From manual chaos to automated clarity: SEGLC's journey with Procore Training Center

The Challenge

Founded in 1991, Superior Electric Great Lakes Company (SEGLC) is a full-service, employee-owned electrical contractor recognized for its commitment to innovation and excellence. The company falls under a family of brands called Superior Enterprise Holdings. As a result of its commitment to delivering quality electrical solutions to its customers, both on time and on budget, it has steadily grown and acquired multiple entities over the past three decades. The company’s comprehensive approach to supply, design and build installations has created a reputation for excellence, making it a key player in the electrical contracting industry.

The Solution

Procore Training Center has provided SEGLC with a platform allowing its Procore team to keep all Procore training-related documentation in one, singular space. Employees no longer need to email or call their administrators or managers for guidance, which has streamlined the integration and training processes. Both office and field employees now benefit from a one-stop resource, and man-hours spent on training, manual entry processes, and other organization-related issues have drastically reduced.

Background

Before adopting Procore Training Center, SEGLC implemented Procore Project Management. Prior to Procore, the company was still using Excel sheets for time tracking and storing project information in SharePoint, manually logging every detail. As Carley Marion, Estimating Administrator at SEGLC, stated, “Originally, we were looking for a place to log time for projects and store project documentation and information. Procore happened to be a place where we could do that, plus way more. Procore has offered a solution to making sure all of our project information, including proposals, bid docs, historical data and project messages, can all be stored under a specific project. Procore also enables us to privatize folders for security purposes while still allowing our estimators, project managers and administrators to access anything they need for a project, all in one spot.”

Realizing all of Procore’s capabilities, the company formed its own internal Procore team consisting of administrators, managers and users from different departments in order to answer employees’ Procore questions. However, the team quickly realized that if Procore were used to its fullest extent, there would be vast process changes and a learning curve for employees that would need to be addressed. With this in mind, the team began to create SOPs containing best practices for using Procore. As updates occurred or the group learned more about Procore’s tools and features, they seemed to be writing and re-writing the SOPs and sending them out via email nonstop. This wasn’t only unmanageable for SEGLC’s Procore team — it also caused confusion among employees. There wasn’t a singular place to find the most recent version of the SOPs, which led to the use of outdated information, wasted time and frustration. So, when SEGLC learned about Training Center, it immediately chose to implement it as a solution to these challenges.

Streamlining Communication

For SEGLC, one of the most immediate benefits of Training Center has been the drastic reduction in back-and-forth communications. Marion noted, “Training Center has saved tons of back-and-forth emails and phone calls on my end and for our other admins and managers. It’s also saved me and others from being on the phone and walking other employees through processes step-by-step.” Additionally, it has acted as a bridge, mending previously existing inter-departmental challenges. Marion explained, “The Training Center SOPs allow us to lay out, for example, exactly what the project manager needs to do for their project set-up so that accounting can come in and do their piece. Now, accounting is getting exactly what they want and need from the other departments without any back and forth.”

Minimizing Errors

The centralized storage of SOPs in Training Center has also ensured uniformity company-wide. The platform has simplified the task of ensuring that each SOP is meticulously detailed, allowing administrators like Marion to add helpful visuals, like photos or screenshots, to make instructions easy to understand for everyone. And, having those guidelines and instructions in a singular source with the latest updates has minimized errors and fostered a more efficient workflow. On this subject, Marion commented, “It guarantees that everyone is following the exact same process. You won’t find anyone accidentally using an outdated SOP that they had saved to their personal files, meaning less room for error.” She then continued, “Both our office and field employees benefit from the use of the Training Center. It gives them a one-stop shop for the “how to’s” of our processes pertaining to Procore. I would say this feature helps us admins and managers the most. It has taken a lot off my plate and off our Procore Team’s plate.”

Amplifying Efficiency

As a rapidly growing company, Training Center has been a game-changer in streamlining the new hire and onboarding process. The company acquired three new entities in the last three years alone, significantly amplifying the manpower needed to onboard and train employees to use Procore. Using the methods it had, previously — individually walking each new member through processes — would have been entirely inefficient and, more than likely, chaotic. However, the introduction of Training Center allowed the company to provide employees with a single platform where they could find every piece of essential information.

Moreover, the design of Training Center makes providing and accessing crystal clear instructions simple, which practically ensures understanding. Marion commented, “Now that we have the Training Center, I simply send the welcome emails, and any questions can be answered by accessing the training center or our link to company documents within.” New hires and even established Procore users no longer need to pause their tasks and seek out administrators or managers when they have questions — they can simply log on to Training Center and access a detailed, step-by-step guide. Marion stated, “It has definitely saved time on training new employees or fielding questions from existing employees, and as we know, time is money!”

Procore for Specialty Contractors

As a specialty contractor, SEGLC has found Procore to be invaluable. With its vast array of tools, from timesheets to document management, directories, drawing tools, photos and even safety tools, Procore has been crafted to cater to the needs of every construction professional, regardless of their specific role in a project. When asked her thoughts on whether Procore was specifically advantageous as a specialty contractor, Marion explained, “I would say Procore works almost exactly the same for us as a specialty subcontractor as it does for the General Contractor (GC). We need to do many of the same tasks and procedures that a GC does. I could pretty much go down the list of tools and say that both the GCs and SEGLC use them all.”