A Construction Manager's Guide to Crew Housing

As the world settles into its new post-pandemic “norm,” the construction industry is taking off again. Hotels, apartment complexes, and other massive enterprises are building new structures and revamping their existing ones.

This is great news for the industry, but travel managers have new challenges to overcome as they house their crews.

Updated government policies, international restrictions, and other regulations mean the “old” ways of handling details aren’t always possible anymore.

However, if you’re a construction manager, these new changes can be a positive part of your travel policy.

We have you covered in this guide. We’ll walk you through every step, from finding lodging with the comforts of home to handling expenses to managing your crew’s travel.

Table of Contents

1. Be Aware of Updated Safety Regulations
2. Finding Lodging
3. Handling Expenses
4. Managing Transportation
5. Tying Up the Loose Ends

1. Be Aware of Updated Safety Regulations

Most OSHA regulations aim to make the job site safer. However, it’s your duty to make sure every aspect of your crew’s business trip is safe. This is especially true if your crew is sharing temporary housing or transportation.

Check OSHA’s regulations regularly to make sure you’re operating according to the most up-to-date policies.

Related: How to Use Trip Risk Assessments to Keep Employees Safe

2. Finding Lodging

Your crew is your responsibility, even when they’re on the road.

You want to make sure they’re safe, healthy, and content, but you need to stick to a budget, too.

How do you compromise?

One thing you can do is to partner with professionals like Engine to streamline your lodging plans.

Using Experts to Book Your Crew’s Housing

Keeping your crew safe and comfortable is part of your job. And that means that you should know about the cities you’re sending them to.

Engine can answer these questions for you, saving you time on research and booking.

Our free hotel-booking software is designed to help travel managers find the right lodging for their crews.

With Engine, you can narrow down furnished housing for your crew members using dozens of filters:

• Length of stay (check for hotels that have monthly or weekly rates and extended stay availability)
• Cheapest corporate housing discounts or per diem rate comparisons
• Distance to the construction site
• Suites to cut back on expenses (kitchens and multiple rooms save money on meals and room taxes)
• Hotel safety protocols
• Free Wi-Fi, washer and dryer use, and other amenities
• Multiple rooms for crew accommodation in the same wing
• Nearby parking areas for large construction equipment and trucks

Engine also lets you pay for lodging through simplified automated monthly invoicing system. Plus, you can authorize users to book their own rooms and set travel policies so that each traveler books in-budget.

Note: Engine also has a group lodging service that gives you access to corporate hotel discounts on bulk bookings.

3. Handling Expenses

The lodging part isn’t the only necessity of managing housing expenses; you’ll also need a system in place to break down essential overhead versus the total cost of the job.

This is one of the first things you need to do to safely make a bid that won’t cost you more than you’ll earn.

To do this, start by creating a budget for job costs. Use a spreadsheet to define your consistent costs, then add any expenses specific to this job. Take the total plus your intended profit and cushion that into your bid.

Here’s an example of overhead and indirect costs to include in your budget:

• Rent/mortgage of office space
• Salaries for the crew, day workers, and other staff
• Office utilities, phone, and other essential bills
• Cost of vehicles
• Equipment financing
• Transportation costs and expenses for housing solutions for each crew member
• Per diem
• Cleaning costs for linens, uniforms, etc.

You’ll also need to account for job-specific costs, such as fees for permits for working in a shipyard.

Simplifying the Expense Process

Your job is important and complex. It makes sense to want to simplify it where you can so you can focus on the details.

Here are a few ideas:

Keep Accurate and Timely Data

Another time-saving tip is to keep up with the job’s expenses in real-time. Synch your customer relationship management apps to send you reports for any costs incurred throughout the day.

You may not get to balance it until later that week, but it’s better than waiting until the end of the month. Keeping your eye on spending lets you track how close to the projected budget you are and make changes as necessary.

Shop Around

Sometimes, you have to make purchases on the spot. But if you have a little time for research, you can find the lowest prices possible for your materials and other expenses.

When you find your preferred vendors and the best prices on regular items, add them to a spreadsheet, along with the contact and ordering info. As the prices change and you connect with new vendors, this sheet can easily be adjusted.

