Dear Friends:
While we continue to struggle with the worst economy since The Great Depression, there are some silver linings beginning to emerge in all of the dark clouds on the horizon. One of the biggest positives of this downturn is that the prices of most commodity construction products have been decreasing, some quite rapidly. That may encourage some owners to go forward with projects that were shelved due to the rapid escalation of the cost of most building products over the last few years. Also, as reported last month, President-Elect Obama is committed to signing a large infrastructure bill the day he takes office (current estimates are between $700 billion and $1 trillion) to rebuild roads, bridges, and schools. Those of you who work in those sectors should be excited about it, and those of you who don’t might want to consider going after some of this type of work.
Also, credit markets have improved markedly since September, when most credit markets were frozen. Many banks have received their TARP money and have begun lending again. In addition, the government is spending a lot on military bases and just the bases in eastern North Carolina are going to be spending more than $5 billion in the next 12-18 months on construction projects.
I’ve always been a “the glass is half full” kind of guy, and I don’t have to look too hard to find a lot more good news than just a few months ago.
For the latest information on commodity prices, please see below:
Prices for nearly all construction materials are holding steady due to the current recession. Weak worldwide demand and oversupply has caused prices for commodities to fall even more over the past few weeks. The only exception has been the price for scrap steel, which has actually risen by $100.00/ton since late November.
Polyethylene manufacturers decreased prices by another 6% in December as demand remains soft and their cost for resins declined in November. Prices are expected to decline by another 3 to 5% in January due to weak demand. Polyethylene resin manufacturers have announced a $.07/lb price increase for January, which, if it holds, will cause the price of polyethylene to increase in February or early March.
Raven Industries, Stego, and Fortifiber, the three major manufacturers of plastic vapor barriers reduced prices in early December by approximately 5%. This decrease was in addition to their price decreases in late October and early November. As with polyethylene resins, manufacturers of plastic resins have announced a price increase for January, so expect plastic resin vapor barrier prices to remain at their current levels though January and possibly increase in February or March.
Copper and stainless steel prices continued their rapid decline in December. Due to weak demand and the falling cost for copper and stainless steel, thru-wall flashing manufacturers, Sandell Manufacturing, Hohmann & Barnard, and Advanced Building Products all lowered their prices by 7 to 10% in early December. With winter upon us, and the cost for copper and stainless steel low, expect prices to remain the same until early spring.
An oversupply has caused the price of wire rod to continue to fall. This, along with weak demand and lower zinc prices, has resulted in masonry reinforcing manufacturers Wire Bond, Hohmann & Barnard, and Dur-O-Wal to further reduce their prices by 8 to 10 % in December. As demand normally drops in the winter months, further decreases are expected in January and possibly February.
Concrete reinforcing mesh manufacturers also decreased prices in late November by approximately 5% as demand remained weak and wire rod cost declined. With the cost of wire rod continuing to decline, most analysts expect prices for concrete reinforcing mesh to fall again in early January.
Rebar prices have held at current levels since the industry wide decrease of $9.00/cwt which went into effect November 6th. With scrap steel prices having risen by $100.00/ton in late November and early December, many analysts expected Nucor and other domestic mills to announce a price increase in December for January rollings. As demand has remained extremely weak, Nucor chose to hold their January rolling prices at December levels. Also, most domestic mills have cut production recently, so if the price of scrap steel holds at current levels, or increases more, expect rebar prices to increase in February.
Also, the latest PPI
tables and
charts are available here for your review.
You will see that, as mentioned above, the prices of most commodities have come down sharply, and this should be of much interest to the owners and developers you work with.
As our management team looked at what we could do to avoid the downturn, one area that we have decided to concentrate on is fabricated rebar. Many of our customers already buy fabricated rebar from other sources, and Marketing 101 teaches you that the best sales opportunity comes from providing already happy customers with more products that they already buy, just elsewhere. To that end, we now have the capability to do rebar takeoffs, as well as engineered shop drawings, and four of our locations now have rebar fabrication machines. Our strong suit is jobs of ten tons or less and orders for fabricated rebar that are needed immediately. Service has always been our strong suit, so we feel this is a great opportunity for us to provide fabricated rebar for you on a moment’s notice when larger fabricators might not be as interested in providing small lots of fabricated rebar on an immediate basis.
In the future, when you need fabricated rebar, please think of us. Some of the initial orders we have gotten have been quite nice, and the customers have been very pleased with, in some cases, 24-hour turnaround on the fabricated rebar.
This month we are spotlighting the following suppliers:
- Sandell Manufacturing is one of the largest and most diverse manufacturers of flashing, expansion joint, masonry cleaners, and other related products. They are especially known for their quick order fulfillment times in the rare case when we do not have their products in stock. Next time you need any of these types of products, please think of us.
- Euclid Chemical is one of the oldest and most diverse manufacturers of construction chemicals, grouts, powders, and the like. They have a very broad product line and are well known for high quality products and being in most specs. We stock more Euclid products than anyone in the Carolinas and look forward to meeting your needs in the future.
