Managing multiple job sites at once without losing control

Problem: dozens of open job sites, no weekly planning, employees waiting for instructions and the owner driving from one site to the next all day.

Solution: a 30-minute weekly planning session on Friday and a status card for every job, updated automatically.

Result: by Monday morning you already know who goes where, what needs to be done and what is required. Emergencies are cut in half because most of them were simply unplanned activities.

313 jobs, two people, always gasping for air

A window and door company in Central Italy. Turnover of 1.400.000 €. 313 jobs in one year. Each job means a contract, a site survey, at least three or four orders. Husband and wife, always gasping for air.

313 contracts. 313 surveys. At least a thousand orders. Two people handling everything. The question is not "how do you get it all done?" The question is "what are you losing along the way?"

The answer, after looking at the numbers: margins. Because when you are running that fast, you do not check. And when you do not check, money leaks out without you noticing.

Monday morning without a plan

"If you get to Monday morning without knowing what to do, you have already lost."

Yet it happens in most construction businesses. The owner arrives in the morning, looks at the phone, sees 15 WhatsApp messages from the weekend, and from there decides the day. Who goes where? Depends on who called last. What gets done first? Whatever is on fire right now.

The result is a chaotic calendar: lots of incomplete tasks, constant cancellations or postponements. And an uncomfortable truth: of all the tasks that become emergencies, 95% of them are tasks that, had they been managed differently, would never have become emergencies.

That job that stalled because material was missing? It would have been enough to order it on Thursday instead of realising on Monday. That crew standing idle half the morning? It would have been enough to know the site was not ready and send them somewhere else.

Why employees are not autonomous (and whose fault it is)

"He just cannot do it. He is a bit used to not reading, not digging deeper, a bit superficial."

"He simply refuses to use the phone, apps, anything."

I hear this often. Employees are not autonomous. But in most cases, the problem is not the person. It is that nobody gave them a system to be autonomous.

If the site foreman does not know which jobs are priorities this week, he calls you. If he does not know whether the material has arrived, he calls you. If he does not know what to do when he finds a problem, he calls you. Eight phone calls a day because information is missing, not because ability is missing.

The Friday planning session: 30 minutes that change the week

Every Friday afternoon, 30 minutes. Always the same structure.

Point 1: job status. Take the list of active jobs. For each one, a single line: on track, delayed, blocked. If blocked, why. If delayed, by how much.

Point 2: next week. Who goes where, Monday to Friday. Which materials need to arrive and when. Which jobs are opening, which are closing.

Point 3: open issues. What requires a decision? A client who wants a variation. A job where the measurements do not add up. A supplier running late. Decide on Friday, not on Monday when you are already in the middle of the chaos.

Point 4: one number. Actual hours vs planned hours on the jobs completed that week. If a job ran 30% over, you know straight away. Not at month-end.

These 30 minutes eliminate 70% of Monday's phone calls. It is not magic. It is planning.

The status card: one page per job

For every active job, one page. Always the same format.

You do not need complicated software. A shared spreadsheet works. The important thing is that there is only one, it is kept up to date, and everyone looks at it.

The difference between having this card and not having it: the owner stops keeping everything in their head. And when you stop keeping everything in your head, you stop waking up at 3 a.m. thinking "I forgot something about the Como site".

BAU Gest

Tutti i cantieri sotto controllo con BAU Gest

BAU Gest ti mostra lo stato di ogni cantiere in una schermata. Ore previste vs lavorate, materiale, problemi aperti. Sai tutto in 5 minuti.

See how it works

Swiss
Made

BAU Gest

Net margin24,2%

Active jobs8

Hours deviation+12%

How to manage 3 jobs in 3 different places

"I have many jobs. One job in Bizzarone, one in Lugano and one in Como."

Three jobs in three different provinces. Three crews. The owner cannot be in three places. The temptation is to spend the day in the car, driving from one site to another to "check".

Real control does not happen on site. It happens by looking at the numbers.

Twenty minutes in the morning to read the reports. If the numbers are on track, no need to go. If a job is running over, you go. But with the information already in hand, not to find out what is happening.

The cost of "I do everything myself"

Seven out of a hundred companies among those we have analysed report the same problem: too many things to manage alone. The owner is overloaded.

But the problem is not the volume of work. It is that the owner does things they should not be doing. Checking on jobs that a foreman with the right information could check. Ordering material that a manager with a clear list could order. Answering clients who ask for updates because nobody informed them automatically.

Where to start

This week. Make a list of active jobs. For each one, write: on track, delayed, blocked. Time needed: 15 minutes. If you cannot do it in 15 minutes, it means you do not have the information. And that is the first problem to solve.

Next Friday. Run the first weekly planning session. 30 minutes. Who goes where on Monday. What needs to arrive. What you need to decide.

In one month. Look back. How many fewer emergencies? How many fewer phone calls on Monday morning? How many hours have you recovered?

If every week is an emergency

The volume of work is not the problem. The problem is that without a system, every job competes for your attention and the one that shouts the loudest always wins.

If you want to build a planning system that works for your business, book 30 minutes with us. We look at how many jobs you manage, how you monitor them today, and where you are losing time and money. No commitment, just a concrete plan.