra on the job, "Safety Officer", "Roofer", "Laborer", "Secretary", Etc. But my job title is vice-president of Operations. I am on the site daily so there is never any slacking of professionalism. God has really Blessed our company and shines on us most days. We have the same problems as most companies and work around them as best we can. Most on this site have done and still do most of these job duties. One thing I have learned from these forums is that YES, there are still good people out there doing good work and have ethics. Not just Greed driving there cars! Of course Profit isn't a dirty word either. One of these days I will get my boat back at a dock and start fishing again. Soldierboy :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

Soldier....There you go!...There's your QC program....That's the best QC system you could have....Other than yourself on the job, of course. But that's typically not feasable.

"TomB"....It is wonderful to have a great QC system in place.....it is great that you can send a supervisor to every job. Back to my point, your crews could make your best supervisor look REALLY bad. And in the case I will state below.....

I have seen this before after taking over duties from another QC manager. Never inspected every roof, had every one snowballed that he was good at the job, because he didn't inspect every job he covered his arse one way or another and kept all problems close to him and under the table. Was a QC for three years. The owner never evaluated his QC Manager over the three years.

After he left, we probably had 1 to 2 problems per month that we had to warranty. You don't fire everyone, you go through the tough task of retaining.

"Soldierboy"......Do you periodically inspect the roofs that your 30 yr exp. forman is running. My experience over time leaves me to believe that the foreman will become over confident in his abilities and slowly regresses from watching over the other crew members. This is about the time problems on the roof pop up. I have seen even REALLY good roofers begin to think about the extra buck at your cost and will finds ways to become faster (making more money) until that loophole is cracked down.

I know..I know...you would fire the dude. I have found, though, by retaining that good roofer and retraining the area that he failed upon is less costly than hiring another. As an owner, you cannot overly depend on your crews to do whats right without inspecting them personally to keep them in check and reducing your liabilities.

Sometimes you have to have the utmost confidence in your foreman or cresw...but in the end...it is still your responcibility.

Tom,

Our system is a great Forman with more than 30 years in this business. He is on the jobsite the entire time. I don't worry about QC because with him on the site our crew is supervised. No need to supervise the supervisor and degrade his integrity. I do stop by the jobsites as mentioned above to check things out, talk to the home owner/ building owner. Clarify anything, upgrade from time to time and adjust the site if I think it would work out better for the crew. However, it's not me stepping on my foreman's toes and redoing their game plan for the site. I will bring up any safety issues if I see them and so on. Yes, we have QC in place just not written down. I am sure that if I had 80 guys I would need to have our SOP completed. Hope that clarifed that we aren't out running around without quality deeply imbeded in our heads. B)

You don't have a "best system in place" if things slip by....You identify QC issues as they occur and correct them.

I've always had a QC system in place....From the time I was a one-man show, up to 80+ employees....I would never send a crew out unsupervised and/or lacking any checks & balances where quality is concerned.

How about just stopping by the jobsite. At times they don't excpect you? I never make a habit of stoping at the same times, nor do we just stop by our sites just once. If you stop by your sites during operations then you can see just how well of a crew that you actually have. For us we don't have a QC program of SOP yet. It's sorta in my head. As time goes by I write things down and put it in our SOP's for the future. One day I hope we can get a bit better with everything in writting. But, then that is a Walmart! Franchising like McDonald's or ABC supply house. LOL :silly: Drives my wife silly when I talk about stuff like that.

What is your point on a QC system. You can have the best system in place and still have a roofer who prides himself on making a buck the shortest way he could. You havn't had this problem before? I am sure you have....considering all the roofers you have gone though in a years time.

Look at this point of view.....

You walk onto a project and see that all of your roofers are wearing thier safety gear properly (because they know your showing up). They take off thier gear (so they can work more comfortable right after you leave). Then your local L & I drives up and sites your company. It maybe your responcibility, but really not your fault. Two different concepts.

You have to take responcibility when your roofers jack up the roof, but no fault. I can only fault an owner who is on the job site from start to finish and jacks his own roof up!

I hope you have a better understanding of my point.

"....through not much fault of the roofing owners." Huh??? Whaaaaat?....I suppose your refering to roofing contractors?....It is absolutely the "fault" of the roofing contractor/company owners. What kind of contractor simply sends out "roofers" w/o any QC system?

BTW; I've gone through hundreds & hundreds of "roofers" over the years....When we fill a new position, we go through 40+ applicants, all are phoned, maybe 10 interviewed, one hired probationary, we probably go through that dance at LEAST ten times, for one "keeper".

You will probably go through ten to twenty roofers before you find that one who is able to stick around for awhile.

BE PERPLEXED...it happens to not much fault of the roofing owners. Like I tried to say before...your better guys could be your worst enemy. You said a person "simply has good ethics, or doesn't." I bet you will find 1 out of 10 roofers have the work ethics to be proud of, and ususlly that one is the owner. Of the other nine.....?

I'm a bit perplexed at the notion contractors simply send crews out, then "inspect" the resultant work.

We've always had a deliberate quality control system in place....never leaving any doubt in the outcome.

As for work ethics....I agree with most in that is not a "learned" quality....A person simnply has good ethics, or doesn't.

I GOT IT.....

"jimAKABlue"....The same concept described the team leader (as in not watching thier best crew members) also applies to roofing owners who have one to two crews. Over time, owners who inspect thier own jobs become complacent. They believe that thier crew are GREAT, but once you stop watching them....and they realize this....they may start to short change the roof.

With all the part time co. I worked for in the past (four of them) have this problem. But for me to say something to the owners...it is always a touchy situation. I just make sure that what ever roof I work on, thier is no liability for them to worry about.

RandyB1986 Said: Is everyone a pimp now days?!?!? How many salesmen actually know how to install a roof now days.........not many of the guys around here, who own roofing companies have ever installed a roof, they dont know what to inspect for......other than dirty gutters :silly:

WOW, such a general statement. I partially own this company, have been a roofer for 20+ years and sell, inspect and pick up the final payment.

I beleive in only hiring from within the company, when you can. I also believe that salesman are salesman, roofers are roofers, and so on. However, the best salesman aren't selling anything except their expertise. You can't fool a homeowner if you don't know your chit, but most homeowners want to be sold to. How do you combat that? Anyway, that's another thread.

The Question: Do you inspect every job that your roofers work on? If not....How do you combat a lack in work ethics when crews are not being inspected? Yes, I do. Your crew forman should have the intestinal fortitude to let you the owner or management know if there is a lack of ethics going on in the crew. Then write it up, keep them focused on the end game or let them go. Nothing else you can do. Ethics are not learned, they come from within. Doing the right thing when nobody is looking is ethics. Beating your chest in front of people because you did the right thing is also wrong. Integrity is the only thing that you can take from yourself. Your wife, kids, possesions can all be taken away from others, Only we can take our integrity from ourselves..

I think I'm confused now.. :-)