Work management and construction site supervision

Observe, inspect, look over. Ensure work is done properly, on time, and within budget. Solve problems, make certain health and safety rules are complied with. Property renovation, restoration or construction are demanding, irksome issues, and may be challenging for a foreign owner, at loss due to language (and sometimes cultural) barrier. Moreover, non-Italian residents may be unable to be physically present for more than so much time at once.

Having a dedicated, skilled, well-prepped construction site control manager to oversee and coordinate ongoing construction works on one’s property guarantees steady progress and time and cost-effective proceedings. But what is the fundamental prerequisite for a construction site manager’s responsibility? 

The relationship that is established between the recipient of a professional work management service and the technical subject (engineer, architect and surveyor) who carries it out is equivalent to an obligation of means or results (in relation to the type of tasks assigned and the type of assignment to be carried out). What this implies is that, on the basis of a professional work contract, each specific expert is entrusted with carrying out a specific job with all the means and abilities available to the professional himself (construction management) or is required to produce a series of deeds and documents (project) intended to obtain a precise result desired by the client.

Work management best practices

In the case of the construction site control manager’s liability, it is an obligation of means and not of result. This means that the service performed by the manager does not have the realization of a well-defined work as its object but takes its shape as regards monitoring the work carried out by the executor, in implementation of the contract stipulated between client and executor.

The main areas subject to control, and therefore to the construction manager’s direct responsibility, are:

– surveillance of the work execution

– checks on the methods of implementation of the individual parts

– technical and administrative compliance

– keeping of accounts and control of expenditure

As one can easily understand, a construction site manager’s fee can hardly be based on an hourly rate or a fixed price. Work management consists of different phases and site control depends on many variables. Even an expert technician can only quote a fixed fee for small jobs. Usually, payments due are established based on a percentage of the cost of the work. The standard percentage varies between 4% and 6% of the cost of the work. As concerns construction management it may reach 8% -10%.

A good example can be renovation work which involves a variety of different interventions (which, by the way, is fairly common). Presuming the renovation work involves painting an entire 100 square-meter apartment, renovating the bathroom, opening a door in the bearing wall using a hoop, reconstructing the floor by replacing the floor tiles in one room, renovating the electrical and heating system, and replacing 5 windows adding up to a total cost € 80,000 + VAT. In this case, the engineer would charge 6% of the total cost for the architectural, structural and plant engineering supervision, which equals € 80,000 x 0.06 = € 4,800. And beware: some technicians also consider the VAT paid to the company in the amount! Which, according to us, is unfair!

In addition to what exemplified there could be more directors involved, the architectural, structural, landscape engineers for instance, and even creative experts, in case of particularly elaborate interior design. Each of these professionals detailed above may, hypothetically, charge a percentage which will cover only on his/her peculiar assignments. For example, the structure site manager will ask you for a percentage only on the works that affect the structural parts, such as beams, hoops, etc.

In a nutshell: generally, each specialized technician will charge a percentage based exclusively on the development of his/her tasks.