losing tools

[crotchclimber]

How do you guys deal with crews and individuals losing equipment? I've only been working at this company a year and I'm amazed at how many cleanup tools go missing. We've had several chainsaws go missing lately too. The new climber's only been here about a week and he lost his 201T already. It was an old one that barely worked but still, what if. Owners gave him a brand new 193T, hopefully he doesn't lose that.

 

[JeffGu]

How the hell do you lose a chainsaw?
Try putting a label on them... This saw goes with your job. Lose one, you lose both.

 

[BC WetCoast]

Foreman is responsible (but not accountable) for ensuring equipment doesn't go missing. Make sure a final job site inspection is done prior to taking off.

Don't know your area, could stuff be stolen off the trucks? Lock the doors.

In our jurisdiction, it's illegal to fire someone (or deduct pay) for lost equipment, but there needs to be someone responsible on each crew for equipment.

Maybe when a crew has to rake out a yard with a old rake with a broken handle and missing tines, they'll pay more attention. I worked on a crew one time, where a groundie broke a rake handle and the foreman made him fabricate a replacement from a branch of the tree they were removing.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Maybe not fire "on paper" for losing stuff but a person can be fired for just being a piece of **** too.

I took $60 of ratchet straps out of my hired hands pay. Went to the dump and he left my ratchet straps on the ground. This was after I unhooked the straps and told him to roll them up and put them in the truck, along with the tarps. And before leaving asked if he had put away the straps and tarps... "Yup"

Get back to the shop.... 1 tarp gone, and no straps. "oh... THOSE straps?"



Now this wasn't the first time he'd done that. He was really bad about grabbing a broom, rake, shovel from an area that it's always kept and ending up leaving it at the other end of the yard (5 acres) and usually in a spot that got it ruined, like on the track of an excavator, against the side of a truck, etc.
After it came out of his pay he wised up quite a bit. Was pretty much either that or I was going to fire him for costing me money and making more work for me.

Way I was raised if the responsibility is on you for something, you better make it right if you break it or lose it.
Now there are certainly "**** happens" moments and it is what it is too. Like a hired hand caught the hydraulic hose of my skid steer grapple on the grapple and broke the coupler setup ($170 to replace BTW!). He called me and wanted to know where he could go buy another to get back to work... .just that attitude alone was enough to say no way, I'll pay for it.

 

[JeffGu]

Nebraska is a Right To Work state... can fire 'em without any reason. You can't deduct their pay, but you can end it.
Really, though... sometimes you just have to do what their parents failed to do... explain to them how this stuff adds up and that somebody ends up paying for it. One thing you can do anywhere... ask them where the money is going to come from to give employees a raise, if they're costing the company so much in replacing equipment? When they hear you say, "Joe Blow is getting a raise this month because he hasn't lost or stolen any of our sh*t for six months!" you'll see the gears start whirring and they'll start caring. Some companies have incentive pay for this, and it usually works well.
If from the very beginning you tell them that raises and bonuses are given for only three reasons... good work performance, showing up on time, and not losing or breaking the goodies... and remind them all of this regularly... it goes a long way to alleviating the problem.

 

[crotchclimber]

The problem with most tools lost is that no one notices until at least the next day or whenever they need it and by then it's hard to figure out who had it last (we have about 15 employees). I've gotten good at keeping track of my own stuff but some of the guys don't even do that and I'm always giving them back their gear they left scattered in trucks and the yard. A MS192T was lost a few weeks ago. I asked the guy who had been using it most and he denied having lost it and there's no way to prove otherwise. The issue can be avoided somewhat by personal ownership of tools, but how many trash cans do we need and most guys can't afford a MS461 and if they did they wouldn't want anyone using it besides themselves.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Have you checked local pawn shops? We often found tools from work in them. If you find them, you may be able to trace who brought them in.

 

[jefflovstrom]

You don't lose a saw, you hide on the job and come back at the end of the day to get it, (steal it),
Jeff

 

[rarefish383]

I'm with Jeff on this one. The only saws we ever lost happened when we hired two guys as a "team". First one was a small climbing saw, brand new. The second was a bigger 70CC saw. They said they locked it up in the cab, but the little wing window was jimmied. When we got rid of them, never lost a saw again. That being said, we did leave saws on one job, got to the next, and had to run back. It does happen, but if no one owns up to it, I look for a crook. Make sure your guys know that if they screw up and leave something, the faster they tell you, the better the chance of recovering it is. A place for every thing and everything in it's place. It's easier for the crew leader to make a quick check if he can just walk around the truck and see everything. Our climbers never seemed to loose stuff. Even though Dad bought them their climbing saws, they belonged to that climber. You just didn't use some one else's climbing gear. If a climber looses his stuff, I really look hard, Joe.