From Pandemic Directives to Jobsite Management

Safe Site Check In was founded to provide an easy and affordable solution to the pandemic and keep jobsites open. As technologists, we had to quickly learn about jobsite management. We quickly discovered it’s a very hard and complex job!  We will be forever grateful to the customers who patiently taught us the details. Another resource we had was Construction Jobsite Management and we went to school using that text.

When we founded the company, we knew that the pandemic would end. We also knew that any good safety, risk and project management process would require attendance data. So we invested in our initial product to be much more than a pandemic solution. Over the past two years, we’ve grown to become a broad jobsite management platform. And we’ve kept most of our original customers.

Jobsite Managers Leave Well Enough Alone

That was then. Today we’ve discovered that adding jobsite management features was easy compared to getting field operations managers to change. And by change, I mean either their workflow processes or new digital technologies. Generally speaking, there are exceptions of course, jobsite managers only accepted change when forced to! 

The pandemic was a successful go-to-market strategy for us because in principle, companies were forced to comply with the CDC’s health directives. But even back then, most firms resisted or ignored health directives. Even at the risk of fines and penalties. Even though Covid19 was the leading cause of construction worker deaths in 2020.

Ignore the Business Case – Unless the Owner Insists

I sell a product with a stellar ROI at a very low price that is extremely easy to deploy. So, as a business technology leader, it’s very strange when a market responds to a solution that would make them more money with:  Crickets! 

Especially strange when the industry trade press is touting the benefits and necessity of digital transformation. Not a week goes by without Construction Dive, Construction Pros, ENR, etc. promoting construction’s digital transformation. Not to mention when construction productivity is the subject of reporting in the NYTimes.

Luckily for us, some project owners do require daily attendance data via check ins. Usually, these are projects in higher education, healthcare, utility and biotech markets. These markets are much more safety and security conscious about visitors and workers. They are also regulated industries and therefore value good compliance processes. They are also less likely to turn a blind eye to non-compliance.

Getting Jobsite Managers to Embrace Change

How to explain this resistance?  And how to overcome that resistance?

What follows are some of the objections we’ve heard over the past three years. Every digital transformation leader needs to be prepared for these objections, and have a solution or counter-argument ready. We’ll also share what we are trying at our little company to break through the inertia. It would be good for our business, but even more so for the industry and our customers.