IS A SELF-PERFORMING GENERAL CONTRACTOR BETTER?
By Keith Wayne, President & CEO
Recently, I read an article by a large General Contractor about the benefits of self-performing. They claim this strategy will create better results, provide a solution to labor force problems, guarantee quality, strengthen safety, and improve collaboration. As subcontractors, we view this strategy through a different lens and would like to offer our perspective. Highly skilled subcontractors can be leveraged to deliver more value to projects and, ultimately, the end-user. Here are a few ways in which we believe subcontractors add value.
Highly Trained Workforce
Our passion has been recruiting and training the finest craft workers across various trades for over thirty years. The recruitment process alone is a formidable challenge. The real task begins once we hire our workforce, honing their skills into specialized trade expertise. Highly skilled tradespeople are scarce, a fact we know well as we’ve developed in-house training programs to cultivate trade skills.
If you want a highly trained workforce, you must invest heavily in non-revenue-generating roles—recruiters, craft trainers, HR, and labor benefits coordinators. These support roles and their associated costs are indispensable.
Concentrated Expertise
A highly trained workforce brings us to our next value-add: concentrated expertise. Because subcontractors often focus on a few select scopes, they develop deep expertise. For example, we recently had a large general contractor who does self-perform and called us about a very complex project. Since we have extensive knowledge of the required scopes, they said, “Can Wayne Brothers just design and do this for us?”. This client leveraged our expertise to deliver more value to their client.
Furthermore, General Contractors who partner with trade contractors early in the design phase can really impact their client’s projects, but that is a different article for a different day.
Scalable Manpower
Every day, you read in the newspaper about a mega project. These projects are people, eaters. General Contractors that leverage subcontractors can easily scale up manpower and expertise.
Risk Mitigation
Subcontractors assume responsibility for their work, reducing the general contractor’s liability in case of errors or delays. This collaborative approach enhances efficiency and spreads risk across multiple parties.
Moreover, subcontractors intimately understand their work, enabling them to plan and mitigate hazards effectively. This ensures a safe working environment for everyone.
Resource allocation
Subcontractors bring specialized expertise in various trades, enabling the general contractor to allocate resources more efficiently by delegating specific tasks to those with the skills. This allows General Contractors to focus more on managing procurement, scheduling, and logistics while subcontractors handle the hands-on tasks like concrete pouring and pipelaying. This division of labor ensures efficiency and quality.
Progressive trade subcontractors have crafted a model that ensures a well-trained workforce ready to meet the demands and complexities of today’s large-scale, fast-paced projects. When subcontractor relationships are viewed through a transactional lens, their unique contributions to a project can be overlooked, potentially justifying a self-perform approach. Yet, it’s essential to recognize that subcontractors vary greatly in quality and capability. Wayne Brothers has worked hard to stand out amongst the pack and develop deep relationships with our General Contractor partners who leverage the value we bring, and because of this, everyone wins.
