Creating and Maintaining a Job Site Daily Log

Ever notice how much more you remember when you write things down? Details of phone calls, conversations, and events are easier to recall when you’ve jotted a few notes. More and more construction companies are using daily logs to record job site activities and events, a business practice that saves time and money and creates permanent project histories.

Daily construction site logs, sometimes known as daily diaries, or job diaries, document what really happens on a jobsite, and the logs play an important role in helping construction managers organize, manage, and control daily activities. Differences of opinion between the contractor and employees, subcontractors, vendors, and others, can often be resolved by referring to the daily log, and logs can also provide crucial documentation in the event of disputes or litigation. In today’s litigious business culture, detailed documentation of jobsite activities and events is a necessity.

What Should be Tracked – Daily Log Event Types
Daily logs should be completed each day and maintained throughout the duration of the job. Companies should develop documentation standards and training should be provided to instruct field personnel on what to log and how. The following is a partial list of typical events to be included in daily logs: 

 Oral Communications
Discussions or phone calls pertaining to a project occur every day between project personnel and general contractors, subcontractors, architects, and engineers, project owners, vendors, union officials, etc. Face-to-face and phone communications should be promptly and carefully logged. Often, participants in a conversation will recall it differently and these differences can widen with the passage of time. If the disparity results in a dispute, timely and accurate documentation can increase the chances of a successful resolution. Because daily logs are prepared near the time of the disputed activity, the mere act of recording a conversation or event implies objectivity and confirms the importance of the issue.

Who Should Maintain Daily Logs?
Although formal responsibility for the daily log should be assigned to one person, all key project personnel, such as foremen, projects engineers, and project managers, should also be encouraged to contribute regularly.

Document Now
Logging activities and events at or near the time they occur ensures more accuracy and is more reliable and credible and less expensive and time consuming than trying to reconstruct events later on. Contractors may also realize an additional benefit – savings in legal and expert fees if litigation occurs.

Digital Daily Logs
As wireless technology continues to evolve and becomes more ubiquitous in the construction industry, contractors are finding new ways to improve processes and productivity. There is already a wide-ranging array of programs for construction firms of every size and specialty, including labor tracking, estimating, equipment tracking, project management, service management and more.

Creating a log of daily job events and activities is ideal for a digital application. Field personnel will be able to input their recollections of an activity or event while experiences are still fresh in their minds. They can assign an “event type” associate it with a job, phase, cost code, or employee, and then sync the log to the home office at the end of the day. Once in the master database, the daily log notes become part of the permanent job record and can be saved indefinitely and accessed for reporting.

An Innovative Use of Daily Logs – Safety Compliance
DRI Companies, www.dricommercial.com, Irvine, Calif., is a national construction firm specializing in roofing and solar energy installations for its commercial, government, and major home builder clients. 

A top priority for the company is safety, so Kathy Linares, vice president of information technologies, DRI Companies, needed to find a program that company safety reps could use to electronically record job site safety audits, violations, and safety training. The company’s goal is to track employee compliance and quickly address on-the-job safety issues.

“Our Safety Team creates a safety plan for each new project,” says Linares. “In addition to random job site safety audits, we also conduct regular on-the-job safety training for field employees, and compliance is a condition of employment.” Linares says a good safety record is good for business and good for our employees. As a subcontractor, DRI Companies must compete for contracts and general contractors favor companies with a strong safety history. 

“Our employees value the company’s commitment to safety and they are fully invested in it,” says Linares. “They know that a safe work environment is good for them and good for the company.” 

“Our time tracking software has made our safety audit process easier and more efficient,” says Linares. “With the data collected by the safety reps on the Daily Log, we generate reports to track training delivered on job sites, as well as monitor individual safety performance. It’s a tool that contributes to our success.” 

Summary
In the construction industry, which requires so much cooperation and communication between multiple participants located at remote jobsites, the efficiencies and protection gained by delivering instructions and feedback in writing cannot be under estimated. Daily logs enhance communication, increase accountability, and reduce the risks of disputes and litigation.

The most successful construction firms in this intensely competitive climate will be those that win new business and projects through the efficient use of innovation and technology.

By Richard Daniels, mJobTime