A Sub Is Behind Schedule and Holding Up Your Job (Decision Tree)

Why this matters

A slipping sub is not just their problem. The trades scheduled behind them cannot start, the whole job slides, and the customer sees your job running late, not the sub's. Unlike a no-show, which is a clean binary you react to, a slow slip is easy to ignore until it has cost you a week. The move is to catch the drift early, find out why it is happening, and decide whether you can absorb it or have to intervene.

Start here: how far behind, and does it cascade?

Two questions size the problem before you do anything.

• How far behind are they, against the schedule you agreed to? A day inside a job with float is noise. A pattern of daily slippage is a trend.
• Does the slip cascade? If the sub is on the critical path - the chain of tasks that sets the finish date, where any delay pushes the whole completion - their slip moves everyone behind them and moves the customer's date. If they are off the critical path and have slack, you have room.

A slip that cascades is urgent. A slip with slack is a conversation, not a fire.

Diagnose why they are behind

Do not escalate before you know the cause. It lands in one of four buckets, and each has a different fix.

• Waiting on you. Missing materials you supply, blocked access, a prior trade not finished, a decision you owe them, or a payment you are late on.
• Undermanned or overcommitted. They put too few people on it, or they are juggling your job against a bigger one somewhere else.
• Scope grew. Change orders or field conditions expanded the work without the schedule being reset.
• A real site condition. They hit something genuinely unforeseen that added work.

If the holdup is on your side

Fix it now, and own it. Release the material, clear the access, finish the prior trade, make the decision, or cut the late check. Do not backcharge a sub for a delay you caused, and do not let a your-side holdup fester while you blame the sub. This is the most common hidden cause and the fastest one to clear.

If the sub is undermanned or juggling other jobs

This is where your job is losing a priority contest. Press for a specific recovery plan:

• Get a firm, dated commitment: how many bodies, starting when, finishing what by when. "We will catch up" is not a commitment.
• Offer help only where it actually moves the needle and stays in your lane (staging materials, clearing a dependency), not by self-performing work outside your license.
• If they will not commit to a real recovery and the slip is cascading, escalate to the replace-or-resequence decision below.

If the slip will blow the completion date

When recovery inside the current plan will not save the customer's date, choose a path and communicate early:

• Add resources or overtime, theirs or a second sub in parallel where the work splits cleanly.
• Resequence so trades that can move forward do, while the slow scope catches up off the critical path.
• Partial handoff or replace for the remainder. If the sub cannot recover, bring in a qualified, insured replacement for what is left and document the handoff.

Tell the customer before they discover the slip. Own it as the company, state the concrete new plan, and do not promise a recovery you cannot deliver.

Protect yourself and prevent the next one

• Document the slip: the agreed dates, the actual progress, your attempts to get a commitment, and the impact.
• Backcharge for delay only if the agreement allows it and the fault is genuinely theirs. A delay you contributed to is not a clean backcharge.
• Log the pattern. One recoverable slip is data. A sub who slips on every job is a bench decision before their slip lands on a job with severe timing exposure.

Recap

1. Size it: how far behind, and does it cascade onto the critical path.
2. Diagnose: waiting on you, undermanned, scope grew, or a site condition.
3. Your fault: fix it now, no backcharge.
4. Their fault: get a firm dated recovery commitment or escalate.
5. Date at risk: add resources, resequence, or replace for the remainder, and tell the customer early.

References

• AIA and ConsensusDocs subcontract provisions on delay, cure periods, and non-performance
• Your customer contract's completion-date and sequencing terms
• See related: Holding a Subcontractor to a Schedule; Subcontractor No-Shows: Self-Perform Vs Reschedule Vs Replace Sub Decision Tree