A site foreman usually manages the employees.
The construction site foreman manages the workers and maintains the work schedule. By assigning jobs to specific individuals and groups, the site manager ensures that the work schedule is adhered to, as well as the proper sequencing of the different jobs. It is also the duty of the site foreman to ensure that certain jobs are completed to allow the next job to be completed. While most individual contractors and subcontractors are on site to manage their respective employees, the foreman maintains communication between all individual foremen and is responsible for their collective work product.
A site foreman may be responsible for reporting workplace accidents.
The foreman’s goal is to manage all individual work teams and keep all work focused in the same general direction. Any scheduling conflicts or lapses in work completion deadlines are handled by the site administrator. The subcontractors will report daily to the person in charge of the work, receiving the pertinent information on the progress or not of the same, along with suggestions of different ways to solve eventual problems. All work teams are subject to discipline and possible termination if they fail to maintain consistent progress or fall seriously behind for any reason.
Much like a general manager in a factory setting, the site foreman is the collective authority of the job site. This role serves as the final quality check for the typical construction project and any faults will be placed on the shoulders of the foreman. Occasionally, the Site Supervisor will be subject to receiving a bonus for completing work ahead of schedule or under budget. On the other hand, there may be a penalty or fine for not meeting budget, and the foreman is typically penalized on a sliding scale for each day a project is run past its scheduled completion date.
A construction foreman is usually a person who has excelled in private business and may have owned a construction company before taking on a supervisory role in a larger company. One problem many site administrators face is the need to be on multiple sites at the same time. It is rare for a foreman to have only one job site to manage at a time. Typically, the site manager must report daily to multiple construction sites, boards of directors, and vendor meetings.