5 Tips For New Renovation Businesses

Starting a new renovation business is an exciting journey that many embark on with full eagerness to take on challenges, grow and establish an innovative and positive company culture. New potential clients, a dedicated team of hard workers, and an awesome business plan all contribute to the business’s steady growth. Maintaining that growth, however, requires a little more work and managing.

In this article, we give you 5 tips on how you can do exactly that for your new business ventures to be smooth and stable. 

Consider an employee management plan

One of the first things that a new renovation business can do to ensure a healthy and positive work environment is to create a plan that focuses on tracking and recording employees’ work, compensation, growth, contribution to the company, and more. In fact, it's recommended to monitor certain activities of employees during work hours, as it clarifies roles and responsibilities, distributes tasks in a right and equitable way, increases accountability, while also helping plan future projects, growth, and expansion. Having good systems in place not only results in better bookkeeping but also keeps your employees happy and satisfied. 

💡Bonus Tip:

Digital Planning saves loads of time! Timesheet data, daily activities, department work, PTOs are all easily accessible with the touch of a button. No more going through countless paper files and folders just to find that one document where Carl’s insurance number is on! Keep reading this post, we have a great digital option for you at the end.

Incorporate a time tracking system

The most efficient way to keep an eye on when employees clock in and out of work is to incorporate an existing time tracking system within your company. If your employees will be renovating a home, for example, a good time tracking system helps you oversee who is working at what time, how much time is spent working on design, planning space, and construction, managing overtime costs, and the list goes on. 

Some ways you can track the time spent working on a particular task is by using spreadsheets, the good ol’ pen, and paper tracking method, and even installing time-tracking software on your devices. Spreadsheets are a great way to fill out working hours but require a lot more planning and maintenance. You have to first create the spreadsheets, design them according to company needs, and fill them out manually each day. Pen and paper can be your best option, but there’s the risk of losing the paper, something unfortunate happening (have you ever spilled anything on paper before?), or the hassle of always carrying paper and pens around. Time-tracking software seems to be a great modern solution for renovation businesses looking to gain insight into their team’s productivity. Everything is digitally recorded, and reports are generated whenever the need arises. What tracking method you choose is ultimately your decision. If you are interested in learning more about these time tracking methods then read our piece on “Paper Planners vs Digital Planners: What's the Consensus?”

Enable location tracking 

Some employees may be renovating an office space in the city center, others may be working on a house closer to the suburbs, while another group travels back and forth between job sites. Planning a way to track your employees' locations and routes not only provides a detailed work report but also helps your business analyze costs and time spent commuting and traveling to certain locations.

Keeping an eye on geolocation data will help your business manage projects and clients much better, as well as have a greater overview of what future renovation jobs you can take on. By analyzing current working conditions, you will be able to know what price to charge clients while also maintaining a certain profit margin. 

Have you been thinking of raising prices recently?

Here’s a good reason! Long commuting times, multiple job sites, and overtime are all good reasons to raise your prices. If you’re successfully tracking your employees' locations during work, you can estimate commuting costs to the last decimal. 

Digitalize timesheet reports

Timesheet reports are without a doubt one of the most important parts of any renovation business, as it’s crucial to fairly compensate all employees, manage expenses and identify areas that need improvement. Digitalizing timesheet reports help you keep all of this information ready and easily accessible.

As a bonus for businesses trying to go green: no more paper! Good for your business, good for the environment. It’s a win-win.

Just like this home renovation business in Australia that is trying to manage work in the field and the office, many new renovation businesses face the same issues. They seem to be spending a lot of time working after hours to simply get the paperwork done. Should you get more employees? Raise your prices? The answers to these questions lie in a little analysis and planning of your employees and work. With the above suggestions, any new business can save a lot of time by doing a little preparation beforehand. 

The preparation may consist of knowing how much time is spent working on the field, commuting, or even taking a closer look at expenses. This little Australian business, as well as any other businesses that would like to expand and grow, can try to incorporate the above-mentioned tips into their business model. With everything digitalized and synced, there is no need to be working on-site every day and spend all night doing paperwork. Business owners can choose to do one or the other and can spend their remaining time working on growth.

These five tips should help you get a better overview of some things to keep in mind as a new renovation business. They will help you manage your employees, encourage growth and keep track of work. If you’re a little overwhelmed or need a little boost, we recommend trying out ATTO. With ATTO, you’re able to do all of the above in one easy-to-navigate app. Employees can clock in and out with one-touch, location and activity are automatically recorded and timesheets are easily generated. 

You can even try it out for 14 days and see how it works, just click here.