I have to write a formal daily report of my ativity. I am not good at this. Does anybody else do this. What does my reports need to have in it, every time. I need a form letter, or one of those children books that you fill in the blanks and it makes a report. I have looked at the sample books on letters but I need a sample book on reports.
Replies
I guess that all depends on who's asking for it, in which I'ld ask to see a couple of examples ..
Our office just started supplying us with a book for daily logs that is pretty good. I'll see who makes it today. If we have to give one to the general daily, the general usually provides a form but we have one also.
Usually I include weather conditions, manpower and where or what they are working on,deliveries, any delays (including outstanding RFI's), hazard assessment and plan if it applies.
We also have a Memo form that we can use to document unusual or "tricky " situations that develop during the day.
Mike
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod, big wheel turn by the grace of god.
Sorry to tell you this but such requirements are often used as a tool to weed out employees who might otherwise be doing a good or great job..
When new management came in at one place I worked they wanted employees who would be loyal to them instead of the old management so they implimented such reports..
Those who failed to do it at all were the first to go.. those who did it poorly were next and the ones who lasted the longest wrote near novels about every day. (they also did the least amount of actual work) In the end they compared output of those dismissed earlier to those who wrote the novels. It simply was a lose-lose proposition..
It's a lousy management tool used by chicken shif bosses who want employees to feel responsible for their own dismissal..
The output dropped so much as a result of this technique that eventually management was replaced but not before all the old long term employees who built the company were let go..
Edited 1/6/2009 8:37 am ET by frenchy
"It's a lousy management tool used by chicken shif bosses who want employees to feel responsible for their own dismissal."
Not necessarily so- at larger firms with big and often long distance projects daily reports are an essential tool; they keep project managers and others back at home base informed about progress, problems, and issues with jobs and help serve as a record of the project.
"If I had my way, carmakers would create vehicles that run off of hot air. It's the kind of development that might make the U.S. Congress useful." - Scott Burgess
Edited 1/6/2009 9:12 am ET by jc21
I'm sorry a phone conversation is much quicker and more direct..
"Projects going well, we've had a few problems but I've solved them.. I'm still worried about the supply matter I talked to you about yesterday and appreciate all you can do to speed up delivery.. if they don't arrive on time we'll be in a tough spot and I'll have to pull some guys off which will put me behind.
Say that subcontractor you hired really didn't seem to understand at all how critical those fitting were. Can you discuss the matter with him and focus his attention on that matter or should I tackle it from my end? If so can I use your name to get his full attention?"
If managers time is critical voice mail solves the issue. It's taken me much more time to composs this and then type it than the phone conversation would be.. Time is money!
I partially agree with you but the phone call puts the onus on the person being reported to making appropriate notes or having to remember all salient points. That is probably OK if he has only one or two projects/areas/persons he is concerned with but that would be rather unlikely.
I agree that we should not have to generate a sea of paper or spend half the day writing up how well we have done but feel a simple thing done as requested is not unreasonable task.
I would not have a problem firing anyone who could not follow that. Being a survivor of a military career with "Officer Efficiency Reports" and the many iterations of "we will get this system so it isn't inflated" I can feel the pain of being at the mercy of someone's writing ability.
Being a non survivor of the Corporate world I can identify with the penalty of not letting someone go who is not doing what the owners/top management requests. I had a very hard working guy who refused to do what the owner wanted, owner wanted me to get him to do follow guidance, in the big shuffle of "reorganization" he and I both left the building.For those who have fought for it Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.
I'm no fan of paperwork and I'm sure at the huge GC outfits there's excess amounts of paperwork being generated but the outfits I worked for were fairly small- I reported to either the project manager or the owner. If you do your job the paper trail the dailies leave provide some measure of CYA protection to yourself and the company.
"If I had my way, carmakers would create vehicles that run off of hot air. It's the kind of development that might make the U.S. Congress useful." - Scott Burgess
Agree, otherwise it becomes a he /she said//he/she said.For those who have fought for it Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.
Wouldn't that be "he/she said, she/he said"?
