This session will focus on critical considerations for properly managing the downstream transfer of risk through indemnification, insurance, and associated risk transfer language contained in subcontracts, trucking, and vendor agreements. Examples of risk transfer failures that continue to occur in the construction industry will be provided to underscore the need for specific contract language and stress the importance of formal processes and procedures for lower-tier entity insurance review and verification. Attendees will obtain practical advice and resources to further assess their contract agreements and administrative processes to close potential gaps that could lead to failures in subcontractors and their insurance carriers properly responding to a covered loss. The session will also address elements of post-completion risk, use of temporary labor, and proper management of any entity performing work for you or on your customer’s behalf.

Learning Objectives:

• Become aware of challenges facing the industry and recent legal interpretations and challenges that can negatively impact your business if not properly addressed.
• Understand critical contract language necessary for proper risk transfer and lower tier entity insurance policy response.
• Recognize common failures in the risk transfer and insurance process and what you can do to eliminate or reduce these types of failures.
• Take away practical resources and tools to assist you in your risk management efforts.
• Review various General Liability additional insured endorsements and implications to the lower tier insurance coverage that may or may not respond on your behalf.

Discover how an understanding of individual and collective strengths is critical to business success. Learn how to create a high-performing team with the right type of collaboration and appropriate methods of communication. Since the Kolbe Assessment will be discussed, it is recommended that attendees take the assessment prior to the session.

Learning Objectives:

• Current workplace solutions
• How to leverage the strengths of each team member
• The best way to communicate with impact
• Solutions for common team challenges

Equipment management is a complex and difficult task that affects almost every aspect of a company’s operation. Successfully managing equipment owning costs requires accounting and finance skills and expertise throughout the entire equipment life cycle, from acquisition through disposal. Another critical aspect for equipment-intensive contractors is the budgeting of capital expenditures as well as annual equipment hours, owning, and operating costs. Learn best practices of how the internal “Equipment Triangle” of Operations, Fleet, and Accounting can collaborate to achieve success in managing, budgeting, and tracking your fleet. This session will prepare you to develop accurate equipment costs and set rates that enable each category of equipment to recover its actual costs. Further, it will provide insights into the process, inputs, and workflows to establish accurate and effective budgets.

Learning Objectives:

• Effectively forecast capital expenditures and develop annual budgets for equipment hours, revenues and owning and operating costs.
• Distinguish between owning/operating costs as two principal equipment cost types and how owning/ operating costs change through the life and what factors influence these costs.
• Explain the reasons for and the importance of an hourly equipment owning and operating cost rate.
• Identify action steps to monitor and reduce equipment costs.
• Understand the workflow of a collaborative and comprehensive equipment budgeting process.

This unique session is designed to help attendees and their companies more easily “walk the talk” of great ethics. This often-humorous program will show attendees ethics risks they never knew existed and what can be done to assure those risks don’t turn into costly ethical and legal problems on the job. They will also learn how even a slightly changed focus on ethics can significantly build their organization’s bottom line. Attendees will leave with easy, practical ideas and tools to reduce their risk for ethics difficulties while simultaneously reducing the risk of colleagues, coworkers, and entire organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• Articulate both the strategic and financial value of highly effective ethics and values training in their organization.
• Participants in this session will be able to 1. identify at least four common but often unseen or ignored ‘red flags’ for ethics risks in themselves and
• Articulate four key areas of focus necessary to drive a culture of ethics, compliance, and accountability.
• Articulate the key factors needed to create highly effective ethics and values training in their organizations.

All Subcontractor Default Insurance (SDI) policies state that the insured must provide a “satisfactory” proof of loss. But, how does an insured plan and respond to this ambiguous requirement? Although certain SDI carriers circulate a claim guidance document, it does not establish how the claim submission documents are to be used to produce a satisfactory proof of loss. The combined ambiguity of policy terms and guidance document lists have given way to a trial-by-error process that results in a lengthy, onerous RFI process. This presentation will provide unique insights, lessons learned, and methods and standards used to maximize recovery of costs when making a claim submission. It will also cover post default preparation, proof of loss expectations for direct costs, and what carriers expect to see when claiming indirect costs. Attendees will also learn about the most common mistakes and problems that GCs experience when faced with producing a proof of loss claim and real solutions.

Learning Objectives:

• How to prepare to manage and document losses resulting from a subcontractor default before the default happens.
• Maximize recovery of costs for internal labor under the policy.
• Maximize recovery of direct costs under the policy
• What to do when you haven't prepared to manage and document losses and you have experienced a subcontractor default.
• Maximize the costs if indirect costs under the policy to include acceleration costs, extended GCs and extended home office overhead.

