Foreman? Me too. I broke under pressure today. I'm interested to hear your tips and best practices for managing the job and the crews.

I'm only an apprentice about to go for journeyman but I learned the trade While enlisted in the Marines and I picked up a few leadership nuggets. It's good that this is a concern of yours and just considering such a thing immediately equips you better as a leader.

First and foremost be willing to do anything you ask of anyone (and do it better). Don't let anyone be able to accuse you of being a weak worker. if it's your first time working with an individual and you need him to sweep the floor and fold up the drop cloth tell him exactly what you need done and begin doing it, while describing what you'll be looking for (example: I'm making sure to get all the corners and I'm going to be careful not to spill the cloth until I get near the trash) this way there's no excuse not to do it right the first time. Work and walk with urgency and it'll rub off on your team. Show the crew that you'll get dirty and do some shitty work that foremen usually won't do- lug around tools and sweep, work directly with an apprentice from time to time. If you do this once in a while they will be 1000x more willing to bust their ass.

Second, delegate responsibility in rotation. If you've got a few journeymen working under you on a site make one of them "in charge" of a very specific set of tasks, and hold the "leader" you chose responsible. If you effectively demonstrate exactly how you expect the task to be preformed (within reason, of course) this will help your men get used to having some responsibility and accountability. This one gets tricky but is a good exercise nonetheless, if A is leader and B phased all the outlets backwards it's As fault and he needs to be sure it gets corrected as far as you're concerned B doesn't exist. This will enforce what you expect of A and better prepare him to take charge and responsibility of the whole crew overall, keep the leader position in rotation so everyone gets a chance to be the boss and to fuck up but also to own their fuck up.

Also just a very general tip-I'm not sure what sector you're in so this may not be applicable but I've been mostly in residential and usually my crew is offered a tip by homeowner. I always deny and politely request that in lieu of a tip if the homeowner feels our crew surpassed expectations to please call the office and let them know. my company gives $20 bonuses for good reviews and with this method I can usually squeeze a few out a month, also sometimes the homeowner insists that you take the tip and you've managed to ask them to leave a good review while appearing humble- 2 birds.

/r/electricians Thread