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by Mark Lamendola
Whether your organization is a single project or an entire company,
code compliance is a major issue. A single code violation can result in
catastrophic liability. More often though, code violations simply result
in higher total costs.
To ensure code compliance, most managers simply put out the word that
code compliance is required. Meanwhile, they wink at non-conformities
that save them money while doing nothing to make compliance a reality.
This sends a message to everyone in your organization. To send a
different message, follow the following tips:
- Ensure you have the latest code books on site. You should have a
copy in a central library. Additionally, each person charged with a
key project role (designer, specifier, site superintendent,
journeyman) should have a personal copy of the relevant codes.
Whether you purchase those outright or assist with the purchase,
think of the money as an investment in your business viability.
- Teach the codes at all levels. There is no reason an electrician’s
helper can’t get a short code tutorial along with that paycheck or
pay stub. Incorporate code teaching in various forms of
communication. Send folks to short code classes and code seminars.
Give them paid time off to take their code exams. Buy a gift
certificate from a bookstore or supply center, and give out one per
week in a code-related contest.
- Review specifications for code compliance, and ensure each manager
is doing the same. The higher up in management, the less detailed
this review should be—don’t micromanage. Make individuals
responsible for code enforcement. Reward those who live up to that
responsibility with public praise.
- Make it a policy that any employee can stop work to address a code
violation. Make this risk-free. Some managers worry that doing so
invites abuse. Don’t forget that not doing so also invites abuse.
If you do get frivolous use of this tool, let the employees know
they are also accountable for ontime completion. No, it’s not a
simple choice. But, a job not done right isn’t done. Once they
understand this, they will tend to make proper judgments.
- Teach disclosure and escalation. A truly serious code violation
must not be buried, because it will rise from the dead with a
vengeance. It’s always best to resolve it as soon as possible.
Minor violations can often be allowed or exception-lettered. The
goal here is never to sweep a code violation under the rug. Part of
disclosure and escalation involves discretion—following protocol.
Let employees know they must discuss code violations with their
supervisors, not with inspectors (unless asked) or with clients.
This allows your management to address the issues cost-effectively
and without political pressure. It also allows your management to
track code violations by root cause and prevent recurrences.
- Have a zero tolerance policy for code-cheating. In one case, an
electrical inspector tugged on a green wire poking out of a conduit.
The wire was only 6 inches long, and came out in his hand. The
electricians had tried to cover up the fact they had not pulled the
required ground wire. This kind of deception is criminal behavior,
and should result in fairly harsh punishment—usually, that means
pulling the guilty parties off the project and not "working
them" until another project comes up. Sometimes, that means
firing them outright. If someone had been electrocuted for lack of a
ground wire, the company would have wished it had fired the guilty
parties outright.
- Train your customers. Amazingly, a large percentage of code
violations are customer-driven. Customers often don’t want to pay
for code compliance—for the same reason they don’t want to pay
for documentation. They simply want to do the project as cheaply as
possible. You will need to continually train them on the value-added
aspect of code compliance. You have many options for doing this. For
example, you can publish a weekly internal inspection report where
your own crew leaders note code violations they fixed or prevented.
You can provide a "dollars saved" figure for each. It also
helps to take your customer on a walk through the job and point out
what you are doing and why it’s important to do it that way. This
one-on-one is amazingly effective.
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