In Your Shoes - Gavin Jolly

Monday - kick start the week

As any morning goes, priorities are coffee, 2 sugars and some milk then I get to it. Normally, the emails are under control as people tend to switch off for the weekend, so first thing is review the non-actioned emails and get them into the to do list. Most days consists of at least one meeting , whether it be a Progress Meeting, a Technical Meeting, a PreAward with a new Sub Contractor or a Business Development Opportunity. Once a month, each Project has a Technical Meeting and a Progress Meeting - so that’s 8 meetings a month just with clients never mind sub contractor progress meetings, internal meetings… the Industry certainly revolves around meetings. Each Progress meeting needs a Progress Report, each Technical meeting needs design review and design team actions raised.

Tuesday - Technical

These days seem to be a common technical driven day, problem solving, design reviews, scoping out 2 of 4 sites and looking out for potential issues or opportunities. This gives my Site Management the opportunity to walk the job with me and raise any concerns or issues, and vice versa. Throughout the day, like each work day, time needs to be found to review all new Construction Drawings, ensuring the team are aware and actioning, ensuring the build ability of the design changes are achievable and discussed with the designers. A daily action is, have we received that outstanding information from the client or the designer, is it still pending, what's the hold up, when are we getting it as I have work to plan! 

Wednesday - action day! 

Site visits and review of the further 2 Projects then the afternoon is spent working through all the action points from the day before , raising technical queries, requesting further design information from the clients design teams. I also like to reflect on Project Programmes for areas of improvements, this unfortunately can identify areas of lost time where then the recovery plan gets developed and actioned. Alongside this, there’s meetings or actions from meetings to juggle, a few coffees, a quiet room and focus! 

Thursday - a day of changes!

A focus time set aside to update the variation trackers. Noting all the variations identified through the meetings, site visits and drawing changes. Variation build up of labour, plant and materials - making sure we get paid for what we have done. Once a month, each Project has an application raised to the client for payment on works carried out - these variations form part of this. Throughout the day, like each work day, the consistent receipt of emails to keep on top of and the phone that just does not like being silent! 

Fridays - Focus day

Weekly internal reports, 4 jobs so 4 reports, created and issued to the Directors so they can get a brief on the Projects. Programmes get reviewed and progress recorded against. This identifies gains and slippage on all the Projects - delays result in further actions, in more than one way - if it’s our issue, I need to fix it, if it’s a Contractors Issue, it needs a meeting, if it’s a Clients issue then we are Contract bound to notify them of such delays formally. Labour requirements for the week following are normally reviewed on a Friday afternoon, when it’s quiet. 

You may have noticed that at no point in the week was a mention of lunch…lunch is on the go 5 days a week - in our industry, stopping for a break is lost time. It is hectic and demanding but it has a buzz that is addictive.