What if you could automatically provide powerful reports that your field teams seriously dig?
Excuse our cheesy construction pun. But how many of your reports are heavily manual and don’t give you timely, actionable, job-specific information?
We wanted to better understand the issues surrounding this, so we enlisted an expert – Grace Herrera, EHS System Manager at DPR Construction! Grace joined our Safety Leadership Roundtable in Q4 2020, and the video and article below give you a flavor of the candid conversations we have around topics between safety leaders across general contractors of all sizes.
Grace identified the following as underlying issues:
Grace’s motto is “start with the end in mind” – the end being improved field processes and insights that lead to better information sharing and performance.
Instead of giving it away, we recorded it so have a listen to hear how DPR teams:
For more information on the Safety Leadership roundtable drop your details below! These sessions are usually exclusive, but this insight was too good to keep a secret. We meet quarterly and bring in experts to discuss topics that are the most pressing for construction safety leaders across the U.S.A and Canada.
Grace Herrera (00:08):
It isn't just a matter of digitizing a process. So we definitely I think in the past they kind of took forms, paper forms and put them into HammerTech. And then we, for some reason it was like the adoption kind of fell flat. Like why, why isn't there excitement, why isn't there momentums. And so today I'd like to share with you a few things, like I would say lessons learned and, and hopefully you can learn from our lessons and three points that we've identified as we go through this journey. So I came in and I pretty much did like a gap analysis of, you know, what isn't working, how do we get our paper processes digitized? And more importantly, what insights are we getting from them? So the first one is why are we digitizing? You know, when, when, and using that opportunity to reset your process.
Grace Herrera (00:57):
So not just taking the paper form and putting it in the digital version, but using it as a reset to take a step back and ask ourselves, is the current process working? Is it giving us what the intent is that giving it? Is it giving us the output or the intent that we initially intended? Is there anything lacking and then what is the output of the current process and how do we want that to improve as well? So that is a great opportunity, we're going to introduce change anyway to teams, because now you're saying, hey, you don't do a piece of paper anymore. You're going to have to log in and do it in hammer tech. Change here is a little bit painful and there you're going to experience resistance. So, take that to your advantage and squeeze as much in there.
Grace Herrera (01:41):
So what we're doing here at DPR is as we look at our processes and we're looking to add them into HammerTech we are putting out surveys all about the process. What is currently happening today? What is the volume of the items coming in? What are the insights who actively participates in them? And then what would you like to see about the information? Because we may not currently be reporting on it today. So one step one is really taking advantage of the fact that you're going to move it into a platform to reset in general. And, and it's also a great way to market. So Chere, you'd love this cause you're marketing. This is a great way to do a marketing campaign about that process, to revitalize life, inject life into that process about why it's important, why it adds value to your organization.
Grace Herrera (02:32):
The next one is setting up that feedback loop. And one of the things that we've been working on at DPR, and I will say, as you know, DPR Construction is a very large organization and we do things slowly to make sure we're doing them right. And one of the things we're doing is we're taking each process one step at a time. And not only are we asking questions to really look at whatever we have in our digital form is not redundant. We definitely don't want to match what's on paper to digital because sometimes you have redundancies. So I will say that that's going to happen a hundred percent. And then we also want to make sure what we have in there is what we need to capture. But most importantly, why are we doing all this? We're doing this to help project teams, right? We want to make sure project teams have accessibility to a quick process, a form in HammerTech and then provide value, right?
Grace Herrera (03:26):
How can we help project teams? So what we're doing is we're putting things in the system and then we're reaching out to project teams to beta test to let us know what works, what doesn't work. And you'd be surprised how many conversations we're having on one permit or one checklist, just because we're fine tuning it to that point. So when we do expand it to all of DPR, we've had so many conversations around it. I'm not saying we won't get feedback, but we've already hopefully ironed out as much as we can before we release it. So just like in technology, we, we can't say we fix all the bugs and everything, but we do our best to do that. You know, quality assurance. So it's kind of the same concept, making sure our field teams, superintendents, project managers are finding use on the digital version.
