What Will My People Get Out of BuildWitt Training?

You want to grow and develop your people, so you’re interested in BuildWitt Training. But what will they get out of this software?

In this article, we’ll share why these six things matter, as well as how BuildWitt Training can help your people grow and do their jobs better.

Let’s get started.

Leadership

Let’s clear something up right away: there’s a difference between an imperfect leader and a bad leader. 

All leaders make mistakes, and all leaders have room to grow. But a bad leader won’t put in the work to improve. They aren’t teachable.

If you have a bad leader in your company, that’s a different conversation. (As Dave Turin puts it, you may need to remove the cancer from the clubhouse.) 

For this article, we’re not talking about bad leaders. We’re talking about helping your teachable leaders get better at their jobs. 

How leadership mistakes affect crews 

Leadership mistakes erode trust, productivity, and morale. 

When people feel they don’t have leadership support, they’re less likely to ask questions—and their foreman probably isn’t teaching them what they need to know. That makes them more likely to make mistakes that cause costly rework or injuries. 

Workers may also put less effort into the job—or even quit. After all, why would they work hard for a boss who doesn’t trust or respect them? 

They’d rather go work for somebody who consistently treats them right.

Solving leadership problems

The solution to poor leadership isn’t hiring better workers. It’s building up better leaders. 

You can build up better leaders with BuildWitt Training’s Leadership learning plan. It offers 100+ lessons from leadership and industry experts like Jocko Willink, Wally Adamchik, Jason Schroeder, and more. 

Your leaders will learn how to manage teams and level up how they lead with lessons on communicating, taking ownership, handling a leader’s job duties, developing the character and mindset of a great leader, and much more. 

Some lessons from the Leadership learning plan include: 

• How to Deal With People
• Taking Ownership
• Why Communication Is Important
• The 5 Traits of Great Leaders
• Dealing with Change
• Planning Ahead
• Taking Care of Your Mental Health
• Creating a Culture of Respect
• Why Do You Need Training?
• Why Should You Delegate?
• Crew Huddles

These lessons work for people at all levels of leadership—from the newest foreman to the company owner. They can also help you prepare people who aren’t leaders yet but who want to step into leadership roles in the future.

Soft skills training

Soft skills are the people skills your crew members need to succeed in your company and the industry. They include things like communicating, resolving conflict, acting professional, and taking ownership of one’s work.

We cover a lot of that in the Leadership learning plan, but leaders aren’t the only ones who need soft skills. You want everyone on your crew to know this stuff. 

That’s because the entire crew changes when people develop good soft skills. 

When Sarah the Pipelayer and Tony the Operator communicate better, the whole pipe crew is safer. 

When Jake and Travis the Laborers resolve their disagreements, they can work efficiently together—and the rest of the crew no longer has to deal with their drama.

Soft-skills training improves relationships, raises morale, and makes it easier to solve problems and handle unexpected situations on the jobsite.

It also helps you attract new recruits and retain current crew members, because people want to be on crews that genuinely like working together. 

Helping your crew develop soft skills with BuiltWitt Training

The Leadership, An Introduction to Management, and Field Supervisor: An Introduction learning plans can help your crew members develop soft skills—even if they aren’t leaders. 

They’ll get the same valuable lessons on topics like: 

• Admitting When You're Wrong
• Learning on the Job
• Taking Ownership
• Teamwork
• Communication and Efficiency
• Managing Your Time
• Focusing on Quality over Speed
• Safety
• Stress Management

Plus, our role-specific training content has soft skill lessons that apply to each job. Take a look at these examples:

• Be Self-Motivated for grade checkers
• Show Drive; Take Initiative and Going the Extra Mile for laborers
• Good Leaders Know How to Listen for operators
• Be a Go-Getter and Be a Teacher for pipelayers

You can pick and choose which lessons you want to assign, so your crew members can watch the content that’s most relevant to them. And if they want more? They can self-assign content to watch on their own. (You may just be surprised how many of them do this!)

When crew members at every level take responsibility and work well with others, you’ll be amazed at what they can accomplish.

Developing their soft skills now also helps you fill your leadership pipeline for the future. You’ll have more crew members who are ready and able to step into those positions when you need them.

Technical Skills

Technical skill training teaches crew members how to do the ins and outs of their specific jobs, whether they’re laborers, grade checkers, operators, or something else.

Technical training is crucial. 

An estimated 41% of the construction workforce will retire between 2018 and 2031.¹ (Some of them already have.) 

That means you’ll have to hire a lot of people who are new to the Dirt World . . . but inexperience comes with increased risk. People with less than two years of experience in their current role are more likely to make mistakes that lead to serious injuries.²

And don’t think you can solve this problem by only hiring experienced people. We surveyed 600 field workers, and 20% of them said they never get any training. Ever. 

So just because Brent has 20 years’ experience doesn’t mean he knows the right way to run a loader. He needs technical training.

Good technical training helps prevent problems like:

• Crew mistakes
• Safety issues
• High turnover
• Low productivity
• Machine downtime

Without these problems holding you back, your people can do their jobs better, take on more projects, and generate more revenue. 

You can also cross-train so people are prepared to take on new roles or pick up the slack if a crewmate is on vacation. 

How BuildWitt Training help teach technical skills

We’ve created learning plans to help people in key roles level up their technical skills. Those include:

• Field Supervisor: An Introduction and Field Supervisor: Level 2. These learning plans will teach your field leaders how to read plans, manage projects, and more.
  
