Keeping companies recording

Catch it early

Every night a phone sits unused is hours nobody gets back. These are the signs to watch for:

• Today shows a kit that hasn't recorded in 3 nights, or a kit with no recorder.
• A company's recorded hours in Companies barely moved since last Monday.
• Rejected hours climb in the numbers at the top of Today.
• The owner takes longer to answer you.

The first two weeks matter most. That is when crews learn the setup, and it is when most rejected video happens. Check in after the first shift, after the first few nights and at the end of week two. The ramp-up plan gives the owner the same timeline.

Why companies slow down

A recorder leaves

Crews change. When a recorder leaves or moves to another shift, that phone sits until someone else wears it, and Today shows it as a kit with no recorder.

1. Ask the owner who will take the phone. Pick someone on a regular shift who wants to do it. Recording is each person's choice.
2. The new person reads the crew sheet and says yes before recording.
3. They make their own account in the recording app, with their own personal email and the company's invite code. Nobody records on someone else's account.
4. They follow the kit guide and record a short test before their first shift.
5. The owner tells Colby before anyone new records on that phone. The recording app links accounts to phones, so if the last person lost their account, a new account on that phone can look like the same person coming back.

A site says no

The company needs an OK from each building or site before anyone records there. A manager can say no, or say yes and change their mind later. When that happens, the crew stops recording there the same day.

• Record at the sites that said yes. A building client is worth far more to the owner than a few hours of video, so the owner shouldn't push.
• Help the owner ask at other sites with the building letter.
• Medical and dental offices, schools, daycares and government buildings may say no, or allow only some rooms. Ask the manager to write the allowed rooms on the letter.

• Getting your building client's OKAn owner guide you can send.

A phone breaks, goes missing or won't upload

Colby runs the phones, so phone problems go to Colby. Rule out the simple causes first.

1. Uploads: after each shift, the phone joins Wi-Fi and uploads, with the app left open until it finishes. A phone that never reaches Wi-Fi sends nothing.
2. Charge: the phone and the battery pack are charged before every shift.
3. If the phone is broken, lost or still won't work, the owner or you write to Colby support with the company name and which phone. Colby works out a fix or a replacement.
4. Under its contract, the company is responsible for loss or damage at a job site beyond normal wear. The paperwork explains it for owners.

Comfort counts too. Recorders have said the strap felt too small, the phone shook, or they needed a head light to see the work. A recorder who is uncomfortable stops wearing the phone, so ask about fit at your first check-in and tell Colby support what you hear.

Rejections wear the crew down

Nothing slows a crew like a week of work that doesn't count. Most rejected video comes in the first nights, and most of it has one cause: the phone isn't aimed down at both hands.

• Phone aimed forward or up, so the hands are out of the picture. This is the most common cause.
• Phone on the chest or neck. It is not accepted, and a recorder who keeps doing it is removed.
• Time that isn't work, like a drive, a long break or the phone set down. It can get an account shut off at once, with no warning.
• A strap that slips during the shift.

1. Ask the owner what feedback Colby sent.
2. Have each recorder do the 10-second test from the kit guide before the shift: both hands in the middle of the picture.
3. Fix it before recording more. Recording the same way after feedback piles up rejections and strikes, and repeated strikes shut off an account.
4. Remind the crew that the review checks the video, not the person.

A recorder removed over camera placement can't come back under a new account. Don't help anyone try: the app matches new accounts to the phones removed recorders used.

• Helping crews improve
• Why hours get rejected

The owner gets busy

When replies slow down and kits sit, the program has slipped down the owner's list. Call instead of texting.

• Ask what is working and what is in the way. Then listen.
• Bring your Monday notes: hours recorded and accepted.
• Make the next step small, like one recorder back on one shift.
• Remind them that their own hours page at colby.ing/portal shows each recorder's hours and points out phones that haven't recorded in over a week.
• If they want to stop, ask why, thank them and leave the door open.

Seasons and schedules

Some work slows at certain times of year: landscaping and farm work in winter, construction with the weather, hotels and restaurants with travel. Schedules change too, when a company wins or loses a contract.

• Ask each owner early which part of the year is slow for them.
• Move phones to work that is running: indoor jobs, another crew, another site that said yes.
• Tell Colby early when an owner wants more phones for a busy stretch.

Lessons from the first companies

• Rejected video bunches up in a crew's first nights. Once the setup is fixed, most of the video that follows is accepted.
• Recording the same way after a note about phone placement has cost recorders their accounts.
• In the first weeks, several recorders got strikes and a few lost their accounts. Most of it came from camera placement. Recording time that wasn't work cost an account at once.
• Video often reached Colby hours after the shift, because phones upload once they reach Wi-Fi. A quiet morning is not a stopped company.
• Some kits arrived without their printed sheet. Sending the kit guide link to the crew's phones covered the same steps.

When a company stops

Some companies stop for good, and they show as Not moving forward in Companies. When a company's contract ends, it ships the phones back with a prepaid label from Colby. Ask what would bring it back, and keep the owner in People with a follow-up date a few months out.

Questions

Read next

• Helping crews improveYou can raise a company's accepted hours without seeing a single video: watch the numbers in your portal, call the owner early, send the crew sheet and the kit guide, and give one clear fix at a time.
• Why hours get rejectedNearly every rejected hour comes from a short list of causes: a camera in the wrong place or aimed wrong, a picture that drifts or goes dark, work that is not real, the wrong task, or something private in view. Each one has a quick fix.
• Phones and kitsWhat comes in a camera kit, how Colby sets up each phone, how kits ship, and what to do when a phone breaks, goes missing or changes hands.
• The first six weeksWhat to check in a new company's first six weeks, what good looks like at each stage, and the warning signs to act on early.