Construction's career crisis: Keeping workers on site and in the industry

Quite simply, many people aren’t aware of the career they could have in construction.

That’s a large reason experts say construction is struggling to find and keep workers who build careers, rather than just work jobs. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, larger numbers of the older workforce have retired than was expected, as some waited within the safety of their homes before evaluating their next career step.

At the same time, high schools seem to make college the only option for students, and it’s harder for some young people to see a future in construction.

“From a trade school side, this goes back to our industry, and that we have to do a better job at raising awareness. You don’t have to go to college to be successful,” Chad Goodfellow, CEO of Goodfellow Bros., a Hawaii-based contractor, told Construction Dive. “Our employees in the trades often enter at [a] higher salary than our college graduates, with much less student debt.”

Retention begins with recruiting

A key to the skilled labor crisis, experts said, is ensuring that workers know they can have a long and successful career in construction, and not merely view it as a job or a one-time gig.

In order to do that, it’s vital the trades let workers know that they can learn and become an expert in a skillset that will be marketable anywhere in the world, said Greg Sizemore, vice president of health, safety, environment and workforce development at Associated Builders and Contractors.

Sizemore, who is based in Washington, D.C., joked that, despite it being the capital of the country, “the smartest person in the city during a heat wave is the one who knows how to fix the air conditioning.” That’s a skill that will always be needed.

But it must also be clear to construction workers that their path through the industry may not be a vertical ladder; many times workers walk on the jobsite with one job, and have three or four very different ones by the time the project is complete, Sizemore said. When a worker understands how they can advance, even if it’s not a vertical ladder, they’re more likely to commit to their job and appreciate leadership.

Training leadership

The skills required to help construct a building and those required to manage a jobsite are not the same. Nevertheless, often the managers running billion dollar jobsites were, at one point, just holding a shovel, said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives for the Associated General Contractors of America.

As a result, it’s vital to train emerging leaders in the skills required to be a boss, something both AGC and ABC have invested heavily in. As much as employers need to invest in training their workforce, they need to invest in training leaders as well, Turmail said.

That can create a beneficial cycle, said Goodfellow, whose business boasts a high employee retention rate.

“To me, a key piece of what makes this work is that you have to have your skilled superintendents and other longtime staff committed to bringing up less experienced employees who are entering the workforce,” he said. “When you have that, then you are able to build that next generation of leaders.”

As simple as salary?

For union workers, salary is negotiated before construction can even begin, which can make it easier for some workers to build careers, said Sean McGarvey, president of the North American Building Trades Union.

When workers, union or not, see the salaries of the higher-ups in corporate America, they can be left with a sour attitude, McGarvey said. They’re the ones on site doing the hard work, and they often know the value they create.

But according to Anirban Basu, chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors, that’s not always the case. 

Increasingly, Basu said, contractors value other aspects of their workplace than just the salary, and, especially in a pandemic, are willing to settle for less money if it means more comfortable and safe working conditions. 

Communicating safety, creating comfort

It’s largely Generation Z, the youngest generation in the workforce, that cares more about work conditions than pay, Basu said. As a result, if they have the option for a slightly lower paying job, but with more predictability, both in the physical location of their workspace and dangers of their work, they’re likely to choose that one. In many cases, this leads workers away from construction.

Construction’s safety practices as a whole have increased in the past few years, said Sizemore. Nevertheless, construction is an industry that can be dangerous and requires constant vigilance on the jobsite.

It’s up to the contractor and the jobsite managers to continue to make safety not just a high priority, but a recruiting tool. A simple step is for a contractor to prove that its injury rate is below the national average, Sizemore said. By indicating the company is a safety leader, it can create an air of trust before a worker steps foot onto the jobsite. 

Beyond safety, there can be uncertainty in the workplace, as it is constantly changing. Workers can have different tasks day to day, or find themselves going to several different jobsites frequently. Either way, it’s a challenge to staff some jobsites that are far away, or inconsistent.

Goodfellow Bros. has had success, Goodfellow said, by assigning workers to jobsites close to their homes. That could be easier for regional contractors, like Goodfellow, which does work in Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. 

But workers aren’t just after feeling safe and comfortable in their routine, Basu said, there is also an important element of respect that the emerging workforce expects at their jobs.

Changing the culture

Some sociologists have suggested that younger workers, both Gen Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — and millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — are more sensitive to criticism, Basu said. While not wanting to stereotype across generations, Basu said it’s vital that workers know they are respected and valued at work in order to keep them.