As its name suggests, there’s a lot of water around Kawartha Lakes Construction—so much that this Canadian company doesn’t own just trucks but also several kinds of boats, including a barge.
Some of the work the company does is on islands, which means it needs a way to travel across water. The company’s owner opted to purchase the barge to better serve clients and transport materials to island jobs faster without being at the mercy of other companies.
Distance across water isn’t the only distance Kawartha needs to deal with. Kawartha is located in what city folks call “cottage country,” says Emily Craigen, Kawartha’s marketing coordinator. The region is full of lakes and trees, with the closest city being Toronto, about 60 miles away.
Craigen says many clients travel to the area for the summer, and they typically are not around while Kawartha is remodeling their homes. Craigen says the company has had clients who live as close as Toronto, but some have lived overseas. To communicate with those clients, Kawartha uses GoToMeeting videoconferencing for projects in the design/development phase as well as old-fashioned phone calls, text messages, and email.
Approaching the weekend, the team sends out “The Friday Report,” which includes a status update, photos, and plans for work the next week. Craigen says that to encourage field employees to submit photos, Kawartha began a “FB Friday” challenge. The team sends in pictures for the competition, and the best photo is posted on Facebook and the photographer wins $25.
For those weeks when not much happened or the photos aren’t “Facebook worthy,” Craigen says she will announce that there is no winner for the week and will double the prize the following week, adding an extra challenge for the photo (like take a selfie).
