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see some of the complaints. Almost all the excavator complaints I see have to do with 811 requests not marked by the utility companies on time.
In the first seven months of 2023,
the ICC has surpassed its previous record annual dollar amount of willful violation penalties.
In the case of late 811 ticket responses, the utilities receive the ICC penalties although virtually all of these locates are performed by contract locators. The contract locating company typically pays, however, due to a contractual agreement with their clients.
Will these penalties motivate the contract locating company to hire more locators? Well, the locating companies say not a lot of people out there want to become a locator and no amount of penalty money is going to change that.
If successfully addressing late 811 locates is a priority, the locating industry must improve people’s perception of locating as a career path if employers want
to get more people at the top of the hiring funnel. There’s also the issue of retaining people already on the payroll.
Locating Completely and Accurately
Let’s circle back to “the best locators in the world are doing it now” statement. Locating completely and accurately is the basis for what constitutes excellent locating results.
If there were more people wanting
to locate than locating positions, competition would determine who becomes a locator. The odds of customers getting excellent locating results would be much higher in this scenario than if there were more locating jobs than people who wanted those jobs.
Except for 811 locating, the end customer has the final say in who is hired to perform locating work and the timeframe in which the work is completed. The customer can make decisions based on the quality of the locating results received. Competition determines which company wins more work.
There may be a couple of things that work in the favor of these locators, namely vacuum excavation and the absence of stress created by
unpredictable incoming workloads. Construction crew locating may have these advantages, also, as well as enjoying the benefit of working in real-time with the people who need the results.
Career-enhancing Training
I’ve had thousands of conversations over the years with locators regarding their training, and there are too
few career-enhancing learning opportunities after initial training. For most locators, excellence in locating comes only following training later in one’s career. Here are the key areas of strength exhibited by excellent locators:
A. A command of the locating instrument
B. Knowledge of utilities including the ability to determine what structures are associated with which utilities
C. An understanding of how utility maps assist with completeness and accuracy of locating results
A desire to do the work cannot be ignored. A locator can have all the skills
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2024, Issue 1 Arkansas 811 Magazine • 5