CHIEF ESTIMATOR
Title: Chief Estimator
Department: Building Demolition
Direct Supervisor: VP Operations
Position Purpose:
Manage all demolition estimating and sales efforts to maximize our corporate sales and profitability and enhance our image.
Goals:
- Achieve gross margin on projects won of at least 28%.
- Bid on work that comprises at least 60% of our market.
- Maintain our success/bid ratio at 25% or higher.
Responsibilities:
- Recruit, hire, train, retain, motivate, and manage a competent estimating team, and maintain effective departmental and interdepartmental communication and accountability.
- Maintain a sufficient bid volume and win ratio to support company sales objective.
- Attain an average score of 4 or higher on client surveys.
- And so forth…
Major Challenges:
- Winning bids in a very highly competitive industry.
- Working with a variety of rough-and-tumble subcontractors.
- Estimating costs on projects that have no precedent/unique situations.
- Treating everyone as an individual to extract great performance.
- Satisfying clients that are often very demanding and discerning.
Authority:
Act Alone:
- Incur expenses according to established budget.
- Set margins and close bids for projects up to $100,000.
Touch Base with Supervisor or President:
- Discretionary rewards up to $1,000 per quarter.
- Set margins and close bids for projects up to $300,000.
Need Approval from Supervisor or President:
- Expenses beyond budget.
- Rewards in excess of $1,000 per quarter.
- Set margins and close bids for projects over $300,000.
Performance Evaluation Criteria
- Comparison of actual performance to the Goals for this Position.
- Fulfillment of the Responsibilities for this Position.
Performance Evaluation Schedule
- Annual review.
- Quarterly goal review.
- Weekly one-on-ones.
- Ten (10) years of experience in Estimating/Construction Management. Demolition industry estimating experience is preferred but not necessarily required.
- College degree in Construction Management, Engineering, or related field is advantageous but not required.
- Intermediate to advanced computer skills including Word, Excel, and Access.
- Proven ability to prioritize, organize, and delegate responsibility.
- Proven leadership, management, interpersonal, and team-building skills.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills.
- Excellent negotiating skills.
- Excellent business references.
Compensation:
Exempt, salaried, paid weekly, business expenses, and automobile allowance.
Work Schedule:
50 to 60 hours per week, depending on workload, is anticipated.
This is, however, a challenging and demanding position, and it is crucial to our success. We expect that the person in this position will devote whatever time is required to ensure their success, as well as that of the company.
There are five parts of the Position Description of highest importance in actually defining the position. These include:
1. Purpose.
2. Goals.
3. Responsibilities.
4. Major challenges.
5. Qualifications.
The purpose of the position refers to the reason that the position even exists. Why, for example, do we have an estimator position? By stating the purpose of the position you’ll clarify the mission of that position—why it exists—and provide the employee with a strong focus.
The goals of the position refer to the individual goals we described in the first chapter. In our example here, the position has three goals, all of which are measurable and clear.
The responsibilities are all of those day-to-day activities that must be accomplished in the position. This provides clarity as well as sets proper expectations for the person in the position. These are usually not quantified or measured on an individual basis, like the goals, but rather are considered as a whole when the manager coaches the person in the position. You’ll notice that at the fourth bullet in the description of responsibilities we wrote ‘And so forth’, because the list of responsibilities could be quite long and will be specific to your organization.
The major challenges section describes why this position can’t be accomplished by your dog. It states the major internal and external factors that threaten success in the position, thus creating appropriate expectations for the employee and the manager.
Finally, the qualifications section explains the experience, skills, and knowledge that we expect from the person in this position. We urge you to think carefully about the true requirements for the position, because it is common to merely recite a list of common attributes. For example, managers frequently specify that a college degree is needed, when a person without such a degree could excel at the position.
You might choose to use two slightly different versions of the Position Description. One version would be for the candidates, providing them with clear direction on the position and its goals. It would contain all the information we described previously. The second version would be for internal purposes, and this version would include more detail on the qualifications you seek for the person who successfully will fill the position.
More specifically, the details on qualifications that you’ll describe for your internal use, and that you’ll leave off the candidate’s Position Description, relate to the candidate’s natural abilities. You’ll want to discover for yourself whether they have all the natural abilities you seek.
The reason for this is that you can’t simply list the required natural abilities and then ask candidates whether they possess them. They’ll simply tell you they do. They want the job, they’ve figured out what you want, and they’re smart enough to tell you what you want.
In fact, there likely are a number of natural abilities that would carry a person to success in any given position. In defining the position, therefore, you must be as conscientious at identifying these natural abilities as you are about defining the skills and experience needed.
In many cases, a person’s natural abilities are more important than a resume in predicting their success. For example, you can teach them the on-the-job stuff, but you can’t instill a new attitude.
This may have been said best by Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines. He confidently preached: “Hire for Attitude.” He believed that the employees of Southwest Airlines could be taught what they needed to know about their role in the airline business, but that they already had to possess a positive attitude. And Southwest Airlines couldn’t teach employees how to get that attitude.
As another example, a love for details was critical for that engineering position we described. This isn’t something that the company could teach him—that engineer we described somehow came all packaged up with this love of details. So, when the company goes looking for another great engineer for a similar position, it likely will increase its chances of finding the right person if they find someone who also has this love for details.
Alternatively, the company managers wouldn’t want to hire someone for that engineering position that must be pushed every day to check the details. They’ll just keep finding mistakes, trying to coach the new person to do something she doesn’t enjoy, providing her with plenty of negative signals, and writing her poor performance reviews.
Instead, the managers want someone who is going to excel at the task and who thinks doing detail work is fun. They want someone who has this natural ability—this love for details. If they find this person, they’ll hardly have to supervise her. She’ll look forward to doing her job, and she’ll take pride in doing it well.