At this year’s AFPM National Occupational & Process Safety Conference and Exhibition, we presented how contractors can build a successful workforce. Here are the top 10 ways industry can accomplish this: Improve its image, increase recruitment, offer competitive compensation packages, promote training, provide favor-able working conditions, offer safety training, outline opportunities for advancement to employees, provide superior leadership, promote careers not jobs and, finally, treat employees with respect.
“A successful workforce is one that is large enough to meet client needs and is highly skilled, highly productive, has a strong focus on safety and a positive work ethic,” said Bob Parker, president of Repcon. “Unfortunately, the construction industry is lacking in many of these areas. Instead, we have an increasing shortage of skilled craft professionals, declining skill levels, increased safety risks and declining productivity.”
According to recent data from the Construction Labor Market Analyzer, 1.5 million new craft professionals are needed by 2019. This issue is not a contractor problem or an owner problem; it is an industry problem, and it is imperative we work together to solve it. One of the many entities that are working to address the industry’s workforce issues is NCCER, which focuses on three fundamental aspects of workforce development: recruitment, training and retention.
“The first step to developing a successful workforce is recruitment,” said Steve Greene, vice president of NCCER. “We must improve industry’s image if we want to attract the next generation of craft professionals. Demographics are changing, and we need to recruit more minorities, women and veterans.”
We also need to have a greater presence in our schools and introduce students to construction career opportunities at an early age. NCCER’s Construction Career Pathways initiative provides practical resources to help drive collaboration among industry and education to promote successful career paths for America’s youth. Industry and education representatives looking to collaborate locally can even list their information on NCCER’s connection map.
In addition to the Construction Career Pathways initiative, NCCER’s Build Your Future (BYF) initiative strives to make career and technical education a priority in secondary schools, shift the public’s negative perception about careers in construction and provide a path from ambition to job placement. BYF also focuses on recruiting military through its Hard Hat Heroes program, which provides industry-leading resources and opportunities for contractors and transitioning service members. In addition, NCCER and its publisher, Pearson, have committed to donate $1 mil-lion worth of online Core Curriculum copies to partnering organizations to train incoming military members.
Training is the next step to developing the industry’s workforce. Research from the Construction Industry Institute shows training programs can benefit employers in the form of increased productivity and decreased turnover, absenteeism, injuries and rework. NCCER’s standardized craft training process includes competency-based curricula that lead to industry-recognized, portable credentials. In addition, NCCER’s craft assessment and certification program validates the skills journey-level craft professionals have obtained and provides training prescriptions for upgrade training in areas where individuals need improvement.
The last step in building a successful workforce is retaining skilled craft professionals. By providing a robust safety culture, competitive compensation packages, effective leadership, opportunities for advancement, favorable working conditions and well-planned projects, we can maintain a sustainable workforce for generations to come. Contractors and owners must work together and commit to recruiting, training and retaining our industry’s next generation of craft professionals.
For more information, visit www.nccer.org or contact NCCER’s workforce development team at (888) 622-3720.
