Most people who hire contractors and not self manage their own projects know very well the advantages of having a contractor, but here are some more / further advantages why it is better to have a contractor than to self manage your projects, unless of course if you’re too tight on the budget that you’d rather risk it, than spend extra.
So there are reasons why contractors exist and thrive, and most company or corporate projects need a contractor and will not self manage their projects. Companies always hire contractors and not self manage because they want to focus on their business and not do some short term carpentry or masonry works. The contractor will also assure companies of workmanship warranties and quality claims – this is something that is hard to claim when you directly hire your own workers, you will have to extend the work of your own hired carpenters or masons when you feel a portion of their work needs to be redone. Those private very small time project owners sometimes like to think that they can save more if they self manage their projects, however at the end of the project, their own hired workers will require longer project duration and will not be able to give free labor for quality related warranty claims.
So we all know the main reason why some project owners like to self manage and directly hire workers, which is – the savings that they thought they would enjoy, but here are the reasons why you should get a contractor / project manager for your project:
- You will be shielded from the headache and stress that come with a construction project. Imagine 8 months to maybe even one and a half years of managing a project, doing logistics, sourcing supplies and managing people. You will be able to skip all that stress through a contractor, but of course sometimes you will have no choice if your budget cannot allow it. Contractors already have a well established chain of reliable suppliers that can deliver materials on time and workers that know how to keep a sense of urgency in their work behavior as they know to be expected by their contractor.
- You will not need to manage and hire people. Hiring people can be tricky if you don’t have a regular pool of workers. On top of a pool of workers, you also need to make sure that your workers will not abuse you by working slow so they can have a longer work period. Please take note it is common behavior of some carpenters and masons to work extremely slow and drag forever if they are hired direct by a customer / project owner. This is their usual behavior so they can have a longer work period especially when the location is close to their home. Construction workers who accept to be hired through a contractor also know what contractors expect and require of them – speed and accuracy. Also, the relationship created by the years of working relations between the contractor and the worker, will also result in good quality output by the workers. Good relations with workers will assure the contractor his workers are loyal to him- and this loyalty is expressed in the good work quality that they provide. By working efficiently, the workers know that the contractor will love keep them and hire them repeatedly for new incoming projects, so the workers will be assured of a steady income flow. Besides, the workers know that a project owner or customer can only hire them once – for that specific project, except rarely when the project owner has another project in the coming distant years. Contractors have higher rate of hiring workers since it is the business they are in and not some once in a lifetime construction project of say a dream home or some tower of babel you wish to build in your lifetime.
- Contractors have an already established reliable list of suppliers for specific material items. These suppliers also have special price arrangements with the contractor to make sure he always comes to them for future repeat business. These suppliers always provide the best quality since they want to have repeat business with the contractor for his other projects.
- Warranty claims – The contractor is bound to provide good quality work to stay afloat in the business and thus the contractor is sure to provide after work warranty. Whereas if one self hires his workers, then it will be difficult to get warranty claims since workers will never give repeat work for free even if they are the ones blamed for such poor quality work. The workers who are directly hired by the customer would rather not show up when there is a quality claim on warranty since he knows he will not be paid for repeat work, and will even blame the customer for being a perfectionist. The contractor will always pay the workers for repeat work or back job to make sure he can deliver on his warranty assurance to the customer.
- Tools and transport elements – Contractors already have tools and transport equipment thus the customer who wish to hire his own workers will sometimes have to buy special tools for special applications. Please note that carpenters and masons usually only have the common tools and they usually don’t buy special tools. Now if you have a project that require special tools, then you no longer need to buy them since your contractor usually has that special tool for such specific special applications. Some subdivisions also require a special transport for workers and they don’t allow workers to walk from the gate to the construction site – and the contractor is prepared for this since he usually always have a special transport vehicle for workers. Also, there are times like during Christmas season or Holy Week when it is very difficult or sometimes even impossible for the workers to go home to their province since the buses are always full, and they will require from the contractor to be transported to their provinces during these special holidays.
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