Add a column for any discounts you can use when buying from a certain company.

At Engine, you’ll gain access to exclusive savings up to 60% — but members also get the benefit of layering discounts using Engine’s loyalty program and specific hotels' rewards program. If you use a credit card to pay the bill, you’ll get your credit card points, too. Win-win-win.

You can use Engine to compare prices for different types of housing options, too.

Shopping around makes it easier to stay within your budget and maximize your profit margin.

Set Up Your Team With Direct Billing

Our Direct Billing feature extends a line of credit to your company that your employees can charge to during their stay. At the end of each month, all charges are billed back to your company, which makes reconciling charges much easier for everyone.

No need to sort through a stack of individual credit card bills!

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4. Managing Transportation

Getting your crew to the construction site is a logistical necessity. It’s easy if you’re working in a major city, but if you’re working in a remote area, you might have to fly your crew to the site and rent equipment to do the job.

Depending on the profit, it could be cost-effective, but what about once everyone gets there? How will you manage transportation then?

Consider the distance from your crew’s lodging point to their location. Would it be more cost-effective to use a rideshare, book a rental car, or go through newer apps like Turo?

You could also bring company vehicles to the site. If you have a wide enough fleet of trucks and the destination is a reasonable distance away, this decision makes sense from an economic perspective.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to park those vehicles, and many places charge extra for oversized vehicle parking. By doing the legwork ahead of time, you can tuck this fee into your bid.

5. Tying Up the Loose Ends

The major things are done. Now, it’s time to handle any leftover tasks, like making sure everyone on your crew can communicate without going through you.

How you facilitate communication between everyone on the site will be unique to your company. However, there are many mobile apps that can help.

Starting With Your CRM

Your customer relationship management system should have real-time texting, calling, and video chat features that work with Wi-Fi.

You’re sending your crew into places where their cell phone reception may be spotty at best. For their safety, they’ll need other ways to get a hold of you and each other.

Your CRM software houses important documents, like your travel policy and expense forms. Instead of coming to you for every question, teach the crew how to access FAQs and commonly used paperwork from the cloud.

This is helpful for small, unexpected purchases, as well as larger urgent requests.

Maybe the details for the yacht job you sent your crew to in Palm Beach have them staying at hostels where they don’t feel comfortable. They need the approval to move to a safer place that evening, and you’re not on the clock.

The solution?

They can fill out an urgent expense report, get the crew manager to cover the costs with the corporate card, and safely move to their new lodging.

Construction-Specific Apps for Real-Time Organization

Other apps are geared toward the construction industry, like TSheets Crew, an app that uses GPS integration to track the locations of your employees. Field Recon is an app that construction managers use to track the progress of the overall project.

Your crew manager doesn’t have to wait until they’re back at their housing base to update the progress documents for the day.

Whether your work takes you into the Dakotas or has your crew building skyscrapers in the middle of the city, you’re going to deal with loose ends. The more you can tie up with mobile software, the better everyone can focus on their jobs.

Conclusion

As a construction manager tasked with sending your crew to new places, you need a plan of action.

It’s your job to stay updated on local and federal policy changes, international restrictions, and all the other regulations that affect the job and staff.

Letting Engine do the hard work of finding the best lodging lets you concentrate on the other logistics. From setting your budget to tracking it in real-time, your concrete plans are ready for you to put into action!

Blueprint for Efficiency: Solving the Biggest Frustrations in Construction LodgingHosted by Andy Allen, Ariel KatenAbout this webinar Discover the cost-saving strategies and innovative solutions offered by Engine, specifically tailored for the construction industry’s lodging needs. This webinar is an informative session for those looking to enhance lodging efficiency and cut down on unnecessary expenses. ​ What you’ll learnTrimming Expenses: Find out how to minimize lodging costs without compromising quality. Reservation Flexibility: Learn how to modify hotel reservations on the go to accommodate the dynamic nature of construction projects. Billing Simplified: Understand the ease of consolidating all lodging expenses into one straightforward statement. Group Logistics Made Easy: Explore how to efficiently manage group lodging for crews, from booking to billing.​ Join us to get these insights and more. Sign up now for smarter lodging solutions that save time and money.Sign Up Now