Why your crew won't use Buildertrend (and how to fix it)

The office loves Buildertrend. The field ignores it. Daily logs are blank, photos live on someone's phone, and the office still calls and texts the crew because that's the only way to reach them.

This is the most common place a Buildertrend rollout stalls, and it's almost never because crews are stubborn. It's because of how the rollout was done.

Why crews don't use it

• They were shown everything at once. A two hour walkthrough of every feature teaches nobody anything.
• There's no reason to open the app. If the schedule and the to dos aren't in there, there's nothing for them to find.
• The old channels never closed. As long as the office keeps texting, the crew will keep texting back.
• Nobody notices when they do use it. If daily logs disappear into a void, people stop writing them.

Fix 1: train by role

Field crews need three or four things, not the whole system. For most companies that's:

• Daily logs with photos
• The time clock
• Their schedule and to dos
• Messages on the job

Teach only those, on their phones, ideally on a jobsite. Office staff and project managers get their own sessions for the parts they use.

Fix 2: give them a reason to open it

The app has to be the place where the useful information lives. That means the schedule is accurate, to dos are assigned to real people, and plans and selections are attached to the job. If the answer to "where's the tile pick?" is in Buildertrend, they'll open Buildertrend.

Fix 3: close the side channels

Pick a date. After it, job information goes through Buildertrend. The office answers questions in the app, not by text. This feels slow for about two weeks, then it becomes normal. Running two systems side by side is how adoption dies.

Fix 4: make the logs matter

Have a project manager comment on daily logs, use the photos in client updates and bring them up in weekly meetings. When people see their entries being used, they keep making them.

Fix 5: check in at 30 days

After a month, look at who's using what. Usually one or two people need a second, shorter session, and one or two templates need adjusting. Small fixes at 30 days save a full retraining at six months.

The bottom line

Adoption isn't a personality problem. It's a setup and training problem. Train by role, put the useful information in the app, close the side channels and show people their work matters. Onsite or remote, that's how we train teams during implementation.