Top Tips For Construction Project Managers

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StrategyDriven Project Management Article |Construction Project Manager|Top Tips For Construction Project ManagersConstruction projects are famously difficult to manage, and this is because there are often so many moving parts. A small issue that can arise in construction can end up having huge consequences, and this is why so many projects often end up over budget and/or past the deadline. So, what can you do if you are managing a construction project and you want it completed on time and within the pre-agreed budget? There is never a guarantee for this, but read on for a few tips that will hopefully help you to find success with the project while keeping stress levels down.

Establish Clear Plans

The first step to take is to make sure that you and everyone else are on the same page regarding plans, budgets, and timelines. Communication is key to success when it comes to construction, so you will want to make sure that you have a clear understanding of exactly what is expected of you and then that this information is communicated to everyone else involved with the project. You should never shy away from asking a question if you are unsure and encourage people to come forward with any questions or concerns that they have.

Create A Schedule

Scheduling is everything when it comes to construction projects, especially if you will be using different contractors that will only be able to work once a certain aspect is already taken care of. This is why you need to take the time to carefully review plans to get a clear understanding of the different tasks that need to get done and in what order. Once you have done this, you can then start to create a logical schedule that will fit with the deadline (you may want to give yourself some leeway with each task in case something goes wrong).

Identify Key Resources

Around this time, you will also need to start identifying and sourcing your key resources. This will include the manpower that you need, materials, tools, and any equipment that will be needed during the project. Identifying and sourcing resources can be a lengthy and time-consuming process (and never one that should be rushed), so you should always give yourself enough time for this stage.

Find The Best Contractors

Following this point, choosing the contractors for your project will be key and determine the project’s success. You should find specialists for the different aspects of the work, such as full-service drilling contractors like Earthworkz if you need directional boring, site electrical excavation, or any other drilling work done. Using specialists will ensure that the work is always completed safely and to a high standard, which could end up saving you both time and money in the long run.

Make Safety A Priority

Construction is a hazardous industry, and every year there are serious injuries and sadly even fatalities. In fact, two construction workers die from work-related injuries each day on average in the US. You will obviously need to make safety a priority to protect your workers and anyone else on site, which will help to prevent the chances of injury, keep the project running uninterrupted and provide peace of mind. There are a few key steps to keep in mind to make safety a priority, such as:

  • Carrying out a risk assessment
  • Making sure that staff are properly trained
  • Making communication easy
  • Providing sufficient PPE and ensuring that it is used at all times
  • Keeping the site safe, tidy, and organized
  • Making sure equipment and tools have been maintained
  • Using signage around the construction site

Anticipate Issues

As the project manager, you will want to anticipate what problems might arise at each step of the way. Hopefully, you will not encounter any issues, but it is helpful if you can identify what might happen so that you can find ways to prevent these issues from arising but also develop contingency plans to mitigate the impact of a problem. As mentioned before, a small issue could end up having a huge impact through a domino effect, so you need to anticipate what might go wrong and do all that you can to avoid issues.

These tips should be useful when managing any construction project and hopefully help you deliver both on time and on budget. Construction projects are amongst the hardest to manage because there are so many elements that need to be planned for, and issues can arise that can have a big impact on all other areas of the project, but knowing how to manage and prevent issues should help to deliver a successful project and reduce stress.

7 Key Steps for a Successful Career Change

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Career Change|7 Key Steps for a Successful Career ChangeNo matter the branch of career you work in, there may come a time in your working life that you decide you’re not as satisfied with your job as you used to be.

When that happens, it’s a good idea to take a closer look at the different aspects of this revelation and try to find out whether a career change is a good option for you moving forward.

Here, we discuss why people may want to change their career paths, what benefits it has, and how you, too, can successfully change your career path using these seven key steps.

Why People Change Careers

There may be many reasons why someone would want to change their career. These include:

  • Wanting a new challenge and career advancement opportunities
  • Experiencing burnout and too much stress
  • Having a better work-life balance
  • Desiring better pay

Benefits of a Career Change

After weighing your options and deciding that a career change is the best possibility for you, you will see that changing your work path has several benefits.

According to a Joblist survey, people who changed their career paths were happier, more satisfied, more stimulated/fulfilled, and tended to be less stressed in their lives.

How to Change Your Career Path

1. Assess your current job satisfaction

If you’re unsure whether it’s just a bad day at work or whether it’s time to change your whole work path, take a closer look at your current position in your industry.

Make a note of everything you like and dislike about your job, and notice any recurring themes that please or displease you.

Is your issue with the people you work with, your boss, or the overall way your current company or industry works?

2. Take an inventory of your skills, interests, and goals

This step is arguably the most important. Getting to know yourself and your abilities and interests is essential to ensure you’re making the right decision to change your whole career or industry.

The best way to do this is to make a personal inventory with psychological tests such as the Strong Interest Inventory Assessment that helps you understand what you like and dislike and incorporate your best skills in finding the right career path and activities.

Doing something you’re good at, and enjoy, is often the missing component that derives people into burnout and eventually career path change.

