Roofers Are People Too

By The RIDGEPRO®.

It's our responsibility to remember and respect that roofers are humans too, with their own complex lives.

A successful roofing crew works like a well-oiled machine. In a perfect world, job specs were exact; materials arrived on time; equipment is always in tip-top shape; the weather is just right; and the crew is well supervised and gets along perfectly. If the world actually worked that way, almost anyone could be a roofer. In reality, the men and women who install and repair roofs are a special breed. However, they aren’t ever well-oiled machines. They’re people with lives and families and aspirations that exist behind and beyond the job.

When crew members report for work, employers expect the best from each one every working day of the year. That’s a reasonable expectation for any business. It must be tempered, however, with the understanding that a complex universe exists within and around each roofer that can alter daily performance. As employers, professionals, and humans ourselves, it’s our responsibility to recognize these factors and assess how they might affect the business.

What affects crew performance?

External and personal factors play a significant but often silent role in crew performance. Environmental conditions are an obvious example. Spring weather can be cool and ideal for work at the start of a shift but can turn unpleasant and even dangerous with the onset of a cold wind that wasn’t part of the day’s local weather forecast. Suddenly, leaning into the wind on a steep-slope roof or moving solar panels into place changes the equation dramatically. The crew starts moving more slowly and looking tired due to the additional exertion required to stay upright and avoid falls. Tools drop and workers get in each other’s way. The wise crew leader notices and calls for an unscheduled break, utilizing the time to gauge crew readiness to continue. Should you shut down the operation and come back tomorrow? A half day  will be lost but perhaps a serious accident could be prevented. Safety first. 

Behind the ccenes

Environmental conditions are obvious to a savvy site manager. But what about those other distractions? The personal ones that crew members don’t want to share. Maybe the most experienced team member is responsible for the care of an elderly relative in the next town. Her cell phone is buzzing with incoming text messages but she’s ignoring them until the next break. While working, a part of her mind is in the next town wondering what’s going on. 

Standing next to her on the roof is the new guy on the crew who was out of work all winter with a bad knee. His car needs repair but he can’t afford to fix it until he’s had another month of a steady paycheck. He’s worried that his 10 year old car won’t start tomorrow morning or that he could be laid off if one of your upcoming projects hits a delay. 

Not your problem, you say? Perhaps, but it might become your problem when the quality of this crew’s work goes down or an accident with injuries occurs. Job supervisors must be alert to all crew distractions, even the personal ones. Anything that prevents a crew from working at its cohesive best is an economic risk to the business. 

A good place to start might be taking a careful look at call-outs over the last year. Why did workers need to take an unscheduled personal day off? A medical appointment? Mental or physical fatigue? Lack of child care?

Times are changing

Since more women are entering the roofing field as crew members or in the office, child care issues have become more prevalent. Today, however, child care is no longer a gender issue. These days, men in every line of work are taking on some “traditional” women’s roles and there might be days when your best guy on the roof is home with a sick toddler. Forward-thinking companies are prepared with workaround plans and plenty of sympathy. Work/life balance is becoming paramount in every field of endeavor. Promote team cohesiveness by encouraging employees to be aware of and sensitive to each other’s lives and needs.

Bottom line

Distractions in the workplace come in many forms and almost any distraction is a threat to the business on some level that can lead to inferior work or safety issues. Prevention is always better than recovery. On every job, large or small, think beyond the obvious and remember: We’re all human.