Grace Herrera (04:21):
And then what is the end result? So what insights are we looking for when it comes to digitizing? And we, I always have this discussion with people because it's, it's all, it's all about, you know, why do we digitize things? And one reason is it's a great filing system. So we live in a litigious environment here in the U S so we want to be able to search for things. And, and I think HammerTech does an amazing job of keeping everything in its right place. So it's easy to find, but I think the second piece too, to digitizing your processes, no matter what platform you're using is you're going to be able to have these insights. So you really know your current state I've had, we had, Brad and I had a conversation right before this, you know, we all have EHS processes.
Grace Herrera (05:06):
I think every organization, even if it's not construction, every organization has a written safety policy, there's safety processes. And I would say we all kind of hope and assume that everything is in play at our different locations. And all we have to measure current day, if we didn't have digital, we didn't have our processes digitized is how many incidents a location had. And a lot of times that incident, it could be a matter of luck or it could be a matter of process, but we really have no way of knowing. It's just a lot of assumptions. So when we're digitizing, I know here at DPR, we have amazing BI boards that we're able to show project teams, the details on their trade partners, whereas a trade partner with their site safety submittal process, whereas a trade partner with the JHA process even our corrective action plans in our pre-qual is in there.
Grace Herrera (06:03):
So now we have insights on every project and I have to say it's a lot of transparency. So we had to have a conversation with our leaders to say, hey guys, this is a lot of transparency. Some of these results are really nice surprises and we give ourselves a Pat on the back. But a lot of times it's that ugly truth, right? So like, holy moly, I thought we were doing a lot better than that. And I always tell teams all the time, hey guys, it's okay. It's okay that we actually see the real results. And we, we find out we're not doing the best with our EHS processes. That's reality. Right? So, so now it gives us an opportunity to build a plan, to get to where we want to be. And so internally at DPR, we call it, you know, we, this, this putting things in HammerTech and visualizing it on the BI boards is really showing us where the smoke is.
Grace Herrera (07:00):
Where do we need to focus our efforts as EHS professionals? Where do we, where should our next campaign be? How, what, what are things that we see are our gaps in our process? You know, when we see something's not getting done, guess what? It's probably because the process is cumbersome and the project teams already have a mountain of work to do. So that's a, just a great opportunity for you to go back, revisit it and say, what can we do to improve this for project teams? And I will say, I gotta hand it to him, the HammerTech team I communicate with them almost on a daily basis. So thank you very much for your patience
Bradley Tabone (07:37):
To three times a day.
Grace Herrera (07:39):
But the purpose of that is really trying to identify ways on how we can make technology work for project teams, not the other way around, right. We want to be able to have technology, make things easier, not just for our teams, but also for our trade partners. So it's been an awesome journey. We have a lot of things in play. We are not where we want to be. I have to admit that and things are going slowly. And I can already tell you we're in November of 2020, and we're already, we already know where a lot of what we have in play. Isn't really going to come to fruition until the summer of next year, because a lot of things have to fall in place in order for us to, and that includes reporting. I'm working with the data teams and correlating data throughout different departments, such as our insurance department, but we're thinking, okay, guys, all this effort, let's not lose momentum because we know it's going to take until then to see the end results to all this.
Bradley Tabone (08:39):
Thank you very much. And I think, you know, these are probably the three key points there, which is capitalizing on change and process the feedback cycles and digital onboarding is probably what I want to open up to the group and have a great discussion about, because I think there's a couple of key points there, which is on the first one, which is around the capitalizing on change, or, you know, looking at the opportunity of when you do digitizing, it's a perfect opportunity to look at the process and all, a lot of businesses, grace are similar to DPR where they might have, you know, I know DPR has got 27 business units and you know, how do you, and I'm going to open up the question to everybody else as well. How do you decide where to start safety management? Traditionally, at least from my, my perspective, since I've come to the United States, it's a heavy focus on inspections and incident management, generally speaking, rather than everything else that fits in between. How, how did DPR and what, what are your recommendations around when you start this process? Do you just start at the most critical, do you start at like, you know, how did you pick on what processes or where to start on the journey of safety management in terms of when you, when you, when did you detoxing, which, which processes to peak.
