The following answers ran in the March 2016 issue of Construction Business Owner in our Ask the Experts column.
A company’s main asset is their employees. Without an engaged workforce, businesses can’t remain successful. It’s difficult when leaders are wearing many hats, but HR should be one of the top priorities, with a focus on attracting and retaining top talent. We coach our clients about the importance of having an online recruiting presence, even when you aren’t hiring. Also, keep in mind, today many job seekers are using their phones to find jobs through social media or website career pages. So on top of having a web presence, your career page must be mobile-friendly for potential employees to research and apply to your company even when they are on the go. Another strategy to combat the labor shortage is to retain your current workforce. Developing your current employees’ skillsets to prepare them for future positons within your company is one way to do this. Provide relevant training that paves a career path within your company. When you invest in your employees, they will invest their skills and loyalty in your company. Knowing this, retention will become a compliment to your recruiting strategy.
The industry can support pre-apprentice training both in high schools and for under-unemployed adults. My organization, Colorado Construction Institute, is a nonprofit workforce development organization in Colorado that has partnered with our local Home Builders Association (HBA) to do both of these. To learn more about what we have accomplished, please look at buildingpathways.org and denveryouthbuild.org. We also partner with the Home Builders Institute (part of NAHB) and support their pre-apprentice training curriculum with our Construction Training Toolkit, available at CCItoolkit.org. If anyone wants more information about how we got this done in our state, please reach out to me at michael.smith@ccidenver.org.
Findings from FMI’s recent Talent Development Survey and Millennials in Construction research indicate that construction firms might be missing the mark when it comes to engaging and developing employees in the workforce. The problem is that many companies go through the motions and offer training as a means to keep people up to speed on skills. Such training is commonly offered within a vacuum, and isn’t tied to a comprehensive career plan or long-term performance goals. To overcome these obstacles, companies need to start developing formal learning and career plans. Here’s how to get started:
- Define critical skills and behaviors.
- Develop ways to assess and measure current competencies and skill levels within the workforce.
- Define processes to support and build new skills for younger or inexperienced employees.
- Develop well-thought-out career plans that allow employees to understand the knowledge and skills they will need to progress through the organization. Without clear career plans, millennials particularly may feel like they have plateaued or are stuck and look for their next opportunity outside of your company.
By listening to their younger workforce and by factoring in their individual career aspirations and plans, construction firms can develop individual training programs that help strengthen the entire organization and engage their workforce long term.
