According to Gallup national polling, employee engagement is at a 30-year low.
They report that only 31% of people consider themselves highly engaged. 17% report being unengaged. And 52% are in the middle – not all in or out.
At the same time, the construction industry has a profound need for talent that is increasing and a retirement curve going up. And finally, almost every contractor that I work with is in serious growth mode – needing more leaders (Supers, FM and PMs) and more craft than ever before.
So how to strategically address these challenges? Well for sure, you can’t get what you pay for.
What I mean here is that the solution for the last 75 years in this business is to pay your way out of the talent challenge. Pay more than the competition. Increase money over reasonable scale to retain. Hire retreads. Overpay young players with promise. A transactional relationship of talent and time bought by ever increasing dollars. Well, that stale, unimaginative and ineffective strategy is over.
You can’t get what you pay for means you cannot use just money to get or keep the best talent in this industry any longer. Of course money is always important and you need to be competitive. But if you want to be the destination employer for that 31% of highly engaged; be the place that high potentials want to make a career; or insulate yourself from competition paying stupid money – you are going to need to focus on three other factors that will profoundly improve your prospects.
- Specific investment in learning and development including leadership commitment, dedicated staff and a plan of action. You are selling employee value and career path development vs your competition. A culture of constant and ongoing investment. This is mandatory with Millennial and Gen Z talent. Consider what you spend on safety each year vs learning and development then ask yourself honestly where is there more operational and economic benefit on the table? Where is the long-term payoff from a direct ROI standpoint? Two other things; don’t hire a training manager – hire a Learning and Development professional – and don’t put them under HR. This is a separate discipline with its own bottom line calculus.
- Make sure you are focused on the field. This includes training and development for foremen and superintendents; effective communication to and from the field (including good social media); strong and effective feedback and evaluation processes. And finally making sure the office and administration folks understand that everyone works for the field. Their success drives everyone’s. Visible respect and support go a long way.
- Finally, make sure that you have a strong mentoring culture. This one is super important for retention vs money. Having effective mentoring across the organization tempers that phone call from a competitor or recruiter offering more money. Add Mentor of the Year Awards for both field and office
Every contractor I know has had someone leave unexpectedly. Every contractor I know is overpaying some talent. Every contractor has ambitions to grow and talent is the challenge. Every contractor I know understands and agrees to the strategies outlined here – but underperforms on most of them. The market is telling us all, that the future is more than money. If you can’t get what you pay for, then maybe it is time to invest vs pay for talent, culture and the bottom line.