Grace Herrera (09:51):
So coming into DPR after the initial implementation, my, well, my personal opinion is I think we tried to do too much. If we try to do it all, and so for those of you that are still in the journey of, of your initial implementations I would, I would steer clear from that. Don't, don't try to do it all. So I think one of the main things I would do is if you already have processes, let's just say for the inspection process, you already have a process there, but you don't have a process for your safety submittals, such as JHAs, you know, that is something new. And, I would probably go that route because it's not changing their current process, what you have today of something they're doing. But if you're saying, hey guys, you know, we're collecting a bunch of binders today, or we have things in emails and in maybe box folders, but now we want to have an easier process for you to review and approve or reject items.
Grace Herrera (10:46):
I think that would be a great place to start versus interrupting something they're already doing. And that way your teams can get familiar with module by module. So that's one thing I've had to pull back on DPR teams and say, okay, guys, I know that there's so much that can be done in HammerTech, but let's pick fundamentals. So we actually chose three for, our implementation for the other 50% of project teams that are going to be adopting it soon. The first one is the worker enrollment. It's going to be the safety submittal process and the inspection process. So those are three fundamentals. So I would suggest because I think every organization is different, identify those fundamentals and focus on those. And then you can bring teams along on the others, but too much is not going to work.
Bradley Tabone (11:34):
And that applies to any software, I want to make sure this roundtable, isn't just HammerTech it's software agnostic. And I want to get everyone's view on, even if you've rolled out other software, like where do you focus on the safety journey. But I think there are three great areas, Grace, that like critical areas to focus on. Interested in some other people's thoughts. You know, Matt, you know, from a, from a safety professional perspective what are you, you know, what's Hayden looking at the moment to digitize? What have you tried and how have you found the process of kind of, you know, digitizing? Did you use it as a a chance to kind of review standardize, you know, revisit the process?
Matt Gilliland (12:11):
It's kind of a yes. And yes, we run now are currently using Procore, which doesn't give us a whole lot of the analytics. It just it's really checking the box. We've already digitized, but it's, and me only being, I've been in safety since essentially March. So really getting into the process and all that has really been more COVID related than most. So that's why I've been talking with Alex. We're trying to look at other options, getting into different types of works, where this type of software seems to be what we would want to be looking for. The process of getting everything digitized is already been done. But I don't know the correct one that we went with, but I know they, they talk to each other. So now it's just another part of what we'd be looking at.
Bradley Tabone (12:55):
Gotcha, at least if you go down the route of just moving, sorry, sorry I cut you off.
Matt Gilliland (13:00):
The, the biggest hurdle is really getting everybody used to the digitizing and getting the iPads and everything out there to them. So we're already past that hurdle. It's a matter of just tweaking what we really want to do and then get the analytics to show where we can improve.
Bradley Tabone (13:14):
Got you. So today, just a quick question. Did you just move purely just from paper to digital, or did you kind of revisit each of the processes and change it for the digital version to make it, you know,
Matt Gilliland (13:26):
We, we kind of did a little bit of both. It was more, if we were in a project, we were finishing up paper, but essentially of new jobs started, they were starting new into the digital, but we have, especially, we've got civil jobs, we've got commercial jobs, we've got different entities. We deal with where it's more of the civil guys since they do most of the daily time sheets, things like that, rather than our city, our commercial, which is a fewer amount of people just running a lot of subs. So it was kind of a, it was kind of a two-part we finished up work, there was still paper. And then when digitized.
Bradley Tabone (13:57):
Got you. And, and now you're looking at the reporting side, or did you start with the reporting at the, at the kind of, you know, with the end in mind around the processes?
Matt Gilliland (14:05):
Well, I wasn't involved whenever it started. I was on the operation side when that I'll start it. So I'll just at that point I was just road building, building bridges and stuff. So moving Into safety and now just building bridges and things like that. But so I guess I'm coming at it at a different angle than most safety professionals since I've seen the background, I know what it takes and just how do we improve because there's a lot of gaps to always fill in.
