How To Attract And Retain Workers In The Future, Part 1
By Ted Garrison, Garrison Associates
The construction industry needs a paradigm shift in the way it deals with the workforce. The industry must develop a pro-worker environment because nothing less will attract and retain the necessary workers.
The industry must understand and accept the fact that the workforce is not being unreasonable. Considering factors such as income, stress, physical demands, potential growth, job security and working environment, higher wages may be needed to balance the equation. While the compensation issues can’t be ignored, other issues may be more important.
A contractor once told me, “I have a bunch of stiffs working for me.” Exactly – they were bored stiff. Because the industry has had difficulty finding and retaining a sufficient number of skilled craftspeople, jobs have been dumbed down. While this works in the short term, it drives away the best workers. The industry must find ways to increase the complexity to attract the best skilled workers and achieve the resulting higher productivity and performance.
The labor shortage is real. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that by the year 2010 there will more than 10 million unfilled jobs in the United States. Today the average age of construction trade workers is 56. That means that more than half of construction workers are scheduled to retire within the next nine years, causing an enormous problem—a huge brain drain.
Based on current demographics, it’s unlikely the industry can replace the number of people retiring, let alone deal with the increased demands. However, ignoring them will place your company at risk.
Greater Flexibility
The industry must become more flexible in its business conduct. It must seek solutions, not justify outdated practices. Greater flexibility is required in the working environment, in the learning process and in compensation. Flexibility is a win-win situation that often pays off for the employer.
Flexible work environment: A flexible work environment includes flexible time, reduced time and flexible places. These issues may have the largest resistance because of their perceived disruption. While they involve numerous stakeholders and can be complex, these steps should be considered. A few specific changes are outlined below.
• Flexible work hours: For example, why can’t workers work four 10-hour days? This would create three-day weekends for workers who desire greater life balance while still providing a makeup day for bad whether. Saturdays could also be an optional makeup day for those not reaching forty hours of work for the week. Also, if projects had 10-hour days, then other workers could have a range of time when they could show up for work.
• Employment guarantee: One of the major negatives about the construction industry is the off time. For example, during the winter season, many northern contractors lay off their craftspeople. Then in the spring they act surprised that the workforce has shrunk. Combining various options to create a realistic solution can reduce this challenge. Cross training would also help reduce the required workforce.
• Leadership: The industry needs to focus on managing through leadership, which appeals to the majority of workers, instead of command and control. Today’s worker wants to be led and assume responsibility for his performance—not bossed around. The industry needs today’s workers to use their brains to improve productivity and profitability.
Flexible learning: The industry must invest more in training because the best solution to the labor shortage is to increase productivity. Since the industry’s efficiency is about 40 percent, if the industry doubles its productivity to 80 percent, it would cut the labor demand in half. This isn’t a ridiculous goal.
Greater flexibility is needed in cross training, but it could actually lower the demand for workers. This has often been resisted, but that was when there was a surplus of workers, not a shortage. Young workers want to be engaged sooner, so their training needs to be revised to reflect that requirement. Instead of forcing new workers to go to school at night, the industry should consider paying them to go to class during work hours one day a week. This is necessary because other industries do that. If the construction industry wants to compete, it must adapt.
Flexible compensation: Profit sharing for craftspeople is probably needed. Again, the reason is simple: other industries are offering this incentive. One possible approach is to establish a fair core wage and allow it to be adjusted automatically when profits increase. This gives the worker a stake in productivity.
There needs to be flexibility in individual compensation. When workers are compensated for high performance, it encourages high performance. When profit sharing exists, all the workers benefit from the high performers, so no one will complain.
Finally, the industry needs to develop some kind of health program to cover all its workers at a reasonable rate. Health benefits represent the single largest fear held by today’s workers. If the industry doesn’t find a way to provide this coverage, then it will have trouble attracting quality workers.
Time is of the essence! Unless the industry begins adapting its labor policies immediately, the consequences could be dire.
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Ted Garrison, president of Garrison Associates, is a consultant, author and speaker to the construction industry. Ted is the host of the Internet radio program, New Construction Strategies. He can be reached at Ted@TedGarrison.com.
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