Fifteen Ways to Fight the Labor and Skills Gap in Construction

Workforce issues are a major challenge for businesses. Businesses are trying to find better labor, while the labor force as a whole continues to shrink. More specifically, according to PwC, CHROs and HR leaders say that frontline labor shortages cause a bigger challenge than any other workforce issue. Solving for an aging workforce, a lack of skilled labor to hire, and the struggles of retaining employees is critical for construction companies looking for success going forward.

And that problem is not going away. Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) found that the construction industry needs to hire an additional 501,000 people on top of the normal hiring pace for 2024 to meet labor demands. So with hiring continuing to be a major need, construction companies have to find ways to retain their current workers and set them up for success.

Here are 15 tips for construction leaders to both improve retention of current employees, and narrow the skills gap in construction.

Retaining current employees

• Better bidding: Bidding takes a tremendous amount of work. From estimating materials and timelines to figuring out how to be competitive with costs, bidding is a stressful process. An accurate bid means no late surprises for either the owner, or the bidding company. And without successful bids, you won’t have work for your team. Better bidding – with automated information tracking and trusted data – means less stress, less Gray Work, fewer headaches, and more confidence. And, quicker bidding means the opportunity to win more work on new bids.To start, Quickbase’s CRM and Bid Management app pulls in all the key data you need to manage bids effectively.
• Safety regulations that match – and exceed – key safety requirements: No employee likes being unsafe. Not only does it lead to bad morale, but it can put your organization at risk of being out of compliance with the latest regulations. No wonder that safety education accounts for the greatest share of total workforce investment, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. Ensuring that your organization has safety requirements that go beyond OSHA’s needs, or the needs of HSE or other safety standards, will make your workforce confident that you care about their wellbeing. You can get started quickly with Quickbase’s OSHA Recordkeeping and Incident Reporting app.
• Better safety documentation: It’s not just the requirements, being able to document safety needs directly from the field removes the risk of missing an incident. Further, it allows for your team to save time and document incidents immediately, without wasting time on manual processes. A platform with the right mobile capabilities is the first step towards solving this.
• Connecting disconnected systems: Don’t waste time on tracking information in multiple systems, needing to reconcile data to find out where equipment is or where your project’s budget stands. Find a platform that can unite your data into one central view, allowing for confident project management and confident workers.
• Clear paths for professional development: Your employees want to be sure they can grow with their organization. Laying out clear paths for employees to move to superintendent, project manager, or whatever role they desire will keep your employees engaged and performing well.
• Simple skills tracking: Putting your employees in a position to succeed will make sure that they don’t waste time on tasks they don’t have the capabilities to do, but more importantly it will make sure you have your labor force lined up to the skills you need.
• Employee satisfaction surveys: ensure that your employees have a clear line of feedback with satisfaction surveys, so you won’t be surprised if workers leave because of a specific reason.
• Strong communication across teams: Oftentimes, things like language barriers and lack of available information can make communicating difficult. Keep key data handy, and make sure that people who work in other languages have ways to communicate with their fellow workers.
• Ensure leadership visibility: with leadership visible to people in the field, workers will know that they are trusted – and that they can trust their leaders.

Navigating the lack of skilled labor

• Track work directly in the field: When your skilled labor is wasting time tracking processes manually in the field, they’re not putting their skills to use as effectively as possible. Mitigate wasted time with the ability to track information in the field and communicate directly with the back office. FastField is a tremendous way to do this.
• Prefabrication and modular construction: Doing more work centrally can reduce the impact of lacking people to send to the field. Prefabrication can get work done without sending people into the field – and can be easily tracked with a Quickbase application. Similarly, with modular construction, 95% of construction is completed off-site, so lacking skilled labor in remote locations is not as much of a burden.
• Optimize your existing talent: Manage your schedules and adjust teams, worksites, and workload quickly as unexpected developments influence your plans. Don’t let new issues throw your teams off – centrally managed schedules are critical to reducing wasted time and frustrated employees.
• Materials and digital information tracked centrally: By tracking your information centrally, you can make sure that you’re not wasting time with labor on-site waiting for the right materials or equipment. Similarly, you can make sure you have accurate information and don’t have to waste time cross-checking what’s the latest.
• Upskilling programs: According to Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), their members spent more than $1.6 billion on upskilling last year. This commitment means that they are committing to getting more out of their employees.
• Rotational programs: similar to upskilling, rotational programs will allow for people to learn a number of different skills in a targeted manner. Tracked in a tool like Quickbase, you can get your workers with potential exposure to a number of critical skills to get them up and running where you need them.