Bradley Tabone (14:33):
Awesome. That is, I'm just going to throw around this time. Cause I used to open it up and leave you at 30 seconds of silence and no one jumped in. And so we're taking a different, a different approach, it's just Brad, just picking random people. Naz, what are some processes that you've, you know, you've gone through that journey on and what are some learnings you can share? Yeah,
Nazanin Kargosha (14:52):
Actually, I mean, actually I really enjoyed that listening that these digital tools because right now I've been in a project in the bigger project, LAX project. It was a joint venture with a PCL and Turner. Over there we did have FCC job site software. So it was very easy for us to track the people who are at the job site at this moment. And then and if there, they do have any kind of like a medical background and stuff like that in case of any injury happening we knew that maybe someone has diabetics and make sure that we are giving them the right you know, the medicine. And so it was very easy. But for the kind of like paperwork and you know, the care giving the report is though it was still was kind of like a paperwork and manually, everything was very hard. And I remember that I was not from I was not working as a kind of safety department. I was a superintendent, but I remember it was very hard for our safety crew to gather the whole information takes for like a days to, you know, count, demand, power and stuff like that
Bradley Tabone (16:08):
Reporting takes time, huh?
Nazanin Kargosha (16:10):
And then we do have the Procore. We did have Procore, but I think it was Tim or said it doesn't have the kind of like analytic version. It doesn't give you any reports. It's just kind of like document management, stuff like that. So over here, I'm still almost working at a small project and then everything is kind of like a manual paperwork. I'm the one that just hunting people down every week. So yeah, really I'm looking for something that helps us to be better in reporting.
Bradley Tabone (16:49):
I am been opened up to the room now and say, is there anything that anyone wants to share around overcoming the fear of kind of rolling out. Because I know that safety, when I speak to people over the last kind of three years here in the United States and previously to that in Australia, you know, safety is that area that it's easy to put like a new camera inspection tool on, and if it works, it works. And if it doesn't work, you still get the manual process. But safety is one of those things that when you start changing processes, you impact people and, or you might impact, you know, the might the perceived amount of incidents that come up, or you may actually create incidents by not doing it properly and not having a, very, you know tied together process. So, how have other people just opening up to the room? How have you kind of overcome that kind of whether you have an organization or not the fear of you know, it's a sacred area, but it ain't broke, don't fix it. And what kind of, what else can you share around the digitization of processes that can share with other people? Is there anyone that wants to share?
Brian Mello (17:50):
Absolutely. so I'm a huge advocate for technology but I think that in order to make it work, you need to understand the end user. Technology is great for an indicator for thought process and the ease of use but to understand and have the conversations with your superintendents, the people on the ground, in the field, do you understand what their struggles are from a manual side and then point that into how it can help technology can be great if you're able to use it to save time, understand the process, close the gaps between that you have with the manual that you may not have with the digital. The return on investment would pretty much be the ease of time, the satisfaction of having everything right there. I think the good thing about going fully digitized is having the ability to have KPIs. Understanding what points you can go to, to figure out progression. And that's a good starting point by understanding what your members and employees in the field need on an everyday basis. And that's, you'd, I don't think you'd get the KPIs in a manual setting. Having that and being able to redefine what you're going towards is big when it comes to digitizing your information.
Bradley Tabone (19:24):
Yeah. I mean, the information can come, but the amount of effort it takes some time it takes makes it not timely. Right. And so you can eventually get there, but then you're got prone to human error. And I guess the one big, big other takeout that I got from that was, and I've heard a couple of other people say it, which is really, really important is I think the, for me, I've been digitizing processes for now 14 years initially in a horrible industry, banking. And more recently, last six years in, in construction. And the one thing that I'll say is that, you know, when you digitize the process and it's a chance to review it is getting the buy-in from everybody. I don't know why, but when something's on paper, it's generally the city in this department, they write a new manual, new process.
