The construction industry faces a tight labor market and a shortage of skilled workers. This situation often forces companies to fill roles with workers who do not meet the ideal employee profile. They do this out of desperation to complete projects on time and within budget.
Millennials and Gen-Z often overlook construction, seeing college as the only success path. This perception contributes to a cycle of high demand and low worker availability, posing challenges for organizations.
However, the construction industry offers job stability, competitive salaries, and engaging work that ensures variety. No two days are the same. The benefits, combined with the integration of exciting technologies, make a career in construction appealing.
Training and onboarding new talent are costly. There’s no way around the ramp-up time that aids those who are hired to do a job to understand what the scope of the work is, get familiar with their new colleagues, and learn new construction platform and software that the business already has in place.
How, then, can construction companies actually hire the best talent?
The role of technology in talent attraction and development
By promising them new and cutting-edge technologies that help them hone and increase their skills. The technical education gained on a construction site presents a novel concept. It aims to attract, retain, and promote talent by engaging them in learning. This approach helps to dismantle the stigma associated with working in construction. As a result, college graduates can pursue careers in the industry without facing judgment or skepticism. By portraying the construction industry as forward-thinking and technology-driven, jobs become more appealing. Consequently, the talent pipeline naturally replenishes itself.
Introducing a construction platform for building a mobile app that allows new employees to own and report on their progress gives prospective employees a fresh outlook on the construction industry as a whole. Creating a culture of citizen developers (those who don’t possess a traditional software engineering background, but who can create, develop, and deploy business apps without significant guidance and support), who feel ownership over the technology they’re using means that adopting a low-code app has a higher return on investment. This reliance on technology to get the job done signals that the old industry they may have had in their minds is gone and that the investment in tech to aid their jobs has ushered in a new way of getting work done.
Empowering construction through technology
Fulcrum allows for a seamless exchange of information and data between employees and managers in areas such as inspection, quality control, asset management, and more. By eliminating pen and paper from job sites, construction companies can assure future employees. Technology applicable to their current and future roles will speed up their onboarding. It also integrates their work with that of existing employees.
Our no-code mobile data collection and workflow automation construction platform also allows organizations to deliver location-based insights automatically with every record and report. The app Instantly delivers fully formatted reports to stakeholders, meaning new hires don’t have to spend their time building reports and dashboards from scratch. Managers can discover data-driven insights to help everyone make better decisions about safety, asset management, and staffing.
Using key technologies to aid in day-to-day tasks is essential for attracting the next generation of employees that can improve on, enhance, and define the future of construction.
Want to learn more about how Fulcrum can enhance your next construction project? Start a free trial today!