At Harris Home Builders, we take a Holistic approach to building and remodeling. Just like people who practice Naturopathic Healthcare call themselves Holistic Healers, we call ourselves a Holistic Contractor.

What does that mean?

It means a lot, actually. First and foremost, it’s a testament to how much we care about our Customers, our Employees, our projects and our Environment. Just like people become Holistic Healers because they truly want to help people live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives rather than profit off their misery, we became a Holistic Contractor because we also want people to live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives.

How do we do that?

In many ways. The first thing to know is that there are two separate divisions to Harris Home Builders. Our Custom Home Building Division and our Remodeling Division. We operate these divisions in entirely different ways. It’s like two different businesses under the same name.

Due to the nature of each type of work, we run our Custom Home Building division as a General Contractor, and we run our Remodeling division as a Service Contractor. In other words, we provide the majority of all labor in-house on our Remodeling projects because that is what makes the most sense for those kinds of projects; but we hire and manage other Service Contractors in our Custom Home Building division, because that is what makes most on those kinds of projects.

What Holistic Means for You

Let’s first review then, how we are a Holistic Contractor in ways that apply to both divisions. In both divisions we offer Building Biology standards if desired, which you can learn more about here. We also do our best to reduce waste as much as possible.

What Holistic Means for Your Project

Next, let’s review how we apply holistic principles differently to both Remodeling Projects vs. Custom Home Builds.

In Remodeling Projects, we prefer to use mostly in-house labor, having the same trained crew do everything on a project from beginning to end, only subcontracting work that requires special licenses, like plumbers and electricians, or special and very expensive tools, such as hardwood floor refinishers.

Since Remodel Projects are so much smaller than Custom Home Builds and you have to work with many pre-existing conditions, it is much easier to accomplish higher quality by having a small team of well-trained Jack of All Trades do the majority of the labor. They may be a Master of None, but in cases like Remodeling, they are most certainly better than a Master of One.

Not only is it easier to keep scheduling tighter and more predictable, but it is easier to achieve higher quality results in everything this way without having multiple specialists constantly interfering with each other on such a small project.

On the other hand, Custom Home Builds are much larger projects and both scheduling and quality are more easily achieved by using specialists for everything.

What Holistic Means for our Employees

We understand that every human being only has one life. We don’t expect our employees to treat their personal lives as separate from their work lives. We understand full well that the quality of our work depends entirely on the quality of our personal lives. So, we put a large focus on not only helping our employees improve their work, but also improve their personal lives.

We do this in a few ways.

1. We practice Transcendental Meditation every morning before work.
2. We not only provide our employees with Health Savings Plans for work related injuries, but we encourage our Employees to see Holistic Healthcare Professionals such as Chiropractors, Massage Therapists, Acupunturists, and Nutritionists to help them improve their physical well-being, rather than just manage their illness.
3. We don’t judge them when they have a personal crisis to deal with. We may even help them out by allowing them to take paid time off to deal with crises.
4. We provide them with excellent work/life balance by only requiring them to work 6 hour shifts, 4 days a week.

If that last one seems shocking, consider this: Over a two year period, I kept strict records of time vs. productivity, with detailed descriptions and pictures and I discovered that, due to many different psychological and physical principles, the average person achieves an average of 25 hours of productivity in a 40 hour work week consisting of five 8-hour days.

After experimenting around with different schedules, I discovered the most efficient schedule is 6 hour days, 4 days per week, because in that schedule, the average person will achieve 24 hours of productivity within those 24 hours. The only caveat is there is no room for break times. But at these hours, break times aren’t needed.

So, I’ve decreased our working hours and increased their hourly pay to make up the difference and everyone is happier. The employees are happier because they are less stressed with better work life balance at the same pay. You’re happier because you’re getting higher quality work. I’m happier because everyone is more productive with the time they have, work and scheduling and payroll expenses are more predictable. Now, if only I could find a way to share in that better work-life balance myself.

The Harris Home Builders Family

We understand that we’re all human beings, not machines. We don’t operate like a typical corporation with strict policies that often dehumanize their employees and customers. Instead, we take a purely holistic approach to everything, we understand that everything is connected and needs to be managed as a whole, whether that be a Customer, a Project or our Employees.

Some companies like to call themselves a “Family” but they do anything except treat their employees and customers the same way they treat their own family members. Or if they do, then I feel bad for their family.

At Harris Home Builders, we take the concept of being a Family Owned Business to the max. We understand that our employees and customers are not actually our family members, but that doesn’t mean we should treat them any differently.

At Harris Home Builders, you can expect us to treat you and your project the very same as if we were working for our own parents or grandparents, siblings or cousins. The same is also true with our employees.

This is what we mean when we call ourselves a Holistic Contractor.

Ready to get your project started? Give us call today at 860-817-7191 or Click Here to schedule your own appointment.

To learn more about us, visit our About Us page.