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
I guess I could have run it on out to cover all the possibilities(;-)For those who have fought for it Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.
With regard to what I said (and Frenchy said) above re reports, of course we're making sweeping generalizations that don't apply to all circumstances. But I think we both come from a background where we've seen far too much "reporting for reporting's sake" where it no only doesn't serve any useful purpose but actually distorts the business in ways that are often pretty nasty.And in the best of circumstances one at least needs to ask the question "Is this report still necessary?" from time to time, hopefully while people can still remember what originally motivated the report and before it becomes an "institution" within your institution.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
I guess I come from the respect of companies doing over reporting for the sake of management justification.
One company I was the top salesman at required nearly 6 hours of paper work for every 8 hours I actually worked..
I'd start at work before 7:00 am doing paperwork for the day.. attend manditory "briefings" at 8:00 leave the office for my real work finish that at 4:00 pm and do paperwork untill 11:00 Pm or so.
Friday's I'd go home but that 5 hours of paperwork stretched out all weekend with distractions.
I can't begin to describe the nonsense required..
For example to have a simple quote done required 4 complete forms filled out to perfection. Not doing the required 2 quotes a day required to differant forms completed.. there were call reports, subject reports and worst of all a form on doing forms that needed daily completion..
Requests for factory sales assitance and special allowances for competitive deals required three forms (none the same) and that was after I had already discussed the matter with the factory rep and gotten approval and a account number to verify!
Now some would pencil whip those forms out in minutes.. usually by 5:00-5:30 I was alone in the building..
Another company I was top dog at really swamped me with reports.. The ultimate was a daily log of mileage driven.. that would be simple except it required complete documentation of every single mile and reports on time schedule or any deviation from previous reported mileage documented.. They litterly wanted a turn by turn 10th by 10th miles report of any detours.. (plus brand and type of equipment seen for the reason of the detour) (supposedly so the heavy equipment salesmen could cross referance their data) however it never wopund up with the heavy equipment salesmen. It was filed and used for reasons to not allow full mileage claims.. Even that never happened because the mileage claims went to one person and the log went to yet a third person.
My last company had a simple system.. sales and profit numbers were written on a board in the sales room and if you weren't near the top you were called in. Too much time at the bottom and you were terminated..
The question was not "why" a report was to be written but "HOW" to write the report. what information, how, what to included, what not to include.The reason why is the daily observation field inspection report. I am just not good at the english language. All infor I can find on report talks about the twenty page theme paper. I mainly talking about the two or three paragraph type report. I need tips so it look professonal and that I dont comes across at stupid.
What you did. What problems you encountered THAT NEED OUTSIDE ATTENTION. What you're planning to do tomorrow.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
Keep it short. Type it like you talk. The boss doesn't want literature, he wants info on what is affecting deliveries, pours, finishing, and other related stuff.
W/O knowing exactly what you do on a daily basis, it's kinda hard to give you specifics.
Put yourself in your bosses place. What would YOU want to know if you were running the bottom line?
Best I can do...
I keep mine in a spiral bound notebook. I was given premade forms and hated them, talked the company into my notebook concept. each day I note start time, weather and what subs show up, major deliveries w/time noted, changes made and important visitors.
Number the lines and make a sentence to report each notable event. I have never had more than 1 page per day and mine have been to arbitration and court as evidence in law suits.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
The last company I worked for had all the job super's doing daily reports.
I am attaching a copy of both side of the form.
I use the exact same one for me everyday. I find it very usefull in estimating my next jobs. I also use them when talking with a customer about schedules.
I can do this form in 10 mins and think you could too. I start in in the morning, and finish it while tools are being picked up and job is being cleaned. Same way I did it for the other company
I have been coping the few I had left when I quit. My next goal is to have this be able to be entered in a database and crossed with time cards and estimate spreadsheets I make.
All empoloyees timecards are double checked with what I write on my sheet as well. I know they did that ot other company too, I watched a few get caught stealing a few hours more then once. October 17th, 2009
Jeremy and Lisa
Was there ever any doubt?