Bradley Tabone (20:03):
They send that out and everyone abide by it. Whereas digital is a real chance to get everybody's inputs, getting you superintendents inputs, giving you safety, then your engineers getting your trade partners, getting internal departments, risk, HR everyone's input. I can't stress enough how much I have learned that, getting them all stakeholders and the people that actually gonna be using it involved, is the most critical thing ever. Because you will find out sometimes gaps in your processes that you never even knew about that. You're finally asking somebody and they're like, ah, yeah, I'll tell you now. So that's definitely what I've heard a couple of people say for sure. Heather, I know you've rolled out process recently, at least on a bunch of trial projects. What are your what are some of the insights you've got to kind of share around, I know orientations is one of those areas that at least, you know, speaking to people before COVID people were quite standoffish on or, or not sure about how have you found that process and how have you taken it kind of internally at Davis? On the first, you know, I think five projects is projects that you've gone through.
Heather Baker (21:05):
So we're we are in the process of implementing across Davis with the orientations. What we found was that, so we're kind of a mixed bag. W I'm going to take a step back. We're a little bit of a mixed bag when it comes to technology and safety, there are certain things that we're, you know, we're early adopters on. We utilize tech Latista back in 2011. Actually even earlier than that, I started at Davis in 2007. And that was one of my first software that I was assigned to. And so we had the inspection process digitized we had our observations recorded with photos.
Bradley Tabone (21:54):
Back in 2011, impressive. I like it.
Heather Baker (21:57):
Yeah. Right. But then there's other things that we were very manual based. So our safety guys and I'm, stuttering because I finally referred to our safety guys and Andrew's laughing as, as our safety dorks. So it is a term of endearment. But I, I had to hedge. So our safety dorks, they are very much technology-based. But our superintendents aren't as much. And they're still, they got their clipboards, they got their binders. And so they, they still liked their paper. And so I found that at least with the superintendents their involvement as safety was still not quite digitized. We've got our binders that have a sheet per worker that if something happens, we're, you know, fumbling through the binder, trying to find this guy so we can get his emergency contact information, you know, and it's not as efficient.
Heather Baker (22:59):
And then with COVID we found that our superintendents were spending hours upon hours doing orientations because every worker that comes onto a Davis project has to have our safety orientation. Our orientation video is, is you know, 20 minutes long but it takes time to get them assembled and that sort of thing. And now we've got a density situation that we have to deal with because now we can't have more than, you know, six or 10 people in a closed space, you know? And so now if we got a concrete pour and we got 30 finishers coming on onto the project or 60 finishers coming on to a project on a Monday morning or Tuesday morning, when they're ready to pour concrete trucks are waiting, we're holding up the process. And so now with HammerTech, we're able to, you know and it was actually through James Alexander DPR that I spoke to that actually gave us, Grace you looked up at that point, that actually gave us our implementation strategy. So it was all good. He basically, you know, I had posters made up for the job sites and this is, you know planning what we were going to do. And I was going to have all of our foreman or subcontractor foremen come in and enter all the workers in and blah, blah, blah. And he's just like, no, don't do it. He's like send the SMS.
Heather Baker (24:33):
Like, don't do that. He goes, just send the superintendent or the foreman, the SMS link and let him be responsible to get it out to his workers. And he can do it via email. He could do it via text and he could do it, if he knows on a Friday, he's got 20 workers coming in on Monday and just who they are, he can send out the link over the weekend. Then these guys can take their time doing it over the weekend, even before they come onto a job site. And now that process is, severely shortened now because they're watching the video and they are filling out their information that pertains to them. But then I'm going to actually take it a step further that HammerTech allows us to step up our game. Right. Because we never did an assessment. Now we've got a series of 10 questions that they got to get seven right. And they only have two attempts to pass it. Right. yeah. And now we, we are, and now we've got, but we have more than 10 questions loaded. So now they're not getting the same questions twice, potentially. So now we're stepping up our game when it comes to safety. Not only are we making them watch the video, but we're also making sure that they understand what they watched through the assessment. And now we basically get a worker that comes into our field trailer and say, and our superintendent says, hey, did you take the online orientation? And if the worker says, well, what online orientation, all they do is say, go talk to your supervisor. And, and they turn around and walk out when they come back in. Now they say, okay, did you take the online orientation? They say, yes. Okay. What's your name? We get the hard hat sticker number and a two to three, maybe five minutes, depending on the job site, a job site orientation, because we still want that personal feeling . and this is more about like the housekeeping.
