Collaboration is Key in Facing Labour Shortage

The Labour Shortage is here, it is no longer looming, it is here. A quick 30 second Google search on Construction Shortages pulls up web page after web page with titles screaming:

“Labour Shortages Holding Back the Construction Industry”;

“As Construction Worker Shortages Worsen…”; and,

“Canada Needs to Act Now or Face Construction Shortages.”

My friends, the labour shortage is no longer looming, it is here.

Due to a reduction in people entering the construction space, compounded with the retirement of experienced members, we are scrambling to find an immediate solution. Current practice is for construction firms to pull bodies out of the depleting population of trained workers, creating a “candidate's’ market”. Candidates know the industry is hurting for their skills and experience, so they retort back “pay up”. Inflated salaries, an unstable candidate pool, and constant talent poaching means the industry is clamouring to put out internal personnel fires.

Is this sustainable? Unlikely.

What is a company to do?

I have a suggestion, let’s stop hurting one another and the industry overall. Hear me out.

The population of skilled and experienced individuals is dwindling; yet, Canada has a population of 37 million and growing (which I should also point out, means construction will continue to grow).

Taking into consideration Baby Boomers, other career fields, disabilities and so on … I believe it is not a shortage of bodies, but a shortage of skills. This is a significant revelation and opportunity for us.

Illustration of our current situation: Not enough people, too many construction projects. Projects increasing, people decreasing.

The industry is fighting over existing skills and experiences (short term solution); however, we should be working together to create a sustainable and holistic ecosystem of new people with new skills and experiences coming into the space (long term solution).

I also advocate for the ROI in a holistic long-term model. Training, mentoring, and growing new talent can look costly upfront, but it can also mitigate industry losses significantly over time. Consider the following:

·      Healthy and Safety practices and insurance increasing;

·      Tighter profit margins due to salaries increases, jobs delay’s, etc…;

·      Potential for increased change orders due to experience gap;

·      Lack of “management ready” personnel to infill the retirees; and,

·      Financial cost of employee turn-over and cultural cost of same

The list can go on.

I am one of the Co-Founders of NextGen Professional and we wholeheartedly believe in a collaborative approach to bridging this gap. The resources are here, in Canada, scattered throughout Union Halls, Member Affiliations, Not-For-Profits, and construction firms. NextGen is mapping out these resources and bringing them to the table to create a holistic and collaborative plan to tackle the shortages and ensure future generations do not experience a similar dilemma.

Currently, we work with several post secondary institutions to gather, vet and qualify students graduating from construction relevant programs. We prepare them, give them resources, and match them with progressive firms committed to protecting their future. Once our NextGen alumni are nestled into their place of work, we stay with them. We work with our alumni over the course of one year, placing them into a leadership program that includes one-on-one coaching. Our leadership coaches come from the construction industry and act as a catalyst to prepare our juniors for career advancement sooner.

NextGen (actively running for 8 months now) has successfully hired six Project Coordinators. We are actively engaged in our leadership series, holding in-class seminars and providing one-on-one personalized coaching to our new eager junior industry members.

You might be thinking, “This is not enough, we need more”, and that would be the absolute truth.

NextGen preaches collaboration, we propose a rallying of sorts, to come together under one banner and say “let’s fix this together!”.

The best way I can illustrate this point is to appeal to the construction professional in all of us. If you want to build a bridge, you would need a team of Engineers, Owners, Consultants, Subtrades, General Contractors, etc… The bridge we propose to build is the bridge to close the gap, we are calling out to the industry to create the Team. NextGen Professional cannot do this on our own.

We appreciate that this article may not be for some readers and it is not for the faint of heart. What we propose is a huge undertaking and accept that there is no cure-all. The compounding issues of how we got to these shortages in the first place are incredibly complex and therefore we (and experts alike) feel the solution needs to be multifaceted. We need to repopulate what we have lost, what we will lose, but we also need to grow.

If you are in management and you are looking at the next 5, 10, 15, 20+ years to come, and find yourself shaking your head in uncertainty, keep reading.

What is utopia? Is it a self-sustaining ecosystem of individuals readily entering the construction industry, fully trained, with a leaders mindset, starting on projects? Could we work together to accomplish this?

That utopia defines the NextGen initiative. We are bridging the skills, age and experience gap through a collaborative and integrated approach. Studies have shown there is a belief that a career in construction isn’t attractive anymore. We are making the public aware of the amazing, viable and long-lived careers available within our precious industry. Through the pooling of resources, we can make construction attractive again. We can properly train and engage our younger generation to fill the void not just with their bodies, but with their skills.

NextGen is putting out the battle cry for action on media and industry platforms such as Linkedin, Daily Commercial News, Access Canada, to name a few. We are pounding the pavement to engage progressive and forward-thinking industry members to join our cause.

If you are interested in learning more about the NextGen initiative, please find us online at www.nextgenprofessional.com/join-us

Alternatively, you can reach out to me (Agnes Watkinson) directly on Linkedin and review our postings of events, seminars, articles, podcasts, and success stories.