I am a junior job runner and have been working with a graduate that joined our office a few months ago.
While he is very skilled with Revit and visualisation, it takes him an unusually long time to produce the required output. This becomes a problem on posting days where I have to send in drawings by a given time and work is still ongoing. I have stayed late several times waiting for him to finish. I have hinted that he has issues with time management and needs to speed up his production, but it's like he doesn't get it. It still takes him a long time to do things.
At his level of experience I was blasting sheet after sheet and was able to pick up extra work on top of that. What frustrates me is that he is a smart guy and his interview portfolio was of a very high quality. I tend to think he might be a perfectionist and that gets in his way of doing things fast enough.
How I can help him get up to speed and make him aware that I can't afford to miss any more deadlines? I don't want to escalate the issue to management because I like him as a person and we get on well but this is starting to become a problem for me.
I'm not sure what a "junior job runner" is - is that like an assistant project manager / job captain sort of person? If so, do you have authority in this role to make production schedules and to manage him? If yes then do that. Sit down with him before the next deadline and make a plan for which sheets he'll be responsible for, and exactly what time they all need to be finished printing by.
If you don't have that authority then it's trickier, because you'd have to bring the issue to the attention of whoever is supposed to be managing production staff - but do so in a way that's constructive, and about the good of the project, without throwing him under the bus.
task with target delivery. His schedule should be dictated by you and if he can't make it on time with pressure he will understand that is a problem that will only get worse over time. Sink or swim.
Give him a deadline with some fluff - like tell him that you need the drawing a day or two ahead of the actual due date so that he can be a little late without it affecting your overall schedule. Also make it clear to him the level of detail you are looking for. If he is spending time getting every single tiny thing exactly right, when you only need something schematic, make that clear. It's even better if you can show him examples of what you're looking for or give him a past project to look at so he understands.
You need to investigate what is causing the lack of speed. Is it a failure to use hot keys and shortcuts (something you can fix with some training) or is it something worse like the person is texting or on the internet instead of drafting.
If the person's work is thorough and correct, You might consider being more tolerant of slowness. A lot of the really fast people around me are producing work that is riddled with errors and always needs a lot of rework after QAQC review.
Jul 21, 18 12:35 pm ·
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Slow worker
I am a junior job runner and have been working with a graduate that joined our office a few months ago.
While he is very skilled with Revit and visualisation, it takes him an unusually long time to produce the required output. This becomes a problem on posting days where I have to send in drawings by a given time and work is still ongoing. I have stayed late several times waiting for him to finish. I have hinted that he has issues with time management and needs to speed up his production, but it's like he doesn't get it. It still takes him a long time to do things.
At his level of experience I was blasting sheet after sheet and was able to pick up extra work on top of that. What frustrates me is that he is a smart guy and his interview portfolio was of a very high quality. I tend to think he might be a perfectionist and that gets in his way of doing things fast enough.
How I can help him get up to speed and make him aware that I can't afford to miss any more deadlines? I don't want to escalate the issue to management because I like him as a person and we get on well but this is starting to become a problem for me.
I'm not sure what a "junior job runner" is - is that like an assistant project manager / job captain sort of person? If so, do you have authority in this role to make production schedules and to manage him? If yes then do that. Sit down with him before the next deadline and make a plan for which sheets he'll be responsible for, and exactly what time they all need to be finished printing by.
If you don't have that authority then it's trickier, because you'd have to bring the issue to the attention of whoever is supposed to be managing production staff - but do so in a way that's constructive, and about the good of the project, without throwing him under the bus.
task with target delivery. His schedule should be dictated by you and if he can't make it on time with pressure he will understand that is a problem that will only get worse over time. Sink or swim.
Give him a deadline with some fluff - like tell him that you need the drawing a day or two ahead of the actual due date so that he can be a little late without it affecting your overall schedule. Also make it clear to him the level of detail you are looking for. If he is spending time getting every single tiny thing exactly right, when you only need something schematic, make that clear. It's even better if you can show him examples of what you're looking for or give him a past project to look at so he understands.
You need to investigate what is causing the lack of speed. Is it a failure to use hot keys and shortcuts (something you can fix with some training) or is it something worse like the person is texting or on the internet instead of drafting.
If the person's work is thorough and correct, You might consider being more tolerant of slowness. A lot of the really fast people around me are producing work that is riddled with errors and always needs a lot of rework after QAQC review.
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