7 ways GCs can improve labor productivity

By

James Kerr

and Kacie Goff

Last Updated Mar 25, 2026

By

James Kerr

and Kacie Goff

Every construction company wants to do what it can to improve productivity. When it can generate more output from its team in the same amount of time, revenue goes up and labor costs go down. 

Even as individual companies and teams lean into this, though, gains are minimal. The construction industry has lagged behind others in making productivity gains — costing an estimated $2.8 trillion each year. 

To help close the productivity gap, each construction company can benefit from working to identify the unique levers it can pull. This is especially true for general contractors. As the entity overseeing the project, they have the opportunity to take steps to measurably improve labor productivity across the jobsite.

The right productivity boosters to deploy vary depending on whether the GC self-performs work, hires out to subcontractors, or both. To help general contracting firms tap into opportunities to boost labor productivity, it helps to look at ways to improve self-performed output and subcontracted work separately.  

4 guidelines for self-perform work

For GC firms with a self-performing arm, labor productivity is easier in some ways and harder in others. On the one hand, working with internal team members provides added control. On the other, there’s no delegation of responsibility. The GC is fully responsible for the performance of the work it chooses to self-perform. 

To help optimize output from its internal teams, GCs should: 

1. Organize right-size tasks.

There’s no one-size-fits-all here — flexibility is the name of the game. That allows the GC’s teams to get to the level of detail they need without overwhelming individual laborers.

Here, it helps firms to establish a standardized work breakdown structure (WBS), which teams can then customize to individual project needs. Right-sizing from that template could mean breaking tasks that need a high level of detail down into smaller pieces, or grouping similar assemblies together. 

Organizing all of the to-dos on a project into tasks that are both manageable and trackable helps the entire team. Laborers get clear direction about what’s expected and by when. As tasks get ticked off, everyone from foremen all the way up to executives get a way to accurately measure project progress. 

2. Measure against historical data.

To know what’s realistic for laborers to accomplish in any given block of time, it helps to frame labor expectations based on historical data.

When the GC analyzes activities that are repeated across its portfolio, it can start pulling averages for output. It might learn, for example, roughly how many cubic yards of concrete its team can lay down in a day, and how winter weather affects that production. Or it might see how the square feet of drywall installed each hour drops when working on high-rise projects. 

The historical data lays a foundation from which the GC can build feasible estimates for its labor output. Then, as the project moves forward, those historical metrics provide a measuring stick.

Comparing daily or weekly progress to that baseline helps to identify areas in which crews are hitting the mark, underperforming, or deserving of recognition for doing more. 

3. Train up underperformers.

When labor data tracking or deviation from the schedule illuminates an area of underperformance, GCs need to step in as quickly as possible. 

If one crew is getting less done than others, for example, it helps to put more eyes on that. Swapping personnel helps here. The GC might put a foreman with a good track record of driving productivity with that crew. Or it might move a high performer from another crew over to that one. Bringing fresh blood and perspective to teams that aren’t meeting benchmarks often helps them course-correct.

Sometimes, additional training might be needed, too. Off-site training, coaching, and apprenticeship programs can all help GCs develop individual employees who contribute to a strong culture of productivity. 

4. Reward high performers.

To reinforce a culture of consistently hitting labor benchmarks, GCs should prioritize the carrot, not the stick. That means identifying high performers and finding ways to reward them. That could include financial incentives like bonuses or stock options, of course, but it doesn’t necessarily need to significantly impact the GC’s bottom line. 

Some other non-financial rewards include:

• Public recognition at company events, on LinkedIn, in newsletters, etc.
• Professional development (e.g., trainings, certifications)
• Flexible work schedules

In addition to spotlighting individual high performers, the company might also decide to look for ways to incentivize crews. That could look like light competition between crews with a reward (e.g., a team celebration) for the one that accomplishes the most high-quality work by a certain date, for example. Or it could mean giving out swag like company-branded apparel to high performers.  

When team members know their good output is likely to get recognized, it adds an additional driver for them to consistently perform at that level. 

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3 tips for collaborating with trade partners

When a GC contracts a part of the project out to a sub, they’re relinquishing some level of control. The means and method for delivering on the agreed-upon scope falls to the subcontractor. They may even guard some labor metrics that they view as proprietary.

Still, the GC has both the authority and the obligation to oversee all labor on the project. While subcontractors manage the granular details there, GCs can support better labor productivity when they do the following.  

1. Use data to choose the right partners.

If a GC is new to the area, they need to look to external data to find good subcontracting partners. That might mean asking the subcontractor for references they can call or asking other industry colleagues what they know about that company. 

As they get established in that locale, the GC’s internal data becomes increasingly useful. They can see what kind of labor output the sub has historically produced, along with other key data like reportable safety incidents from that team. They may be able to see which partners outperformed others on certain project types (e.g., on public projects). 

In short, looking back at its own historical data helps the GC more confidently choose the right partners for the job. 

2. Collect labor data on-site.

Strong site monitoring helps the GC track labor performance for any subcontractors it brings into a project. Whether that means having superintendents walk the jobsite or using technology like wall-mounted cameras or site-roving robots, the GC should always be able to get a rough estimate of how many people the sub has on the project. 

This helps the GC keep the project on rails. Say that the subcontractor is falling behind schedule. The GC has data to show they’ve never had more than five people on site in the last two weeks. Knowing what their labor force has looked like allows the GC to have a clear, data-informed conversation with them about how to get output back on track. With labor data, it gets easier to avoid finger-pointing, supporting collaborative course correction when it’s needed. 

As an added benefit for the subcontractor, on-site labor data collection can help to speed up billing cycles. 

3. In the event of underperformance, perform productivity analysis.

If a subcontractor is falling behind schedule, it benefits the GC to act quickly and intentionally. Getting involved with the subcontractor to perform productivity analysis can illuminate what’s behind the delay. Here, pulling in the data the GC has collected from the jobsite often helps to start a conversation that’s based on facts, not blame. 

Collaborating with the subcontractor and offering support where needed helps to get the project back on track, supporting ideal outcomes for both the sub and the GC. 

By implementing these actions to boost performance from its self-perform teams and its subcontractors’ crews, general contractors get a way to support productivity across their project portfolios.

Written by

James Kerr

Enterprise Solution Specialist, Resource Management | Procore Technologies

James Kerr is an Enterprise Solution Specialist for Procore Technologies.

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Kacie Goff

Contributing Writer | Procore Technologies

94 articles

Kacie Goff is a construction writer who grew up in a construction family — her dad owned a concrete company. Over the last decade, she’s blended that experience with her writing expertise to create content for the Construction Progress Coalition, Newsweek, CNET, and others. She founded and runs her own agency, Jot Content, from her home in Ventura, California.

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