How Technology is Affecting Daily Jobsite Logs

The importance of documenting daily activities on the job site cannot be overstated. If you ever had to look back on what took place on the job site months or years later, having accurate information can make all the difference. Whether it’s someone claiming an injury, being accused of improper work, or any other legal issue that may arise, having a log of job site activities can be a tremendous help. Companies should take the time to properly train personnel on how to accurately record daily actives. In today’s construction industry, recordkeeping skills should be part of any supervisor’s qualifications in tandem with basic job mechanics. Maintaining the report author's credibility should also be at the forefront. Exaggerating, using foul language, venting your feelings, and/or getting caught up in lies can make the entire report invalid. It is important to document all of the facts. Be sure to record what has taken place, as well as missed items that should have taken place according to the schedule. The author of the daily logs could be called the jobsite historian.

While there are many items that should be on the daily job site report, here are a few items to get you started:

• Job site address and date
• Weather (if it affects the job)
• Employee names, tasks,  and locations
• Subcontractor: companies, employees, work tasks, and locations
• Visitor names, reasons for visit, and times in and out
• People issues
• Deliveries (verify any defects or damages)
• Inspections (comments from inspector)
• Changes, addendums, or extras
• Discrepancies in the plans, specification, or site conditions
• Schedule updates
• Testing and the results
• Rental equipment shared usage, time delivered, and time picked up.
• Signature of the author

Making the daily log a company’s standard field document for everyday business can develop it into a powerful tool. Store signed daily reports to preserve the unchanged authenticity so a third party may testify to the originality of the document. If the author makes a mistake on their daily report, correcting it on the next day’s report is encouraged, rather than going back to change the previous record. Today, paper reports are becoming a thing of the past. There are job site daily log mobile app templates that can be customized to your company’s needs. Documenting daily actives and being able to attach photos, videos, calculations, GPS locations, or reference data right from your tablet or smartphone are just some of the features that can help bring credibility and accuracy to the report. In addition, many apps allow you to send the report to others at the end of the day before leaving the site and highlight parts of your daily report to use as a reminder for items you need to follow up on or as notes for your next weekly construction meeting. Sometimes it’s hard to start implementing something new because it seems like unproductive time. However, sacrificing time upfront in order to be efficient in the future should be seriously considered. Daily job site logs may be one of those times.