>>>>what information, how, what to included, what not to include.Your company/boss should be able to tell you what they're looking for - best we here at BT could do is a guess."Field inspection report" Maybe something like a blank checklist, (photocopied), such as:
=======================================================
Field Inspection Report....................No: 2009_01_09_X
Name(s): ________________________________________
Date:____________________ Time:__________________
Location: _______________ Weather:_______________
Project ID
Plan ID
Items/details checked:
[ ] (Detail 1) [ ] (Detail 2) [ ] (detail 3) ETC
ETC
Problems seen: ______________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________Recommended actions: ________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Comments: ___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________=========================================================
If you find yourself saying/writing the same thing over and over, add it to the form as a check item.Number the reports in the order you do the inspections, withthe number including: year-month-day-sequence number (01, 02, 03 etc)One potential field/comment might be: "Followup inspection on observtations reported in Field Inspection Report 2009-01-06-12"In addition to finding out what they want - a goal for such a report is for the person reading being able to "see" what you did, what what significant, what needs to be done as a result (if anything).Keep copies of every report for yourself.
"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Howard Thurman
Keep copies of every report for yourself.
emphasis added
Frenchy - they ca cut the other way, too. When I was with the bank in Pgh, we had to keep time sheets ion 6 min (1/10th hour) and also "higher level" reports (nature of project, $ involved, etc).When the bank went though across the board layoffs, the legal dept was the onl one which didn't take any cuts because we could objectively show ourvalue.
"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Howard Thurman
And a written daily report is a powerful tool in case of a dispute. All it takes is date, location, weather, what subs are on site that day, and a sentence or two about what areas of the project are being worked on. You can also list deliveries made, and deliveries missed that could delay the job. Should not take more than 5 minutes. If someone were writing a novel like frenchy said, that would be the first person to go."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
There's a difference between a daily report -- which is turned in daily -- and a log.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
Semantics. But I think we are all shooting in the dark without more infor from Brownie as to why he needs to write the report. Maybe all he needs is a log. But then again maybe the home office, or the gc, is trying to track the project in Primavera. Big difference."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
There are two basic types of daily reports. One is an oral presentation at a daily "scrum" meeting where everyone in a team reports briefly on what they did, what they're going to do tomorrow, and what's hanging them up. In the meeting the team decides what to do next, whether to have person A help person B, how to deal with hangups, etc. The length of the meeting is capped at 15 minutes or so, with any issue that can't be handled quickly being taken off-line. The same thing could be written, but not as effective, since the opportunity for interaction is much less.The other is the tedious enumeration of what was done, usually giving numbers relative to goals or benchmarks. These are sent to some distant office where they're collated and sent to yet another distant office. The transmission and collation takes 2-3 weeks, so the reports are 2-3 weeks out of date to start with, making a project appear to be behind schedule. This in turn causes the reporters to "anticipate" what they are going to do, vs report what they've done, and reality goes out the window.Of course, on some large government projects there may be a legal requirement for daily reports re safety, hazardous materials, etc. These would generally be a simple fill-in-the-blanks deal.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
We are told our daily reports/ logs are for the lawyers 2 years after we are done with the job. They have created a whole different set of paperwork for employee discipline/ safety/ production. Mike
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod, big wheel turn by the grace of god.
We are told our daily reports/ logs are for the lawyers 2 years after we are done with the job. They have created a whole different set of paperwork for employee discipline/ safety/ production.
Every once in a while I need to try a case and am very glad that the client filled out a daily job report. Most of them take no more than one or two minutes to fill out, but they show who was (or wasn't) on site, how many workers each sub had that day, note anything unusual, etc. A common claim by an owner against a GC is that the job wasn't adequately manned. Daily reports provide relevant proof.
That is good to hear, that the documentation is used sometimes.
It is our worst fear that a job will turn in to a legal case. When running a job, it is natural to think that everything can be agreed on and a handshake makes it all good. That is still done, but documentation has become another everyday tool of the industry. Mike
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod, big wheel turn by the grace of god.
It is our worst fear that a job will turn in to a legal case.
It should be. No one wins in litigation.
