Post-Job Subcontractor Evaluation Template
What this is
A one-page scored evaluation the project manager and superintendent complete when a subcontractor finishes their work. Nine criteria, scored 1 to 5, plus a recommendation and a comment.
It takes ten minutes and it is the only record of how a sub actually performed, as opposed to how their prequalification form said they would.
Why this matters
It is the only objective input to next year's requalification. A prequalification form tells you about a company's finances and history. This form tells you whether they showed up with enough people, cleaned up after themselves, and billed honestly. When you requalify them twelve months from now, this is the file you read.
It is worthless if it is filled in from memory a year later. People remember the last two weeks of a job and the one argument. They do not remember that the sub was three weeks late on submittals in month two, or that they carried the schedule when another trade fell behind. Reconstructed scores are noise, and noise in your sub list is worse than nothing because you will act on it.
Complete it at closeout, while it is fresh. Make it a required item on the job closeout checklist, alongside the as-builts and the final waivers. If the PM's closeout is not signed off until the evaluations are in, they get done.
Evaluate every sub over your prequalification threshold, on every job. Evaluating only the ones who caused problems gives you a file full of complaints and no baseline to compare them against.
When you use it
- At job closeout, for every subcontractor over your threshold
- At the end of a phase, for a sub whose work finishes long before the job does
- Immediately after a termination or a default, while the record is complete
- As the input to annual requalification and to bid list decisions
- When a sub disputes a bid list removal and you need something more than an opinion
How to fill it in
Two people, one form. The project manager and the superintendent see different things. Score it together, or have each score it and reconcile the gaps — the gaps are usually the most interesting part.
Use the anchors. A 3 is genuinely acceptable. If every sub scores 4, the form has stopped measuring anything. Reserve 5 for performance you would point at as an example.
A score below 3 needs a sentence. Not a paragraph, a sentence with a fact in it. "Missed four of six look-ahead commitments in October" is usable. "Poor communication" is not.
Score behavior, not personality. The question is whether they performed, not whether the foreman was pleasant. A blunt sub who hits every date scores higher than an agreeable one who does not.
Do not average away a serious failure. A sub who scores 4s across the board and a 1 on safety is not a 3.6 sub. Safety and paperwork failures should drive the recommendation directly, whatever the arithmetic says.
The template
Job and subcontractor
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Subcontractor | |
| Trade / scope | |
| Project | |
| Job number | |
| Subcontract value, final including change orders | $ |
| Work completed | Date |
| Evaluated by — project manager | |
| Evaluated by — superintendent | |
| Date of evaluation |
Scoring
Score each criterion 1 to 5. Circle or mark one.
1. Schedule performance
1 = Chronically late, missed committed dates, delayed following trades. 5 = Met every committed date, absorbed changes without extending, finished early where possible.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
2. Quality of work
1 = Repeated rework, failed inspections, work rejected by the owner or the design team. 5 = Passed inspections first time, minimal punch list, work others were shown as the standard.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
3. Safety
1 = Recordable incident, repeated violations, PPE and tie-off enforcement required by us. 5 = No incidents, self-policed, JHAs current, competent persons on site, raised hazards early.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
4. Manpower and staffing
1 = Understaffed throughout, crews pulled to other jobs, foreman absent or changed repeatedly. 5 = Staffed to the schedule, added manpower when asked, same competent foreman start to finish.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
5. Paperwork — submittals, pay applications, lien waivers, certificates
1 = Late submittals, rejected pay applications every cycle, expired certificates, chased for everything. 5 = Submittals early and complete, applications clean and on time, waivers correct, coverage never lapsed.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
6. Coordination and cooperation
1 = Worked in isolation, created conflicts with other trades, attendance at meetings unreliable. 5 = Attended with a decision-maker, coordinated ahead of conflicts, helped other trades work around them.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
7. Change order behavior
1 = Priced changes opportunistically, claimed extras for scope, proceeded without authorization, submitted late. 5 = Priced fairly and quickly, flagged scope questions before doing the work, no surprise claims at the end.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
8. Closeout and punch list
1 = Left site, had to be chased for weeks, closeout documents incomplete, punch dragged. 5 = Punch complete within the required period, as-builts and O&Ms delivered without prompting.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
9. Warranty responsiveness
1 = Did not respond, or responded only after escalation. We fixed it and back-charged. 5 = Responded within the required time, fixed it once, no argument about whether it was theirs.
Score: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 Comment: _______________________________
Score 9 may be left open and completed at the end of the warranty period. Mark it
PENDING and diary it.
Total
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Total score, out of 45 | |
| Criteria scored below 3 | |
| Any safety score of 1 or 2 | [ ] Yes [ ] No |
Recommendation
Select one. A comment is required for every option, including the top one.
- Preferred — actively invite on comparable and larger work
- Approved — invite normally, no restrictions
- Conditional — invite only with stated conditions (state them below)
- Do not use again — remove from the bid list
Required comment — what drove this recommendation:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
If conditional, the conditions:
______________________________________________________________________________
Would you use them again
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| On a job of this size and type | [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] With conditions |
| On a larger job | [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] With conditions |
| If no to the larger job, what would need to change |
These two questions carry more information than the total score. Plenty of subs are excellent at their current size and would fail at twice it, and knowing which is which is the point of keeping the file.
Distribution
- Filed to the subcontractor's prequalification record
- Copied to the person who maintains the bid list
- Discussed with the sub, if the recommendation is conditional or worse
- Flagged for the next annual requalification
Notes and common mistakes
Filling it in at the end of the year for every sub at once. This produces one number per sub reflecting whoever was most annoying in December. Do it at closeout or do not do it.
Only evaluating the bad ones. Without evaluations of the good ones, you have no distribution and no way to tell a 3 from a 4. Evaluate everyone over the threshold.
Scores with no comments. A 2 with no explanation is unusable a year later, and it is indefensible if the sub asks why they were dropped. One factual sentence is enough.
Never telling the sub. If the recommendation is conditional or worse, tell them, and tell them what would change it. Most subs fix the thing. A sub who is quietly dropped never learns why and you lose a supplier you could have kept.
Letting one bad job end a ten-year relationship. Read the evaluation against their history. A sub with eight good jobs and one bad one had a bad job. A sub with two evaluations and both are bad has a pattern.
Not using it at requalification. The form exists to feed the next decision. Pull the evaluations when you run annual requalification and score them alongside the financials in the risk scorecard.
Related Resources
- Performance Evaluation — procedure this form fills
- Annual Requalification — where evaluations feed next year's decision
- Subcontractor Risk Scorecard — financial side of requal