Dee Davis (00:00)
we have these young folks that are coming up in the industry and they're on the fast track for promotion as the older workforce retires out.
If you're one of the younger people in the workforce getting these opportunities, that is so awesome. Nice big title and a nice big salary to go with it, But here's the problem. It also comes with a lot of responsibility and expectations you might not be ready for.
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm your host, Dee Davis Today I want to talk about that hot topic of labor crisis in the construction industry. Everybody knows that we have it. Everyone's talking about it. One of the side effects of a dwindling labor force is that we have these young folks that are coming up in the industry and they're on the fast track for promotion as the older workforce retires out.
If you're one of the younger people in the workforce getting these opportunities, that is so awesome. Nice big title and a nice big salary to go with it, right? But here's the problem. It also comes with a lot of responsibility and expectations you might not be ready for. Employers. The faster we promote people, less experience they have to draw from. That isn't their fault. It's just where we are right now.
How are we going to deal with it? Replacing a 30 or 40 year veteran of the industry can't be done with someone that has less than 10 years experience without your organization feeling some pain. you can put the body in the place, but they need support. We know we have to promote people faster. We don't really have much choice. They just don't have the experience.
The question on everyone's lips is, what do we do about it? I've been given this a lot of thought and I have some solutions for you. If you're a fast moving employee, set yourself up for success. Here's a few things you can do. Ask for help and support. Don't be afraid to say that you don't know or you need help. Nobody expects you to know everything.
Ask your boss, your mentor, or a senior person in a similar position for some help, some guidance, some advice. Maybe even the person that's leaving.
The next thing you can try is going and getting it on your own. Find appropriate training and coaching. See if you can get your employer to pay for it. If they're smart, they will. In episode 13, we talked about allocating 5 % of your work hours to skills training. For US worker, that's about 104 hours per year. This is a totally reasonable and sellable
proposition to any organization that wants people to be more productive, sharpen their skills, and stay at the company.
The next thing you can try is finding a group training. If you need more support, so do your colleagues. You know what your pain points are. Find out what your coworkers are and get some group training or get a workshop together. It tends to be more economical to do it in a group and you'll have people that have been through the same training as you have to lean on when you go to apply the learning later. Another option is one-on-one or group coaching.
There's some fantastic coaching programs out there for help with everything from technical skills to leadership development and people skills.
If you need help figuring out what you need or the right resources to get it, call me. If I can provide it, I will, or I can refer you to a great resource. Employers, we can't leave our people out there flapping in the wind to figure it out on their own. Besides not being fair to them, we're really hog tying our ability to be profitable in the process. Engagement from the people steering the ship is more important now than ever before.
We don't just get to say, well, no one ever taught me. They can figure it out the hard way, just like I did. Really? Why would you do that to your business? Here's some things employers can do. Set up a mentorship program for new hires. I don't mean assign someone and walk away. I mean, develop a program that has steps and check-ins and teaches people not just the ins and outs of the company and the position they were hired for, but set aside training time
that is dedicated to gaining new skills that will help them in their position. It's not that hard to do. I did one when I was a young project engineer at an organization. And as far as I know, at least remnants of that still exist in that company today.
The next thing you can try is back to the basics training. We have a tendency to assume that everyone knows the basics. That's why they call it the basics. But here's the deal. We're never really taught the basics. We kind of learn by osmosis and partially by trial and error. It doesn't mean we learned it right. It doesn't mean that we were ever taught.
I can't tell you how many times I have been bitten in the behind, assuming that people know what I consider to be the basics, when they didn't know it at all.
Our lived experiences are completely different and we all know what they say about holding hope in one hand and what's in the other. We have to take the time to start at the beginning and ensure that we're all on the same page. Bring in outside trainers. I know, I know, we all like to think that our senior people are providing wonderful on the job training experience and speeding all those young people along on their learning journeys.
But here's a couple of reasons why that's not working. Number one, your senior people are fully taxed, especially when we're talking about billable job costs. These people are billing your projects, doing actual work. They don't have extra time to be training people. The other thing is that senior people are not actually trained to train people.
Knowing something and being able to effectively train someone in it, not the same thing at all.
There are some benefits of bringing in outside professional trainers. People learn differently. Professional trainers know how to assemble course materials and deliver learning methods and styles for all kinds of learners to maximize effectiveness. Professional trainers are skilled presenters and know how to keep an audience engaged. Less overall time is spent on outside training as the trainer
has already professionally prepared the material. Zero time is spent by your staff developing training and you will only have to invest the time to receive the training. It is more cost effective than you think. The ROI on professional training is 25 to 300%. That's up to $4 return for every dollar spent on training.
Another idea is to create an agreement with a mentor or a coach that is available for your staff to book time with. I've seen companies do this where they have an organization or maybe a group of coaches that their people can contact and spend a few hours each month touching base with. I think that's a fantastic idea and I highly recommend it.
You can also approve outside training, mentoring or coaching that someone on your team brings to you. Of course, check out the program, get references to ensure that you're getting your money's worth, but there's a lot of great programs out there. Mentoring and coaching can be incredibly valuable experience for your people and the ROI on it is 7X. Training alone can increase productivity over 20%.
But combined with coaching, those numbers soar to over 80%. Companies that have done this report better employee retention, more confidence, better decision making, and a substantial increase in speed to competency, which is what we want. That's how we become more profitable. At the end of the day, the welfare of our people, our projects, and our businesses are in our hands. If we want to remain competitive and profitable,
We have to change the way that we're approaching professional development in our organizations. Call me anytime. I will do what I can to help you. If I can provide the training for you, I would love to do that. I can also refer you to a whole group of coaches and mentors that I know that do great work doing things. way we've always done it is not an option anymore. If we want to survive in this new marketplace, you don't.
have to have all the answers, but you have to do something. Thanks for joining us. Please like and share this episode with a friend and leave us a comment or a question. Have a great day.