Bradley Tabone (26:42):
And they're actually listening to this time.
Heather Baker (26:44):
And so now, and that's all done very quickly and we are sending them on their way. And, and they're working at 7:10 AM. Because they start lining up at the door at six 30, you know, so we're able now to, to get work started much faster. So the, and, and we purposefully picked one of our pilot projects with one of our superintendents that again, term of endearment, which is one of our dinosaurs, you know, he's an old, he's an old school stone and chisel thing.
Bradley Tabone (27:16):
Always recommend that to everybody, like if you're trialing something, make sure you don't just get the people that are technology guru's, grab the dinosaurs or the change resistant people as well, because if it's not working for them, it ain't going to work.
Heather Baker (27:30):
And, and, and we got buy in from, from one of our, our dinosaurs. And he's like, all right, I'll be honest with you. I'm skeptical at first he goes, but we walked through this process. He goes this stupid simple. And that's just from an orientation standpoint. And when he says, it's stupid, simple, we're like, okay, we got to do this.
Bradley Tabone (27:52):
I love it. Well, sign of success, Heather is when the dinosaur says stupid, simple, you know, you've got to ride done,
Heather Baker (27:58):
You got it. And, and, you know, I am going to piggyback on what was said is don't try to bite off more than what you can chew right now. You know, we're, we're, we're not, we're dipping our toes in the water with HammerTech on one specific purpose. We know that there's a lot more we can, we can do with it. But we're gonna, we're going to walk, you know, crawl before we walk and we're going to walk before we run, and we're gonna make sure that this works. And once we know that this works and we get our, our field guys comfortable with the solution, then we can start to expand it into other things.
Bradley Tabone (28:38):
Thank you. Is any kind of questions or thoughts, thoughts on Heather? I know we've only got about five minutes left, but I just thought. In case there is one thing I want to do, which is before we jump into kind of the next topic, which is going to be a group decision I do want to jump back to yourself Grace, because I think you've got a, more to share. Everyone's talked about reporting. We've only got about three, three minutes grace for before, but in three, three minutes, people talked about the reporting being, you know, a big, big overhead and a big kind of, you know, it's a lot of effort. It's not there in real time. It's not there. Have you got any recommendations? I mean, I've seen DPRs reporting and, you know, globally, it's, it's up there in my, probably top two or three that I've seen. Especially since the last month that I've seen it, I'm going to say, have you got any, because I know that it didn't necessarily work out the first time. Right? That's why you came on. If you got any hints and tricks to people, as they kind of look to digitize, whether it's HammerTech or not about rolling out, kind of, you know, with the end in mind, just thought, it'd be good to throw with you for a couple of minutes.
Heather Baker (29:38):
So I'm actually, I'm just going to piggyback on Brian said focus on the problems. And I've never met a superintendent who wouldn't be vocal about what pains they have on a daily basis. So they're always going to express it. I think, focusing on what are the pains and how can we make it easier for project teams focusing on their reporting on and what questions are we trying to answer? We had to revamp our BI boards from what we had before, because it was a lot of information, but it really wasn't obvious as to what questions we were trying to get or answers to questions from project teams. We completely revamped it and now it's easy to read. We took all of the feedback from project teams and we're still getting it. We put them out there and we say, hey guys, is this answering all the questions you have? Is this helping you identify what to focus on your project?
Grace Herrera (30:32):
Is it helping you identify what trade partners to follow up on? So that is in itself, takes a feedback loop. But I think as long as you focus on the project teams and their pains and answering their questions, they're going to gobble it up. Even the dinosaurs, they're going to be like, yes, I've been waiting for somebody to help me because on the safety side, we tend to add a lot, but we don't remove a lot. So it's always an additional process, additional process. So having those conversations, and then during that feedback loop, include those operation folks. And then they're going to see that you're putting a genuine effort into addressing their issues, and it's no longer a safety-focused initiative that tends to happen too. And they're going to see like, okay, I actually have a say, so here you get that ownership and that buy-in, and it's a win-win situation.
