Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/816045
EquipmentWorld.com | April 2017 65 some of which were hired by his father. He says listening is the key to retaining talented workers. "We listen to them. We have a weekly meeting. All the foremen talk. All the estimators, the project managers. We're pushing guys to do 300 feet of pipe per day and if they're saying, 'Listen we can only do 250 feet,' we're listening and they know it. They feel it. And we do give bonuses whenever we can," he says. Worker shortage With so much work coming in and a large staff to retain, Boyce says, one major pain point for his company in recent years has been finding enough qualified workers to fill vacant positions. "People can be your biggest prob- lem or they can be your biggest asset." Boyce says. "I grew up with a different breed of worker. You didn't have half the problems with those guys. You didn't have cell phones; you didn't have other con- tractors trying to steal them way." "It's difficult," Cutler adds. "We run ads in the newspaper and on- line every other month." Trusting tech … and your gut Boyce and Cutler are big propo- nents of technology on the jobsite. "We see technology like an estimator now," Cutler says. "It's part of our fleet. With our on-road equipment we have telematics and we have a screen now in the of- fice you can see where all of our machines are." And while having a stream of real-time data on all your equip- ment is powerful, among the best advice he can give other contractors is listen to your instincts. "Sometimes you really have to trust your gut," he says. "Watch the economy. Do a little reading. Know what you're doing." Client Vincent Knoll of Jones Lange LaSalle says Garry is a rare contractor in today's environment. "I can't tell you how great it is to have a partner that does what they say they're going to do," Knoll says. "What occurs to me when I think about Garry, most people don't understand the value of looking ahead…. Look ahead planning is key and I think a lot of people talk that, they say they do it, but a lot of people don't understand the value and they actually don't know how to plan their work well enough to do that. What I think what separates Garry from a lot of the folks that I typically see out there is the look ahead planning and informing the client about the impact to them. "Garry and his management team I think understand all the compo- nents such as these affecting a job. They're very specific in what that look ahead is and the impact to the client. That's the key." Boyce says his large equipment fleet is one of his biggest differentiators. "We have a lot of equipment and people know that," he says. Garry Boyce runs a company that was started by his great-grandfather. Originally a trucking company, Boyce Excavating now employs as many as 100 people and enjoys a 50-50 mix of public and private work.