Recently, I had the privilege to speak to and visit with many contractors in the beautiful country of New Zealand. Proud of their Kiwi Bird and their Kiwi fruit, these contractors were some of the nicest people I’ve met anywhere. And their appreciation for the United States is tremendous, as they will quickly tell you.
While “on assignment,” I took time to visit job sites and to interview a host of “Kiwi” contractors, owners and leaders, about their current challenges in the construction industry. I found three very real issues and will address the first one in this article.
First, the challenge to find good talent continues as their #1 challenge and issue. As one owner told me, “Brad, we are in a real threat of maintaining many of our construction companies due to the lack of a generation of workers coming up.” As this contractor expanded, he confirmed so many things that I’ve heard all across the United States and sadly, what I’ve heard voiced in Europe, the United Kingdom, and many area of Indonesia, South America, and Australia.
As contractor Ben McMillan shared, “We are having to go through maybe, two, even three times the number of candidates for hire than we did just five or six years ago. It’s a real time waster ‘mate,’ and that’s just the beginning. After we find a candidate, and hire them, we are spending a longer amount of time training them on just the basics of the trade like the tools used and the equipment purposes.”
This sentiment was shared by several contractors in a session I led on how to move the “Gen Z” generation forward in our industry. Most in attendance confessed that they have never seen so much time spent on recruiting and training. And as they also have found, this effort is fast becoming the way of business, the “new normal.”
Finally, here are some things that I shared with the construction owners and leaders in almost all my workshops. (Even when I was discussing another topic, the audience always wanted to circle back to this employment issue.)
- Start engaging the cell phone in training by recording each of the important tasks for the company. Then, accessing either an App or software, simply do a “voice over” describing the actions being taken.
- Always start all learning with the “Why?” behind why we are doing each task before we explain the “How” and “What” that executes the filmed tasks.
- Start and continue to employee a “buddy system” with new workers as building relationships is still key to attracting and holding on to employees.
- Intentionally talk to new workers more often, asking them how they are doing, feeling, and what they would like more support with learning. We must admit that it will take longer to educate many of our new and younger workers as many have not simply performed any construction related work…ever!
- Finally, reach out to educational outlets anywhere they can to talk to students about your trade and company. I’m convinced there are many students who just haven’t been exposed to the many benefits to construction such as working with their hands, working outside (versus stuck in a fast-food environment perform the same old boring procedures every day), and contributing to building something that will be around for a long time.
This first challenge is not a surprise to many of you as we face the same issues. However, like the Kiwi Owners and Leaders, you too have to determine how you will prepare tomorrow’s workforce. As my contractor friend, Ben told me, “Brad, it’s either instruct or destruct.”
Next in this short series, controlling your cost as a contractor…the Kiwi way.