3. Decide if you want to change your industry or occupation

Sometimes, the answer to all your work-related problems can be found if instead of changing your whole career path, you simply change your occupation in the field.

For instance, a programmer that switches to marketing in the tourism and leisure industry is only changing their occupation, but if a retail worker employed in the makeup industry becomes a project manager for a tourism and leisure industry, they’ve changed their career.

4. Check out job options and brainstorm careers

After you’ve decided on changing your career, start brainstorming what type of career will suit you best. Evaluate your skills and values and note what you like and dislike about each career option.

If you’re finding it hard to come up with options that suit you and your core values and skills the best, try seeking help from family, friends, and other professionals in the field. Networking can go a long way.

You can try career counseling as well to help you figure out your skill sets and advantages you can bring to a certain career path.

5. Narrow the list down

You’ve found a list of potential new careers that will be a great fit with your work and lifestyle. Next, try to narrow down the options by listing all the different aspects of each field and career, both positive and negative.

Research each category thoroughly, and if possible, ask industry professionals about the pros and cons of the field.

After that, you should be left with a shortlist of a few neat options you can consider for your future change.

6. Take classes and upgrade your skills

When a career change is concerned, it’s important to know what you don’t know! Changing your job may require minimum alterations, but swapping careers will require you to seek new knowledge and skills you haven’t yet used before.

Don’t be afraid of not knowing; that’s how everyone starts. Take classes related to your new field and upgrade the skills you’re going to need.

7. Try your target field as a volunteer or freelancer

Before jumping into the field as a full-time employee, you need to make sure the new career and field is everything you expected.

A great way to test the waters before you commit to the change is to find volunteer or freelance work in the same market or industry. Try to carefully analyze what you experience during those few weeks or days, and note anything and everything that may make you change your mind about the decision. Be transparent with yourself.

Mistakes To Avoid When Scaling Your Business In 2021

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Scaling your business|Mistakes To Avoid When Scaling Your Business In 2021Growth is a primary goal for almost every business, but if you don’t practice the appropriate strategy for scaling your business, you risk collapsing the venture. Scaling involves planning, funding, a working system, and technology, as well as partners. Successful scaling means the plans put in place will overcome unpredictable obstacles. The digitization of most businesses today warrants big thinking and mulling to scale up successfully. However, there are some mistakes to avoid during the process, and below are a few of them.

Scaling without goals

Scaling without defining your ultimate goal is a tragedy. Once you have a definite goal documented, it becomes your base point for developing a plan to get there. Many businesses have varying targets. Some targets might be achieving specific revenues, reaching a particular data traffic target, or having a significant global presence. Meeting targets is pivotal to scaling a business.

Absence of business culture for growth

Businesses that have a working business culture tend to work successfully through the transitional process of scaling. You may have to hire new sets of skilled members to perform different tasks. Some operational teams in businesses fail because new team members couldn’t get along with older team members due to disintegration. For example, companies that work with mobile app advertising as a marketing optimization method must have all team members valuing it as part of their culture.

Having a working business culture for growth will enable the easy integration of new members into an already working system. The company culture makes new team members appreciate all the shared organizational values, goals, practices, and attitudes that characterize the business.

Scaling too fast

Scaling a business should be considerably and appropriately paced. Specific markers should be observed and acknowledged before scaling a business. Scaling too fast means you can run into unexpected problems like overworked employees and operational inadequacies due to increasing demand. Businesses can control or at least anticipate appropriate times to scale by considering certain situations. For example, when there is work overload due to an increased client base, you may turn away opportunities because your business team can’t keep up with the work, or simply achieve all your business goals.

Scaling without a business foundation

Some important foundations need to be put in place before scaling, as not doing so can lead to the collapse of your business. Building solid foundations like having a healthy funding strategy, a working infrastructure to facilitate an increase in revenue, and well-documented cash flow, will ensure your business has the strength and integrity to overcome any impediments.

Ignoring early consumers reviews

Customer satisfaction is vital when scaling your business, and understanding what your customer wants is vital as you continue to grow. Consider feedback on ways you can improve your goods or service from early users or consumers. Most business owners do not incorporate product or service reviews and suggestions from customers when scaling. However, early consumers act as beta testers who indirectly add value to your product or service’s development process. Ignoring reviews and contributions from the early consumers can affect the reliability of your goods or product and consequently end the business.

4 Tips for Starting Up a Tech-enabled Accounting Company in 2021

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Accounting Company|4 Tips for Starting Up a Tech-enabled Accounting Company in 2021Starting up a company in 2021 will be a challenging journey as there’s never been more competition in most markets than now. In order to stand out, you need to create a solid business model that does have the potential of delivering quality service to customers. To open a financial service provider business of this magnitude, you’ll need to have some experience and qualifications behind your team. This in itself is already a significant challenge individuals face when trying to bring a new venture to life.

