Dirt World Workforce Poll and Business Lesson Learned

This week at BuildWitt...

Workforce Poll

“What do you wish upper-management knew / would change at your company?”

Thanks to social media, I received 130 responses in 24 hours. Here’s the age demographic breakdown of my following:

Here’s what people in the field, your workforce, had to say:

• Clear and more frequent communication between the office and field.
• More understanding about sick time and PTO.
• “If I’m sick, I’m sick. If I don’t have to chase down a doctor’s note to protect myself, I can rest up quicker.”
• “We have lives outside of work too.”
• “Taking a day off doesn’t mean you’re lazy.”
• Money and hours aren’t everything to happiness.
• “Treating your people well is more than a picnic and high pay.”
• Investing in and training your people = retention.
• More input from the field on decisions like equipment and project planning.
• “Let the people who do the work and get their hands dirty daily have a little voice in the decision-making.”
• The times have changed, and the “old school” mentality doesn’t work.
• “Yelling doesn’t solve problems. Talk to us if there’s a problem, and we will help.”
• Give the next generation a chance!
• “A bad attitude toward young people in the field drives them away.”
• Better awareness of how females are treated on job sites.

Travel Update

Trick… This past week was the first week of 2022, in which I didn’t travel. Fortunately, for the sake of this section, I’m back at it next week!

Business Lesson Learned

I rarely consider my age, but sometimes it gets the best of me.

I live in a perpetual dichotomy of being a 20-something kid who knows nothing versus leading 80+ people at a company working to "make the Dirt World a better place."

When is it appropriate to mess around (one of our values is "lighten up" for a reason), and when is it best to be direct and lead?

I don't always make the proper distinction between the two, and this week it caught up with me more than I'd like to admit.

The biggest lesson learned is when it does catch up with me, I must LISTEN, not DEFEND. People don't care if I'm 27; all they want is good leadership.

Despite the temptation to use my age as an excuse, I must be self-aware enough to acknowledge the failure and then step up and LEAD. I would've loved to have entirely avoided this week's failure, but my self-awareness surrounding it is at least a step in the right direction.

Latest Vlog

This week’s vlog takes us to New York, where Petillo shows us what it takes to blast and move a few hundred thousand yards of rock to make way for a new commercial building. You can check out the vlog here:

Latest Podcast

On this week’s Dirt Talk Podcast, learn about what a motor grader is. Compelling stuff!

That’s all for this week! 

Stay dirty!