How to have a successful construction business?

Are you looking to expand your construction business into new territories? Are you thinking about growing your construction business? Whether you have been in the industry for years or are just starting out, business expansion requires careful planning. To systematically and safely scale up your operations, you must ensure adequate resources to handle the additional work. Here, ISO certifications work as a boon, helping you bridge the gap between your business reality and future aspirations. In this article, we will talk about the best ISO certifications for the construction industry and how ISO certificates will benefit your business.

What is an ISO certificate?

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international entity that works to create standardisation across different industries. ISO provides structured frameworks against which organisations can get certified. These frameworks help to reduce redundancy and increase the efficiency of your operations.

Popular ISO certifications for the construction industry

You can get ISO certified in several standards, including ISO 9001, the most popular standard that focuses on quality management and customer expectations. The ISO 9001 standard helps maintain the quality of your services and construction work by placing quality controls, ensuring consistency is maintained across all your processes.

Similarly, another popular certificate for the construction industry is the ISO 14001 standard, which creates an Environmental Management System (EMS) that allows construction companies to reduce their negative impact on the environment. This is a highly sought-after certificate, as nowadays, “green” companies are appreciated by all stakeholders for their continual efforts towards environmental preservation.

Another certificate loved by business owners in the construction industry is the ISO 45001 standard. As we all know, one of the major drawbacks of our industry is that accidents and incidents constantly plague us. This is harmful to our employees, but our pockets are also hit as operations close down, insurance premiums increase and downtime increases. ISO 45001 safeguards you against workplace incidents, accidents and injuries by creating an efficient Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS).

Benefits of ISO certification for construction companies

Now that you have understood what an ISO certificate is let us talk about some tips that can help you grow your construction business and how an ISO certificate can play a vital role. To expand your construction company, you will need to:

1. Build a great team: Your people are your business in the construction industry. You have won half the battle if you hire dependable, knowledgeable, and skilled employees. To win the second half, you need to retain your best employees by rewarding them for their reliability and hard work. It would be best if you made your employees feel valued. Here, ISO 9001 is beneficial as it will allow you to identify skill gaps and recommend training programmes to improve the competency of your employees. When your employees see that you are investing resources in training them, they will feel valued, and your turnover rate will reduce.
2. Learn to go beyond managing your business by leading your people: If you are an efficient leader, your employees will follow you anywhere. It is your leadership commitment that fosters the organisational environment in your company. So, if you are an inspiring leader and passionate about achieving organisational goals, your employees will share the same passion. Here, ISO standards make leadership easy and attainable by breaking down the concept of leadership into practical steps. The standards suggest you conduct regular management reviews to gather all employee inputs and commit to your organisation by incorporating these inputs in creating organisational policies.
3. Get the word out: Your growth will continue with good marketing and publicity. One of the best and most reliable methods is encouraging your best customers to tell others how satisfied they are with your work. As this is organic marketing, it is sure to bring you genuine customers. The ISO 9001 standard will be your saviour as it creates a system to address customer requirements. Once you have clearly defined your customers’ requirements, you will be able to exceed their expectations.
4. Leave no opportunity alone: You will be presented with many opportunities; the easiest way to grow is to explore each of them. An ISO certificate is helpful as opportunities will present themselves to you through tenders. In Australia, it is a prerequisite for construction companies to have an ISO certification to qualify for the bidding process. Additionally, the foundational basis of all ISO standards is a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle that modifies your processes and auditing so that you identify every single area of improvement.

Also read: “How To Write A Construction Contract?”

Conclusion

To build a successful construction company and expand your business, you need to have a great team, showcase leadership commitment, boost your marketing efforts and explore all opportunities. ISO certificate helps to bridge the gap between your reality and future aspirations by increasing employee engagement, helping you showcase leadership commitment and identifying areas of improvement.