The road to being “back” took a major step forward this past week in San Antonio, Texas, at the TEXpo event there. The organizers and the incredible Texas Glass Association did a wonderful job with the setup and layout, and it was great to be back on a show floor again!
As we all know, many have been forced to stay home over the past year due to government mandates and fears of spreading disease. The crisis has continued long enough to result in a change in the work habits of many. The combination of subsidies and psychological paralysis has led to many choosing not to return to work as of yet.
The news came down this week that 2022 will be the International Year of Glass! That is tremendous stuff, and should only be good for all of us going forward. I expect a lot more details to come, but as the great leader of this effort, Alicia Duran, noted in her announcement of this happening, “Welcome to the Age of Glass.”
Are we reaching customers in the most effective way within the new hybrid workforce? Are we adjusting our supply chain to address challenging shipping logistics? How are we adjusting to inflation and cost increases?
We just completed Construction Safety Week, and what was nice was the push for that extra training needed to keep our teams safe in the shop and in the field. While I talk about labor here a ton, I don’t talk enough about the importance of the safety of those who are already working with us. We shouldn’t be cutting corners on safety (or the education and training of it) and really, in fact, should be going all in.
When your project calls for the natural beauty of wood, but needs the high-performance longevity of aluminum, wood grain finishes can provide the best of both. Textured wood grain finish options mimic not just the look, but also the feel of natural wood.
According to the March 2021 jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. employers went on a massive hiring spree adding 916,000 workers to their payrolls, including 110,000 in construction and 53,000 in manufacturing. This caused the unemployment rate to fall to 6 percent as the labor force participation rate increased. As the U.S. economy continues to reopen, competition for labor will continue to heat up. How can we in the fenestration industry compete with other industries for new workers?
Every few months a complete supply chain update for the building product world is published by Gilbane. It is an excellent resource and for the longest time glass was always listed as “stable” in the three main categories of price, inventories, and deliveries. That is no longer the case as in the latest release glass is now noted as “increasing” under the price category, and “stabilizing” under the other two.
Having a robust social media presence is key to furthering awareness of your brand, gaining customer leads and getting more clicks to your website. However, as social media platforms change, so do their features. Specific to Instagram Business accounts, here are some tools you already have available to you and how to apply them.
Since the pandemic started, I have pretty much made it a mission not to talk specifically about anything directly connected to it. This post however I am going to break that approach. Reason being is I am curious on what companies are doing with regards to the vaccination process.