Field Crew Incentive Program

Treat em to a little bonus like a dinner at a nice place for the crew and their significant others every month for the cleanest truck, cleanest equipment and a good being at work on time record.

Just don't let them know when they are going to be inspected.

The Party chief that had the most wins at the end of the year got a nice money bonus to divide amongst his crew.

We used to do that back in the eighties when there were 20 plus crews and it worked pretty good.

Randy

People have personalities. Guys too. Some are clean and organized and detail oriented.
Some are sloppy, dirty, forgetful and procrastinating. (Hopefully not all in the same guy!)
When hiring you can think about that or ignore it….

I never worked at a large company like Randy, so we worked on a smaller sclae.
Vehicle care went up when the employee was assigned the vehicle and took it home at night.
Equipment care went up when the crew got new equipment.
Thursday morning was safety meeting and we talked about equipment maintenance.
Talk to each crew chief to be sure they are taking care of the truck and the surveying equipment.
Standardizing operations of equipment helped bring everyone together and seemed to raise the care level.
Having a Purchase Order system did not allow the crews to go to the surveying store and get whatever they wanted, but I would go with them about every three months and let them talk me into getting something each crew member wanted.
On an individual basis, I would pay for some items that were needed when a job was well done or I could see extra effort expended by a crew member. So I have bought tool belts, vests, rain gear, boots, hats, gloves, and even jeans for a crew member. Everything was discretionary because I thought it had more meaning that way. You also keep some contact with all the personnel that way. Anything you can do to make the communication go either up or down the chain is a good thing.

The crew can provide their own hand tools that go in the tool belt. We provided the tape measures and hammers, etc. One chief lost a radio and was not made to reimburse the company, but did reimburse the company for the second one that he lost. Occasionally when a new hire needed a belt, I would buy the chief several tool belt items that would cause him to pass down his used ones to the newby. That seemed to work well.

So your answer is that some need more reminding than others, but you should set a “not-official standard” of what you expect and then monitor them to be sure it is being done close to your way.

In my own company, with just 2 crews in the heyday before I went solo, I made sure that the guys felt like the were appreciated, because I remembered where I came from.

I had a tab at the local breakfast taco to go joint and if they did not abuse it, their breakfast was paid for.

Fridays was always a 2 hour early quit with pay and we shot our guns or played basketball or whatever. (Office is on my land in the country).

I had some very good guys that worked for me and not a single one is still in surveying, but they are doing well.

Randy

Try asking the crews what incentives would work for them and combine that with your expectations and everyone should be happy.

How about this:
Have a deposit in a monthly "kitty" for equipment.
If something gets lost or needs replacement because of abuse, it comes out of the kitty. If they take care of the equipment, provide the crew with a % bonus out of the kitty.

"for caring for and keeping their tools as close to "like new" as possible, as well as reducing the number of lost hand tools over the year."

That's part of their job description at my company. 😉

Have a great week! B-)

You get what you measure and reward

> I need some input and ideas for setting up an Incentive Program for my field crews. My goal is to improve equipment maintenance.
I tend to dislike special incentive programs in surveying or engineering. If you incentivize your people to improve maintenance your crews members will react in one of 3 ways:

• Passive aggressively ignore your overtures and carry on. Believe it or not, this is the best option. But still a negative because you have taught these people that they can resist your authority passive-aggressively.
• Aggressively pursue the incentive reward by maintaining equipment to an absurd degree. I've heard of crews spending hours searching for a lost stylus because they didn't want to tell the boss it was lost. You get what you measure and reward, and not much else.
• Decide that the message is that failing to maintain the equipment is okay, it just means lower pay.

Extrinsic reward systems have been known to work in highly repetitive job tasks - such as assembly line workers assembling so many widgets per hour. But even were successful they tend to lose their effectiveness in a brief time.

I've never seen a formulaic incentive program that worked as intended in surveying. And I have seen a few. IMO, they are attempts to replace leadership with a spreadsheet. They always get perverted, then abandoned. Far better is to make sure your people know what level of performance you expect, praise those who perform to expectations in public, reprimand those who underperform in private, and fire those who fail to improve.

You get what you measure and reward

Their paycheck is the incentive. A pat on the back for a job well done and a pink slip for shoddy work.
It's their job to maintain equipment.

SD

Best one hands down is lease the equipment from the crew chief for 200 a month. I bought easily 15k in equipment that way, and still have hammers I purchased 8 years ago. I also have 5 hammers in the truck, depending on what I'm doing. It jumped to 850 when I got the robot, but still and all, that way the chief has MAJOR incentive for everything to be in good condition and returned to the truck. I've been told it also simplifies things on the accounting end, as they don't care about receipts as it is documented in the petty cash ledger as standardized lease rates.

FWIW, when you have those long hikes to set one or two corners, get an Estwing framing hammer. It makes a pretty good digging tool on the claw side, so you can leave the shovel in the truck, is 28 ounces so less to carry compared to the 4 lb. maul, and is on the approved list for the zombie apocolypse.

Working for a firm that had a contract for a pipeline survey, basically an as built and check on the cover over the pipe. I was to run one crew and another guy the other. The other guy drank himself out of a job and what was left were non experienced people who spent a couple of months just wandering around, we were about 80 miles apart. Finally the company had enough and sent that crew to me hoping I could increase production and still make a profit. Fired one and reorganized but had one dud, told him I was going to haul him in for a drug test, when he ask why, told him I was doing it so I could fire him because he was not doing his share. He asked for another chance, gave it to him, turned out to be a good hand, completed the project under budget and deadline. They wanted me back to do it again the next year but wanted to use the incentive of a bonus. Told them that I gave them everything I had and would not work on a bonus system and declined the job. Did write out how I had organized the crews to get the work done and gave some recommendations on how to improve production. Think they got along fine without me and I did OK without them. My opinion about incentives is that if they are needed to get good production, then fire the crews and those running them. If overtime or weekend work is needed, then time and a half should be good enough during a pinch.
jud

Don't pay extra for something you should already be getting. If they can't take care of the equipment get someone who can.

Yes, the Estwing hammer came in handy last week to re-nail some pickets I had removed from a wood fence. Good choice PL !
Can't remember all the things i've used it for, but it is very handy. Keep an Estwing hatchet also, but don't really use it as much.

Framing Hammer

Hatchet

New field crew incentive program: Work or be fired!