From Institutional Knowledge to a Procore-Backed Onboarding System
Hopkins & Wayson now runs on documented estimating, project management, and accounting processes, with Procore workflows and training guides wired together so a new hire can get up to speed from day one.
CLIENT
Hopkins & Wayson is a commercial general contractor in Owings, Maryland, about 45 minutes from Annapolis, and a family business now generations deep. Under President E. Brian Hall, who has worked there since 1992, the firm has grown to roughly $50 million in revenue, building the retail and commercial projects its clients expand with, from grocery stores to national restaurant and convenience brands. With more growth ahead, the company needed to hire well; it needed a way to pass on how it works.
CHALLENGE
Hopkins & Wayson knew how to build their work; what they did not have was that knowledge written down. Estimating, project management, and accounting all ran on the experience of long-tenured people, and Procore, which the team had used for years, was applied habitually rather than to a documented standard. With a wave of hiring needed to meet demand, that was the real constraint: every new employee had to learn by shadowing a veteran, which is slow and hard to scale.
RESULTS
Ascent delivered a documented operating model across estimating, project management, and accounting, with Procore process maps linked to step-by-step training guides so the tool and the process read as one system. A mid-project addition documented the company’s management process as well. Hopkins & Wayson came away with a written onboarding roadmap that raises new-hire speed to competence, so the firm can grow its team without slowing down.
Could a new hire learn your operation without shadowing your best people?
From Instinct to Institution
Hopkins & Wayson had three decades of know-how running through a handful of people’s heads. We turned that know-how into a documented, Procore-backed operation any new hire can pick up on day one.
Nothing was broken when Hopkins & Wayson called Ascent. This is a 30+ year family business is now several generations deep with a team that has built roughly $50 million in retail and commercial work for clients like grocery chains and national restaurant brands. They knew how to build but didn’t have those processes documented: a lack of standardization that was now a barrier to growth.
Hopkins & Wayson had used Procore for years, but the way they used it lived in habit, not in a documented standard. Every new person learned the ‘Hopkins & Wayson way’ by watching someone else do it, which let the standard drift a little more with each hire and kept onboarding slow no matter how good the tool was.
Where Ascent Went to Work
Ascent brought a three-person team split by lane: process design, Procore, and the estimating-to-operations detail. From there, the work covered the operation end to end:
- Procore Audit and Optimization
- Estimating Process Design
- Project Management Process Design
- Accounting Process Design
- Integrated Process Maps Linked to Procore Steps and Training Guides
- Management Process Design, added mid-engagement at the team’s request
Final Deliverable: A Documented, Procore-Backed Operating System Built for New-Hire Onboarding
“Ascent’s approach was consultative rather than prescriptive, which allowed us to make informed decisions based on the realities of our business.”
— E. Brian Hall, President
Hopkins & Wayson, Inc.
What the Documentation Accomplished
By the end of the engagement, Hopkins & Wayson had a written operating model across estimating, project management, and accounting. These process maps tied directly to the matching Procore steps and a training guide for every task. The software and the process finally read as one system instead of two things a new hire has to reconcile on their own. Partway through, the team asked Ascent to add a review of the management process too, so the same documentation reached how the company is run and how responsibilities get handed out as it grows.
Proof showed up faster than anyone expected: the same day Ascent validated the maps on site, Hopkins & Wayson hired a new estimating assistant, and those maps were her first day of training.
The real payoff is speed to competence: with the operation written down, Hopkins & Wayson can bring on people with less experience and get them productive in a fraction of the time shadowing used to take, which is what lets a busy GC add headcount without adding drag.
The Ceiling Many Growing GCs Hit
For a growing general contractor, a common ceiling on growth is how much of the operation lives in a few people’s heads. A firm can only take on as much work as its veterans can personally oversee and train, and that ceiling tends to show up right when demand is highest. The contractors who push past it write the operation down first, then connect that documentation to the software they already own, so the written way and the daily way are the same thing.
Once a new hire can learn the job from a map instead of a mentor’s spare hours, hiring stops being what’s holding growth back.
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Ready to Make Your Operation Teachable?
If your growth depends on expanding your workforce, the fastest thing you can fix is how long it takes a new person to become useful. Ascent can document your estimating, project management, and accounting, and wire the steps to the Procore workflows your team already uses.