What do you do to keep your crews busy in bad weather?

Sometimes it's hard to send your best guys home without their days pay. Do you use rainy days to do training or maintenance?

I normaly will do some in house training. This includes watching videos and some hands on as well.

We're general contractors as well, so if we have inside work....Also, for those capable; Vehicle & equipment maintenance.....Technical training, as well.

We make our own roof metals. Roof edgings, Eave boxes, pipe collars, ridge caps, valleys, ect.,ect.. Most times they would just rather have the day off. It seems the young people of today are not interested in working every day. That's why the economy is the way it is today. Mom & Dad, Wife or Girlfriend, or Grand mom will help them. They don't want to help themselves. Obama money is good.

We also do interior work as well as roofing and siding. It’s always nice to have some interior to do but you cant always schedule your interior jobs around the weather. As far as the question, like GKRFG said “In this trade you have to get used to missing days due to bad weather, it's just part of the deal.” However I do not agree with Tin Man’s comment, “It seems the young people of today are not interested in working every day.” My son is 27, raised in the business as I was. Along with him I also am blessed to have several other employees around his same age. These guys may be an exception but they are ready to go Every Morning. I don’t feel too bad about it if I have to send them home for a day or two here and there because I pay them very well!

http://mobile.al.roofing-in.net/Getting materials and supplies, checking inventory and cleaning up shop are always good rainy day activities for the crew.http://montgomery.al.roofing-in.net/

Agreed Gerry.

B) :) :) B)

Deep Down In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day

Rain days are also a great time for marketing and following-up with past customers.

I used to always generate new business on rain days. Some areas I would focus on were:

-Calling past re-roof customers to make sure there were no leaks (amazing how many times there is a problem but people fail to report it).

-Calling past repair customers to see now the repair is holding up.

-Calling 'open quotes' to see if any emergency repairs are needed.

-Good, old fashioned, cold calling!

Clean the shop, fix tools, training (safety, new product, etc) Snow Plow, Work on vhicles, Inside work if we can get it.

Bump

I will let them work from home. This is a measure that will cause certain obstacles in the exchange of work, but it ensures safety for everyone.

Rainy days were usually the best time for me to bring in new customers.