在施工中,我们不能解决全球大流行,but we can protect our contracting companies by keeping overhead flexible in case business declines. It may require going against your assumptions. To keep permanent staff levels low enough, make judicious use of overtime, put on extra shifts and hire foremen and forewomen who won’t hesitate to go back to toolwork when the amount of work available to the company falls off. Using part-time or student workers can help during peak periods of work. In busy times, even occasional outsourcing of work to a competitor is better than keeping too many people on the payroll.

我听到的标准反对加班的是：“我无法赚钱。”但这是错误的。

许多学术研究已经证实，在轮班开始工作，休息时间和午餐时间为八个小时的一天（根据项目的研究或项目规模），从事工作，休息和午餐时间。新利luck实际的工作时间为6.6小时，即一天的82.5％。但是，一个小时的加班时间是60分钟的工作或生产时间的100％。两个小时的加班为费用提供了更多的回报。

There is an added cost to overtime work, of course, but nowhere near the expense of putting on additional permanent overhead in the form of a bigger permanent staff.

Contractors whose opportunities and contracts expand should consider adding a second shift to a project before expanding permanent resources. Many hesitate or are unwilling to consider adding a shift to the normal workday. Working shifts is unusual, and construction generally is seen as a daytime activity. One approach to an overtime shift is to use only a small, hand-picked crew and, to the extent possible, to do primarily the most repetitious work at night. The night shift workers thus make use of the existing facilities and equipment and don’t require more to do the work.

A double shift is cost effective when used to permanently expand a project staff. There is added cost, but not nearly as much as the continuous cost and risk of more permanent overhead.

还可以减少公司经营设备或存储场的员工，这对于自我表演者（例如一般砌体或混凝土承包商）来说也很常见。一些大院子的工作人员包括全职主管，院子工人和卡车司机。很难设想如何与更少的员工一起完成一切。决定尝试增加轮班要比这样做要困难得多。

几年前，中西部承包商告诉我，他必须保留九名成员的所有员工中的所有员工，因为“这些员工知道一切在哪里，如何处理以及在哪里交付。因此，我们不能只是在工作减慢时让他们走。”

For this contractor, the yard staff was much busier in summer, while work slowed to a crawl every winter when only three staff members were needed. Heeding my advice, the contractor let go six of the yard staff in the fall. Then, managers mapped all equipment locations, labeled the equipment and locations and installed GPS in the delivery trucks. The following spring, the contractor added to the yard staff. With improved efficiency, supervision, and a little overtime, seven people have handled the yard.

还有其他一些问题。在一家工会公司中，参与和放松野外劳动几乎是常规的，因此员工级别的问题自我纠正。以该公司为代价培训的开放购物员工很难分配。承包商需要高技能的一级经理，总监和项目经理。

To keep labor overhead flexible in case of a falloff in business, the first-level staff managers, foremen and forewomen, most of whom have first worked in a trade, must be willing to go back to working with their tools; superintendents and even project managers with craft work experience must go back to being foremen or working with their tools, too. I am asked, “What if they refuse?” And my answer is: “They have announced their lack of loyalty, so let them go.”

当您试图保护公司免受严重的市场下降时，与您要挽救的工作的人几乎没有什么可获得的谈判。