1. Virtually every member of the assembly agreed that the wave of nine-figure projects that had swept over the area was ebbing, with smaller-scale work about to dominate. | 2.Tom Whittaker asked about the flip side of technology and its impact. | 3. The construction sector has shed roughly 8 million jobs since its zenith in 2008, Don Greenwell noted.

Don Greenwell noted that more than
8 million people had lost their jobs in construction since 2008, and though the sector unemployment rate has fallen from
about 25 percent, at 16 percent it is still
twice the national figure. “A lot of people
have left the industry,” he said. “The next
five years, it’s not going to be a big issue
because we still have lots of people who can come back into the industry who are well trained and experienced. We do get to a generational rift about 10 years out.”

Rory O’Connor noted that construction jobs, unlike many others, can’t be outsourced. “We should have a leg up on a lot of other industries” looking for workers, he said. “You can pre-manufacture and do lean construction, but at the end of the day if you’re building a building here in the Midwest, there’s nowhere you can ship in big chunks of things, like foundation, so there is that attractiveness of the industry.”

Dirk Schafer’s concern was on another part of the labor pool: Management. “For the first time in a long time, we’ve had college grads decline offers, which is almost unheard of,” he said. “I think as the market recovers, there will be a shortage of talent. We’re all going to looking for it and it’s going to be very, very competitive.”

Technology

Discussions of work-force impact also included technology, and the additional demands that going mobile has placed on reduced payrolls. “What’s the flip side of this?” asked Tom Whittaker. “Is there some tipping point where we just can’t continue to operate like this, and if so, will other industries like ours start to hire some people back, and will that create some impetus for growth?”

Rosie Privitera Biondo was candid: “I think people are burned out,” she said. “I think you could see that in a lot of different ways. The attitude, they feel like they’re overworked and underpaid and they understand that the company needs the help, but it’s hard on them.”

Others agreed that night and weekend hours had become the norm, particularly for project managers. Darin Heyen said Pearce Construction had moved from everyone happy to have a job a year ago to a dynamic where burn-out was an operational consideration. “We’ve kind of turned the corner and said, ‘Time out, we’ve got to hire some more people. We cannot keep working these project managers the way we are.’ ”

Technology, said Richard Wetzel, indeed allowed people to do more with less—at a price. “They are maybe looking at their iPad at home, at night, or they’re toggling between YouTube and Facebook at work,” he said, only half-kidding.

Heyen said it had reached a point where his company had to take the step of encouraging project managers to actually take their vacation time—and leave their cell phones in their office. “Don’t take them with you,” is the company’s instruction.

The problem, Rosie Privitera Biondo said, is one of scale—much of the work that goes into a large job has to be replicated for lower-yielding projects. “So now you have $10,000 and $20,000 and $100,000 jobs and your guy is just completely maxed out, and you know you can’t really afford to hire another guy. It’s really a tough place to be.”

Dirk Schafer noted that computer modeling through Building Information Manage-ment (BIM) had played a key role in the construction of the Kauffman Center, but didn’t think there was a revolutionary technological wave coming. Rather, what will continue to change the industry, he said, involves the processes by which technology is embraced.

“I think we are all leveraging technology to be more productive and make our people more productive,” he said. “But I still think the biggest impact isn’t going to be technology but the process change, and you can call that IPD or lean construction, or collaborative project delivery.

“If you’ve got engineers being more efficient, if you’ve got subs being more efficient, and general contractors being more efficient, that’s where the big gains are. It’s not because of the box on the desk; you’re using that technology to leverage that integrated or lean approach.”

 

 

Return to Ingram's May 2012