After over 20 years in the industry, exact timelines are a bit fuzzy. However, I remember the lightbulb moment a few years after starting our restoration and reconstruction company and thinking, “This is not good!” It was the beginning of another busy day, everyone was gathered in the garage and managers were holding clipboards. It was loud and chaotic. It was an exercise in figuring out what needed to be done and who should be doing what. I was relatively inexperienced and had no formal or informal training. What I did know is that it had to change and there was a better way. The money lost by one person standing there “waiting” to find out where they were going and what they were doing, multiplied by the number of people and days; ouch! This deserved attention.

My story is just the beginning of explaining why job planning and scheduling in your company is so important. It is the first step to improving – identifying there is a problem. Job planning and scheduling in restoration is both a skill and an art. It is a critically important functional area in juggling the juggle of life in restoration. One could argue it is more important than ever when operating in a world that could make scheduling seem pointless. There are endless supply chain chinks and labor shortages. For some absenteeism of staff is at an all-time high.