Safety management on construction projects has evolved parallel to the evolution of mobile technology. The traditional workflows of documenting safety meetings, inspections, and accident reports continue to move from paper-based forms to real-time cloud data that enhances accountability and reporting. This session will demonstrate how companies can migrate their paper-based safety management over to mobile apps. It will explore the pros and cons of preferred platforms, hardware options, mobile data management, paid vs. free apps, and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. Attendees will learn about best practices leading contractors employ in their mobile safety management programs on the jobsite and at the office, and how they can draft a plan to fit their company’s objectives.

Learning Objectives:

• Trending Data: How do you measure and act on results?
• Safety Inspections: How do you manage safety inspections now?
• Safety Documentation: How do you submit and store tool box talks?
• Wearables: How can devices better manage employees?
• Safety Training: What if you could deliver on the spot training with a tablet?

Financial professionals report that almost all of their tasks are more important today than they were just five years ago. In the midst of global economic uncertainty, the big data revolution, and industry transformation, CFMs must move from compliance to analysis. Learn how to shift focus to strategy, performance improvement initiatives, and big data mining. This session will share proprietary industry information for benchmarking purposes.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate probabilities under uncertain operating conditions to make real-time decisions before problems occur
• Learn how predictive analytics can be incorporated in your company’s strategic, financial, and operational decisions
• Identify your organizational value drivers that should be emphasized and measured to power strategic success
• Define the financial professional’s role in analytic enhancement
• Discover how to incorporate market data, probabilities, and risk modeling tools such as Monte Carlo simulation to mitigate project liability and ensure profitability

Controlling employee benefit and health care costs for contractors is critical to profitability, employee satisfaction, and financial forecasting in the bid process. The advent of Total Cost of Care (episodic cost management vs. typical PPO networks) is ushering in a new era of contractor sponsored health care and cost management. Over the coming years, employers will witness a shift in the traditional "PPO and POS” networks offered by insurance carriers and administrators that will significantly impact a range of benefit offerings and cost control measures historically utilized by employers. Using case studies and specific financial measures, this session will cover the historical “supply side” of employer sponsored health care arrangements and how the next 1-3 years will impact the employer and employee health care paradigm. This session will teach contractors the financial management tools of the coming era in employer-sponsored health care and ensure that the continued offering of this benefit is a viable financial option.

Learning Objectives:

• Redefine how wellness programs will work in the new world - and the contractor mandate due to recent data on workers compensation and obesity.
• Identify and learn the new tools in managing health care costs for contractors.
• Define strategic roadmap for next 1 - 2 years for health plan - and handling ensuing Human Resource/recruiting and retention discussions.
• Define "Total Cost of Care" and how it is changing the employer health care/medicare landscape.
• Define and update the current & future market realities ("Obamacare" public exchanges, penalties and compliance).

This session will include an update on such heavy/highway accounting and financial reporting trends and best practices as: equipment accounting, costing and allocation methods, percentage of completion contract reporting issues, unit price contract considerations, extended warranties and related matters, healthy contractor benchmarks, yellow and red flag financial indicators, DBE subcontractor management and reporting, and the impact of the new revenue reporting standard.

Learning Objectives:

• Review and define best of class financial benchmarks for heavy highway contractors.
• Identify and discuss the important accounting and financial reporting issues affecting heavy highway contractors
• Recognize the unique contract reporting issues of heavy/highway contractors including unit price contracts, extended warranties, early completion bonuses, etc.
• Discuss yellow and red flag indicators to alert heavy highway contractors of potential financial issues and problems.
• Understand the DBE subcontractor compliance issues and internal controls.

Successful leaders intentionally build and nourish three kinds of relationships: mentors, peers, and mentees. This triad helps them avoid the common leadership pitfalls that have derailed others. There is a great hunger among leaders to strengthen personal accountability, build a sense of community within the workplace, and fill the succession gap with emerging talent. So, who are the people who lead you? Who are the people who pack in around you? And who are the people who you pour into? This session will provide practical instruction on how to get all three relational sets functional and beneficial to your day-to-day leadership. You will also take a Leadership Triad Audit (LTA) to help you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your current triad.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the leader's role and use of power is not fully leveraged or safe w/o having leaders above them
• Make a commitment to identify and build a PBOA (personal board of advisers)
• Leaders identify their "key 3" emerging leaders (FAT) and develop a first phase plan of investing in them
• Leaders identify their "key 3" emerging leaders (FAT) and develop a first phase plan of investing in them