Opening a business of this magnitude won’t only require accounting knowledge and offering clients superior service compared to your competition. It would be best if you had someone well-versed in marketing and who understands marketing platforms from physical marketing through to digital marketing. There are various aspects you’ll need to give serious consideration to reach your goal of operating and managing a sustainable and profitable business of your own. This article will look at four tips to consider for entrepreneurs looking at starting an accounting company.
Image by Tayeb MEZAHDIA from Pixabay

1 Business Plan

When you start planning on opening a business of this magnitude, you should most definitely put some time and effort into creating a business plan for your company. You can use a business plan to secure funding or even bring new business partners into your company. Your business plan should make investors more comfortable and explain your exact strategy and means of doing so. Your business plan should also include market research regarding competitors, market value, and target market. Your business plan may also include information like your mission and vision statements, as well as start-up capital.

2 Online Presence

When you start a digital-savvy business model, you should ensure you create a desirable online presence. This can be done by getting your business a website and using state-of-the-art systems and technology to improve the overall performance of your company. You can hire a pro to build a website for you, or you can look at building a website on WordPress. The WordPress software allows anyone to quickly create an aesthetically pleasing website with access to thousands of plugins to increase customer interactions. Your website will be your company’s main attraction, it will serve as a lead generator, and all your marketing efforts will be directly linked to your website. By getting a website, you allow yourself to use multiple digital marketing strategies to build up clientele.

3 Search Engine Optimization

When you get a new website, and it goes live, it doesn’t mean it’ll have any organic traffic whatsoever. According to research, it’s much more difficult for new domains to be ranked on the first page of organic search results. You can do this by getting professional SEO for accountants. This is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by using organic search results from Google. To rank well on Google, there’s a list of requirements you have to stick to. Make sure your website is user-friendly and optimized for mobile use. You can also focus on posting regular content targeting sought-after keywords in your industry to show Google your website is relevant to those searches.

4 Marketing

Marketing your business will be one of the leading role players in the success of your company. With all the competition out there, with no effort, potential customers can’t notice and get in contact with your business. By marketing your brand, you create exposure and ensure when someone you targeted needs the services of an accountant, they’ll remember you. You can use Social Media Marketing to build a following and reach your local audience fast. Google ads are also a great way of increasing your website traffic by paying google to place your ads on relevant searches. You bid against competitors for the top placement, and you pay per click Google generates for you. By increasing your website visitors by large numbers, your ranking will automatically start growing.

Modern businesses have proved over and again that these fundamental business principles are crucial to creating a sustainable business model which is both profitable and advantageous for clients. Marketing plays a vital role, and individuals should always ensure they have a marketing budget and spend enough time building their business’s future. So get your brand in order, start crunching numbers and make money while doing so. Follow your instinct and own every day, you never know what each month holds, but if you work hard and smart, you might be better off.

Air Compressors 101, How Air Compressors Work

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article |Air Compressors|Air Compressors 101, How Air Compressors WorkWhenever you hear the word “air compressors,” you often associate it with reliability or something that makes business tasks more manageable. Isn’t it? At the same time, you find the entire concept pretty much complicated.

Not anymore! Let’s help you find all the necessary information that gives you the confidence to pick the right tool for your job.

Let’s start with understanding the “Air basics.”

Air Basics- Decoding The Science

Many of you might be well acquainted with the fact that a compressor works by sucking in the air and squeezing it through the components present inside the product to power the air tools. So, once it attains the PSI (air pressure), its duty cycle completes. So, you need to consider the air volume generated by the compressor when choosing the right one for your tools.

But, the question remains.

How Do They Work?

Mainly every air compressor you find in the market works on the same principle?? Boyle’s Law. As per this law, if you keep the temperature constant, the pressure in the container will be inversely proportional to the volume of the container.

So, if you reduce the volume, you can generate loads of pressure, creating a form of untapped energy to power various tools or machines. Air compressors use the exact mechanism, thereby becoming quite advantageous for a variety of industrial equipment to spray guns or drills.

Compressing Air Mechanisms- Finding The Right Fit For Your Needs

You might find a plethora of methods, but primarily compressors use pistons or rotary mechanisms to get the job done. Let’s understand both one by one.

In the case of a piston compressor, an electrical or a gas motor rotates the crankshaft. This is how it turns the piston in and out, thereby increasing the pressure of the air. This air is then released through valves and stored in a tank from where one can use the stored air to power their tools.

Contrary to that, a rotary compressor uses a rotary mechanism for air compression. Hence, providing an output as a steadier stream. You will find two types in this option. One is the Rotary vane, and the other is the Rotary Screw Air Compressor.
The difference is the presence of the motors. In the former, a single rotor along with the slot contains offset sliding vanes. They create a compression pocket by sliding in and out of the rotor. And the latter one uses parallel rotors with screws that intersect longitudinally. During the air compression process, two motors mesh together, leading to the desired output.

Wrapping up

Everyone understands that if you want to do the job right, you will require the right tool. Isn’t it? So, it would be a great idea to ask yourself the right questions right from the start, like “What do I need an air compressor for?” or “How much power do I need for my tools?” This will be a great way to find the suitable compressor for your job.

Hopefully, the information provided above will give you the right head start to choosing an accurate product to get the job done correctly.