As a contracting company manager, delivering quality work in record time while maintaining a low labor cost is a top priority.
However, it’s often hard to manage a team of field workers and keep them accountable. Employees tend to show apathy towards their work, waste time on a project or deliver low-quality work. Consequently, it results in higher turnover, high labor costs, and an unproductive team.
If you are struggling to keep the field team accountable, you often say things like
I wish they care more about their work. I need better employees… You are not alone if you feel like you are constantly micromanaging your employees.
In this article, I will guide you through what causes a lack of accountability and how to keep teams’ accountable without micromanaging, investing in accountability software, or team bonding section.
Accountability is a vital part of a successful business. It supports a positive work environment and improves job satisfaction and team efficiency. But, building a culture that promotes accountability amongst employees can be difficult for field teams who work independently.
Although it might seem like employees aren’t dedicated to their work, the lack of accountability is rooted in many underlying factors. What are some causes of lack of accountability?
Disengaged employees are often not proud of their work or motivated to deliver quality results. The root cause of this is a lack of interest from top management. Employees who feel neglected and unappreciated for their work will not be motivated to do more.
When specific goals, roles, and responsibilities aren’t assigned to an employee, it creates a culture of irresponsibility. Hence, there’s nothing to measure employees’ performance against and keep them accountable.
Employees need to have complete tools to deliver quality work. Finding motivation and enthusiasm for their work will be difficult when they lack the right tools.
A workplace culture that makes it difficult for employees to make mistakes, learn or express their views is unhealthy for building accountability. Employees need to have access to express their needs and also be able to grow without feeling unappreciated or afraid of being laid off for the slightest mistakes.
A company with a poor accountability culture faces many challenges. A team’s productivity often depends on employees’ accountability individually and as a team. A lack of accountability in your contracting business can lead to the following problems;
Managing a contracting business is difficult. You’ll often struggle with high labor rates while maintaining high-quality work and competing with bigger companies. This often leads to an inability to provide competitive wages, which results in a team’s poor productivity and accountability.
The pay-per-hour system used by business owners isn’t so effective and often contributes to a lack of accountability in the field.
The current pay system rewards employees for work done per time without considering productive time worked.
That is;
$ per hour x time = Total pay.
Therefore, employees tend to waste time working on a project, so they can get more or because there are no rewards for finishing tasks fast.
To increase productivity and keep the field team accountable, you have to implement an incentive-based payment that ties employees’ wages to productivity by modifying the $ per hour x time = Total pay system.
You can implement the Protiv pay system
$ per productive work x time = Total pay
Where productive hour = labor/ time
By implementing the incentive pay system, employees can earn more on a project, ultimately motivating them to deliver quality work, keep each other accountable, and maintain productivity.
Lack of accountability amongst field employees is often not a deliberate act. It results from work-related issues like low wages, limited resources, poor employee engagement, etc. You can build an accountable team by listening to employees’ needs, tracking performance, measuring results, and understanding their position.
At Protiv, we help contracting companies build a culture that fosters accountability, productivity, and employee engagement using the Protiv pay system.
Sign up for a demo on how we can help you reduce your labor cost by about 10% and improve revenue while paying employees better wages and delivering quality projects.