Except me:-)
>>>>It is our worst fear that a job will turn in to a legal case.
>>It should be. No one wins in litigation.
And good documentation will often keep a disput from getting anywhere near a court.... (Of course, it can cut two ways: help your side or hurt it!)
"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Howard Thurman
"No one wins in litigation. Except me:-) "
We had a case a few years ago when I was practicing, that was assigned to me for trial. Came in to the office in three boxes.
For whatever reason, I grabbed the box first that had the construction documents in it - including the daily reports. I went through pages and pages of stuff and saw that the project was a storage facility for some army electronics and as it went forward, there was a pretty substantial water leak - to the tune of about $300,000.
As I kept reading, I saw lots of back and forth about who was responsible, then there were letters about a "meeting" and nothing more about the damage.
Since I had been through most of the papers, I went back to the pleadings and the legal file. The $300K claim was a non issue. The owner, gc and a sub resolved that in one meeting. The reason there was a lawsuit with three boxes of papers? Some clumsy construction worker stepped off a ladder wrong and sprained his ankle.
I still had to read the file to know what was in it. Billed for the time.
Don K.
Don't know if they will work but here's a link to some http://workflow.den.nps.gov/staging/10_PublicForms/public_forms.htm#Construction A couple are pretty similar to the dailies I used to use- weather, subs on site, etc etc ........... they might make a good outline to make your own.
As a surveyor, I did this for over ten years.
We always had to include Day of the week, temperature (three times daily), precipitation, estimated wind speed, and cloud cover.
Who, and how many are on the crew.
Also what time we left the orifice, arrived on job, time on job, any contacts with irate citizens or property owners, and info about the job, including feet of traverse, pins set, amount of ground topo'd, or any other conditions that would affect the job progress.
Contacts with contractors, and services rendered, if doing construction or C&G.
Of course we lied like dogs on the reports. If it rained, we always did "equipment maintaince" at the nearest pool hall...
"If it rained, we always did "equipment maintaince" at the nearest pool hall..."
.............. was she good lookin'? ;o)
"If I had my way, carmakers would create vehicles that run off of hot air. It's the kind of development that might make the U.S. Congress useful." - Scott Burgess
Didn't matter. As long as she could do a tight rack of nine ball and keep the cold-ones comin'....
BB-
It's not clear why you need the "report". Ask the person that came up with the requirement what it's for. Ask them if they have a form that they want you to use/follow. Put the burden back on them.
It should be pretty easy - job, unusual weather, workers, subs, yards poured, locations worked at, inspections, slump results, etc. Either a fill in the blanks form could be done, or you could just do your own every day and follow the exact same format. It does need to be tailored to your position. For example, if you aren't in charge of the equiptment, then your report may not need to list what's there that day.
I can say that based on experience (after the fact) of handling dozens of construction disputes involving millions of dollars, the record keeping that is done on job sites is pretty pss poor. I know nobody wants to spend (waste) a lot of time doing these things. I don't either. But memories fade, sometimes quickly, and when it hits the fan, you need to be able to look at something other than a sheet done the end of the week with pizza stains on it. It needs to name names and be accurate. We had one where the job super told the excavator to keep digging with a machine and he hit a forced sewer main. A couple years later when the thing got nasty, the super's notes were lost and he had a bad memory and few friends. The archi had gotten a field meeting together right away, and his notes (job minutes) were really good and accurate.
Like I said, find out from the powers that be what they want. if you get that, we can help you put something together. If you want to shoot me an e-mail privately, I'd be happy to help.
Don K.
EJG Homes Renovations - New Construction - Rentals
We write a "story" at the end of every shift. Basically a summary of what was done,
problems (if any) and what needs to be done. Kind of a carry over in case guys are
out or reassigned. I don't get too wrapped up in it. It's been helpful the few times
the #### has hit the rotary oscilllator. It's just a generic form with a spot for the
date and names along with a few lines. 10 minutes at the most... done. Doesn't
serve much purpose unless something is majorly screwed up.
-d
If you write you were on Breaktime for 4 hours i will cover you on that.