If the site supervisor does it himself, is it free?
I have the butcher do the butchering. And sometimes I have a handyman come in afterward to clean up.
The reason for this is that it's efficient. As a site supervisor, you know that, right?
If I have a fishing guide help me clean up, I can’t go fishing while we’re cleaning up. In other words, that means my work comes to a halt for that time, right?
At the very least, demolition workers are highly specialized professionals with very high hourly rates. And we believe that, from a practical standpoint, it’s more efficient to leave cleanup work to workers with lower hourly rates.
And as the saying goes, “Mochi belongs to a mochi shop”—while anyone could probably make it if they tried, I know that leaving it to a professional is faster, more precise, and yields a neater result.
It is also the site supervisor’s job to manage the site without wasting the money received from clients and to generate a profit.
However, when a “small task that doesn’t require a full man-day” comes up, it’s only natural for a site supervisor to feel this way.
"Let's do it ourselves" or "Let's have the new hires do it."
To put it simply, this is...The idea that hiring a craftsman costs money, whereas if the site supervisor does it himself, it’s “free”That means it's like that, right?
Is that true?
They don't understand the value of time
It’s true that site supervisors are generally paid a monthly salary, so they incur costs whether they work or not. Given that, it’s only natural to think that doing the work ourselves offers better value for money than paying someone else to do it.
But isn't that the same as having a rebar contractor put up wallpaper? If you saw a situation like that, wouldn't you think, "Why?" or "What a waste"? Shouldn't mochi be made by a mochi shop?
Think about it carefully. Is that really the cheapest option?
That can't be true.
That is,A mindset that fails to understand the value of timeThat's it.
The True Nature of the Construction Industry
The site supervisor is, so to speak, the command center of the site. What happens if the command center stops working? Naturally, no orders will be issued from there, and all subsequent work will come to a standstill.
In other words, even if there were 100 workers, that would still amount to a total of “1 man-day.” Actually, if you consider the work involved at the supervisor’s level, wouldn’t it be less than 0.5 man-days?
What did we sacrifice to gain that 0.5 man-hour? It was 100 man-hours’ worth of work. I think this is a bit of an extreme example. But I believe that’s the value of time. It means we’re engaging in that much wasted effort.
Instead of doing that, let’s make arrangements so that the next project goes more smoothly. Let’s use our heads to ensure a better outcome than this time. Let’s come up with a construction method that delivers the same performance with fewer people. That’s what we specialize in.
By thinking things through like this and keeping the job site running smoothly, you’ll definitely see fewer mistakes. When the craftsmen feel the job site is a pleasant place to work, they’ll be more likely to come together when it really counts. And if you can shorten the construction schedule, you’ll save on costs.
Let’s realize that spending one hour preparing the groundwork—so that the next worker can do their job comfortably—is far more cost-effective than hiring a single day laborer, as we did today.
The job of a site supervisor is to use your head. By devoting 100% of effort to that, your job is to create an environment where the craftsmen can give 100% of their best.
It may seem like a small thing, but I hope it will serve as an opportunity for you to take another look at how you work.
That's because that's the true nature of the construction industry.
