What's your end goal?

Every successful person has a goal in mind for what they want to achieve! On the road to zero damages I think it's imperative that we all have goals in mind, that help us reach the ultimate goal of eliminating damages.

Locators

At the personal level you may be asking your self, "what more can I do?" The trend for locators as they ascend the corporate ladder is to end up behind a desk back at the office organizing locators and coordinating dispatch, but that's definitely not for everyone. It might be worthwhile exploring courses that you could do to gain extra qualifications and diversify what you or you company offer. A few of the related courses might include:

• Pole Inspection,
• Pavement Evaluation,
• Railway Ballast Measurement and condition assessment,
• Leak detection

These are just a few of the options available and your skills will transfer across easily. Or you may eventually want to start your own locate company, this can be tricky but with few good contracts it may be worthwhile.

Locate Company Owner

If you're an owner of a locate company and wondering what's next, there are a few options available depending on your bandwidth, crew and area of operations. Some of the options include:

• Extra training for your team (as above)
• Auxillary Services - For example: Hydrovac services, HDD services, concrete scanning, GPR
• More locates - innovate with software, expand out of your area
• Offer more locate services - are you locating for traffic/ITS right now?
• Expanding into SUE

Basically there's two types of positive change you can make, you can expand upwards and/or outwards but as long as you see growth that aligns with your vision then you're probably doing the right thing!

Others

Many of my #NoDamage readers are interested in the utility locate industry but may not be directly involved right now, however there are still opportunities to help prevent damages and reach personal goals.

Lots of contractors are looking at starting their own locate division due to legislative changes like Bill 93. Before doing so though think through the liabilities you'll assume, the expertise you'll need to do it competently and the tools and software involved.

If you're at an 811 One Call Center, it may be worth exploring how your goals line up with the other stakeholders above and how some small behavioural changes could bring big results.

Conclusion

As you focus on your personal or corporate goals, and invest in the future, keep in mind the bigger picture and leverage tools to make things easier! Maybe that's as simple as getting a new perspective on your locates through your 811 ticket management system!

Now it's time to set out your goals and start getting after them