• Grade Checker: An Introduction and Grade Checker: Level 2. They’ll learn how to stake and check grades, use rotary lasers, and more through these learning plans.
  
• Laborer: An Introduction and Laborer: Level 2. They’ll get lessons on things like how to do basic construction math and use hand tools.
  
• Operator. They’ll learn the basics with our Operator: An Introduction and Operator: Machine Walkaround Inspections learning plans. They’ll also learn how to run excavators, dozers, mini excavators, articulated haul trucks, skid steers, small to medium wheel loaders, and vibratory soil compactors.
  
• Pipelayer: An Introduction and Pipelayer: Level 2. They’ll learn how to do tasks like bring pipe into a trench, hoist and rig pipe, and install it. 

The General Construction Skills learning plan can be a great starting point regardless of anyone’s role.

We also made a Toolbox Talks learning plan that’ll help your foremen and field supervisors make their toolbox talks more engaging and teach relevant technical skills right on the jobsite.

Check out our course catalog to see all the helpful technical training content your team can enjoy.

Safety

Safety training is so critical, it’s the only type of training that’s required by law. 

It teaches your crew how to mitigate risks, prevent accidents, and generally make it through the day without getting themselves or anyone else injured or killed.

It’s one of the most valuable types of training you can give, because it gets your crew members home to their loved ones each night. 

And since it protects your bottom line, it’s helpful from a business standpoint, too. 

So safety training is far more than a box to check—it’s one of the best life-saving, money-saving measures you can take. 

Making safety training easy and accessible

Your crew needs regular, repeated safety training to make sure they know their stuff. 

They also need safety training that’s engaging and modern, so they’ll actually pay attention to it and remember it when they’re on the job. 

Your crew will get multiple safety training options with BuildWitt Training. 

Everyone in your company can benefit from the Safety: An Introduction learning plan. It includes lessons like using PPE and filling out jobsite safety analyses (JSAs).

You can also assign role-specific safety lessons, like trench safety for pipelayers or work zone safety for paving laborers.

And with the ClickSafety add-on, your crew can complete their required OSHA, MSHA, and HAZWOPER training right in the app. Plus, you’ll be able to use our analytics to make sure they’ve completed these required lessons.

Industry knowledge

Maybe you hired an 18-year-old kid who doesn’t have any work experience. 

Maybe you hired someone who’s switching careers from another industry. They don’t know the first thing about your industry. They just know they’re sick of their desk job and that they liked playing with toy excavators as a kid. 

But there’s a big difference between playing and stepping onto a jobsite for the first time.

Someone who’s brand new to the industry probably won’t know the lingo everyone is using on the job. They may not be familiar with tools or equipment. And they probably won’t know how they can grow or build a successful career in the industry. 

Giving your crew industry knowledge with BuiltWitt Training

We want to help you start new workers off on the right foot. So we made learning plans to help teach them the basics of different Dirt World industries. 

So far, these learning plans include aggregate mining, paving, and civil construction (with more coming soon). They’ll teach your new hires things like: 

• Terms to know
• What the industry does
• The processes they’ll use
• Jobs they can get
• Industry-specific safety training

This industry knowledge helps people do their jobs better because they can see the big picture. They know what their industry is all about, and they see clear paths for growth. That information can help them build a lifelong career in the Dirt World.

Personal development

You know the importance of treating your employees as whole people—not just productive robots. 

You also know they won’t be their best on the job if they’re worried about money, their marriage, or other personal issues. Instead, they’ll be unhappy, unproductive, and distracted—which can be dangerous on the jobsite.

You can’t solve every problem for them, and neither can we. But you can give them tools to help them improve their personal lives and grow as people beyond their work. 

Building your employees up as people

BuildWitt Training comes with several learning plans and lessons that will help your employees grow personally.

The Safety: An Introduction learning plan includes a lesson on how your people can take care of their mental health on and off the job. 

The communication and ownership lessons from the leadership learning plan can translate from the jobsite to your employees’ relationships with their family and friends.

We also made some training that solely exists for personal development, like our Personal Finance: Level 1 and Level 2 learning plans. They’ll help your people learn how to manage money so they can save for the future, pay off debt, afford housing, cover emergencies, and more.

We also have more learning plans coming soon—like Personal Finance: Level 3, as well as Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.

Why’s that matter? 

When your people learn how to manage their money well, they won’t have to worry about making ends meet, and they’ll have more money to spend on things they love. 

When your people learn how to care for their mental health, they’ll have better relationships and more fulfilling personal lives.

The point is, the more your people can grow personally, the better they’ll be able to perform on the job.

Takeaways

With BuildWitt Training, your people will get to grow in terms of: 

1. Leadership
2. Soft skills
3. Technical skills
4. Safety 
5. Industry knowledge
6. Personal development

That will help them do their jobs better and grow as people outside of work, too—meaning you’ll be helping not only your employees but their families.  

Explore our course catalog to learn more about BuildWitt Training learning plans.

Or if you’re ready to dive deeper, set up a live demo with one of our sales reps. They’ll walk you through the software so you can see exactly what your people will get out of it—plus some cool admin features that’ll make your life easier.

Even better, they’ll get you and up to four team members access to try out the app for free for a few days.