Subcontractor Relations

While our first duty is to our Clients, the best way for us to serve our clients is to ensure that we have an excellent subcontractor base to do the work. We ought to treat our subs as we would want to be treated. Good treatment means:

?1. Always be courteous and respectful. Even when you need to chew out someone for gross incompetence, there are very effective ways to do so without violating the rule of treating someone as you would want to be treated. If you need advice on how to do this, please ask.

2. Always be fair. Having a sub fail is not in our Client, the project's, or our best interest. We want them to succeed. Do not set them up to fail from the beginning or leave them hanging when problems arise.

3. Respect the bidding process. While we must get the best FAIR price for work, chiseling prices down is NOT a good policy.

Do not make a policy of divulging other subs' numbers to allow another sub to lowball it. There may be specific incidences where this is necessary, but they should be the few exceptions, not the rule.

Once you award a project to a subcontractor, you MUST call the other subs and tell them who got the job. You ought to be very embarrassed if a sub asks the status of a project a week or two after you have awarded it to someone else.

Make sure that whoever provides Estimating with a bid on a project at least gets a chance to bid on it when it is real. It costs subs a tremendous amount of time and energy to provide us with the bids that allow us to get the work. It is grossly unfair not even to let them at least bid in the award phase after they had put in so much effort when the project wasn't ours.

4. Reward friendship. When a subcontractor does something good for the company (referring clients, potential employees, excessive early bidding, etc.), we want to help them to get work with us. This relationship does not mean that the sub can charge whatever they want, but it does mean that we can help them better determine a fair price and guide them through the process.

5. Reward expertise. If a subcontractor asks the right questions, is an excellent technical resource, has a great showroom, or recommends other good subs or suppliers, we want to reward this. NEVER ASK FOR LOTS OF ADVICE, THEN SHOP FOR A LOWBALL PRICE. Our subs will quickly stop being available for advice if we do this. If you ask for technical help and the providing sub does not get the work, try your best to include compensation for the sub in the new price.

6. Pay them on time or tell them why. Subcontractors have a right to be paid on time. If they do not live up to their field or office performance responsibilities, we have a right to pay them late. If we pay them late, it must be for concrete reasons, and we MUST tell them why. Punishing them (and withholding cash flow is a form of severe punishment) is only applicable when the purpose is announced. A discipline that is not discussed simply seems like incompetence and sloppy procedures.

7. Apologize if you are wrong and make amends. If you mess up on something with our subs, you must apologize and make amends. If a Client makes us do something we don't want to do (but is not unethical), explain it to the subs and say you are sorry. If you make a billing error, tell the sub you messed up and fix it.

8. Remember that subcontractors are critical to our reputation and success. Every one of them comes in frequent contact with prospective clients, architects, employees, and other subcontractors. If our subs act as ambassadors telling the world how good we are, we will continue succeeding. If they start saying that we are double dealers, sloppy, incompetent, and unethical, our jobs will be far more difficult.

9. Use the Golden Rule, and let's have fun succeeding together.

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