- Hohmann and Barnard is one of the premier manufacturers of masonry reinforcement, flashing, and through their subsidiary, Foamtastic, foam expansion joint material. We stock all of their products and encourage you to learn more about them by viewing their ad below.
This month’s management article is entitled
Before You Hire Your Employees, Retain Them
Great employees make for great companies, and this article has some outstanding ideas on how to hire and, more importantly, retain great employees. I hope you find this of interest.
In closing, I want to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your business over the past year and to wish you a happy holiday season and a much improved economic climate for 2009. As always, if we should ever fall short of your expectations, I would consider it a personal favor if you would let me know about it.
Best Regards,
Jim
Jim Sobeck
President
(864) 325-6518
jim.sobeck@newsouthsupply.com
Before you hire your employees, retain them
by Howard Coleman
This article’s title may
imply that I have things backwards! Not really. The major point I want to make
in this article is that the most critical step in retaining employees
really starts before you hire them.
Every hiring authority
wants new employees to deliver. They are looking for attributes like
productivity, results orientation or a focus on profitability.
This means that we have to
look at employment candidates as more than just resumés and interviews. We have
to look at them as individuals, if you are to reduce turnover and not have to
start the hiring cycle all over again, wasting time, money and productivity.
Some studies estimate that it costs a profit-draining 1.5 times the salary of each
employee who has to be replaced. That doesn’t take into account potential
service interruptions and morale issues with other employees who take notice of
the “revolving door.”
Turnover happens for a lot
of reasons, but it doesn’t mean you can’t control some of them. Looking beyond
the resumé and the interview by using some of the critical assessment tools
available can add to the success of your talent selection process, specifically
identifying your employment candidate’s abilities, skills and their personal
attributes (their personality). These should be the critical measures, long
before you bring someone on board, regardless of the job position.
Elements of Good
Hiring Practices
If candidate screening were automatic and effortless, there would be few hiring
mistakes. But the evidence often shows otherwise — a disconnection between
sound theory and actual practice. This occurs chiefly because of the
traditional tools usually employed in talent selection.
Resumés represent a static
list of skills and job duties, but cannot speak to how well the person
performs, unsupervised or on a tight deadline. Reference checks can be tricky;
first, because candidates naturally stack the deck in their favor with those
who have only positive things to say; and second, companies are so wary of
litigation that many may say little, if anything, that is useful in responding
to you reference requests. Hiring authorities who pride themselves on being
able to “read” people and go with “gut instincts” miss the fact that there is
more to hiring than how a candidate presents themselves.
The typical interview
questions, such as “Where do you see yourself in five years?” and “Why are you
the right person for this job?” seem designed to encourage smooth talking
instead of candid and critical self-evaluation. Many of the most important
questions – those regarding the prospect’s essential nature and the preferences
and attitudes that make them an individual – often are not asked. These
defining qualities are also essential for prospective employers, because they
predict job performance and satisfaction. The more job performance-relevant
information employers have, the greater the likelihood of building and
retaining an engaged, productive workforce.
So then, how can employers
get that information? What are the qualities that make for a good hire? Each
job has its particular requirements, but just because someone is qualified on
paper doesn’t mean they will be ideal for the job. Employers need to be clear
about their needs and expectations for any given position up front – before the
hiring process begins. A variety of measurements are necessary and they work
together to create a good hire. These include an individual’s abilities, skills
and personality.
Personality and ability are
complex qualities that cannot be adequately determined from an interview or by
reading a resumé. They require objective assessment. The professional
assessment tools that are available today maximize person/job fit so that the
individual hired is capable of doing – and is willing to do – the best job
possible.
Professional assessment
does not mean hours of training, or day-long job interviews. Assessments can be
administered in as little as 20 minutes. The evaluation of assessment results
you receive, most often, requires little or no special training to interpret.
Ability assessments
evaluate capabilities such as mathematical and verbal aptitude, reasoning,
critical thinking and the ability to process information. Workplace personality
assessments provide insights into qualities such as motivations, dependability,
innovation, adaptability and stress tolerance. Knowing a person’s work style
helps ensure that the values of the individual and the organization are in
line. It is also an early warning of potential derailers to success. For
example; a person who prefers to work alone would probably not succeed in a job
that entails a high level of teamwork or close supervision.
Your due diligence in
seeking out and evaluating the assessment tools on the market should include
the following, from whoever your current or potential assessment vendor is:
·
Real-world, statistically validated and documented assessments
·
Easy to administer (preferably online)
·
Predicts job performance across all levels of work, from semi-skilled to executive
·
Can be customized for the specific attributes you require in a position.
With the assessment tools
available today, it makes sense to incorporate them into a hiring strategy. An
objective and qualified hiring process translates into picking the right people
for the job and lasting employees that reduces voluntary and involuntary
turnover.