Bradley Tabone (31:23):
Yeah. I think all very, very, very good points. I think the key one for me is if you get the superintendents buy-in, it will be successful. If you don't get the superintendent's buy-in good luck. Cause it'll just be traditional stuff, which is just safety, trying to push stuff onto more of the operations and production, right. Then it's that, that's the key. And the other one is making things easy, I think taking away stuff and not always just putting it back on, cause I know Grace that in your BI dashboards, you know, if there's a subcontractor, that's highlighted is missing some information. You also not only highlight it in an easy kind of, you know, graphical representation, the standard lists, and you can click and go and it takes you straight into that individual client to actually rectify it within the system. So just have a think about how you can always make it easier for the people on the ground right. Because then that's when they'll lap it up in the last few minutes and thank you so much, grace, by the way, for all your insights.
Grace Herrera (32:12):
Oh, and I say one last point is leverage other talents within the organization. Don't keep it an EHS initiative. I have technical folks, data folks, everybody I can get involved because there's a lot smarter people than I DPR. So make sure you're not on the journey alone.
Bradley Tabone (32:30):
Perhaps the group, there is a LinkedIn safety leadership roundtable group. If you are not added to that already, let Georgia know and she'll add you in. It's just a great place that we can kind of raise, re share information, et cetera as this group grows, which is, which is awesome. And I do want to open up in the last minute or two with, is there any topics or things at the moment that people would like to focus this group on in, in Q1? So we've come up with kind of the topics in the past, but I do want to throw it to this group and kind of ask, is there a topic or is there something more out of today that we want to focus on for the next round table that will be beneficial to all and make, you know, make this time as effective as possible?
Grace Herrera (33:17):
I definitely would like to hear how others are getting trade partners buy-in. So I hear a lot from DPR team saying, oh, this is so cumbersome. And then I say, well, let's look at the trade partner point of view and then they see it and they're like, oh, it's not that bad. And like, it's no different than attaching a document to an email, but that's what the trade partner is telling our project teams. So I'd love to hear from others on how you're getting that buy-in, does it work to have workshops with them? You know, it isn't enough to have it in contract language. Like what, what best practices are out there to really get trade partners to, to participate in this process? Because they do have a big piece in it.
Bradley Tabone (33:59):
They're 90% of our users at the end of the day, I don't know that's any software system, whether it's an inspection app or whatever it may be. It is 12 o'clock PT. I know it's like three o'clock and two o'clock and one o'clock and you've got to go somewhere, just subcontractors kind of involvement. Was that a topic that people would be interested in seeing some nods?
Speaker 8 (34:18):
Absolutely. Yes. One of the other, one of the things that we use our sport is doing not just the orientation, but also, especially now with COVID is doing our training through HammerTech on HammerTech and being able to follow the training aspect of that and doing it online almost like I can't think of the verbiage now, but like they're doing with the school is making an actually a class that you can take all by yourself without having to rent out a room or get too many people that are in a room.
Bradley Tabone (34:52):
Well, let's have a conversation about subcontractors and then we'll have one around maybe workforce management and training. I think there are two pretty good subjects that everybody is interested in. Generally speaking, if you're in construction, two really important things. Thank you all so much for joining today. I know that we, you know, we spent a lot of time on getting to know each other, but I think that's an important part of this group. It's kind of just making connections and please all come back. The, the bigger this round table is, and the more knowledge that we have I think the better we can all learn from each other. Again, I've been rolling out stuff for 15 years and I'm still learning a lot. So yeah, have a safe weekend and an awesome Thanksgiving next week. And hope for those that are trying, you know, oyster stuffing, you, you enjoy it. And if you're not trying it, you should try it. That's my take out of this of this session. Thank you so much
Grace Herrera (35:42):
It was a pleasure meeting everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. I can't wait to learn from you on the future or roundtables.