Q&A with Karen Hogan

Q: You’ve had a chance to settle into the office leadership role for a while. Any surprises or revelations about this market now that you have that perspective?

A: 2020 has provided multiple challenges that no leader could have anticipated, from COVID-19 to racial injustice to the potential that many students won’t be going back to school, causing concern for many working parents.  I was taken aback at how many leaders in KC are willing to help.  I have had people from many different industries reach out to support me in this role.  Whether it is offering advice, lessons learned, making an introduction, or just grabbing a coffee and sharing ideas.  It is refreshing to see our KC culture in such a strong way, and has made my transition so much easier.

Q: How are things looking for the project pipeline into 2021?

A: The KC market has a great pipeline of potential projects that will be procured in the first/second quarter of 2021. We feel there could be a resurgence in construction activity in late 2021 with projects that were delayed due to the pandemic and/or the presidential election year that are positioned to launch if we can develop and deploy an effective vaccine, or other method of virus suppression.

Q: Has any work tailed off while owners are assessing the potential outcomes of the election season?

A: Active projects have continued to move forward as planned.  Some projects in the metro that had not yet put a shovel in the ground have slowed a bit, for a variety of reasons.  However, we continue to see an active market with our clients steadily issuing new RFPs and continuing to plan and design new projects.  For this reason, we remain optimistic that a slowdown would be temporary. 

Q: Is it too soon to see project design altered by concerns about distancing of customers and employees in retail and office settings?

A: No it is not too soon. This pandemic has really brought forth thoughts and feelings that no one thought they would face in their lifetime.  It is not the time for drastic changes, but it is time to think harder about how people move through our facilities, how we clean and sanitize, and how we keep people as safe as possible.  We saw this being extremely important with our healthcare clients, as the need to convert existing facilities to accommodate COVID-19 patients and to provide safe working environments for the frontline workers is crucial to the fight of this pandemic and any future pandemics we may face.

Q: How has the slowdown nationally affected staffing overall. Have you seen the construction numbers decline since the pandemic hit?

A: The Construction industry has been very fortunate to remain essential throughout this pandemic, and with the proper PPE in place has been able to maintain productivity.  Locally, while we have seen a couple projects placed on temporary hold, by and large construction in Kansas City continues to march forward.  Nationally, there appear to be some leading indicators of slowdowns on the coasts.  Our quarterly construction cost index, which forecasts escalations rates, actually dropped for the first time since 2009 (-1.01%).  This is a sign that trade partners and vendors are uncertain of the future of the market and are eager to capture new back-log, at a more aggressive rate. 

Q: What about recruitment and the search for talent? Are things more challenging now, easier, or about the same as always?

A: We have been fortunate enough to maintain all our new hires and look forward to recruitment season and feel that there will be a great opportunity to recruit high talent in many schools and markets. Recruiting this year has evolved and will be a bit more challenging as most universities are requiring a virtual model for career fairs and interviews, but as a company this pandemic has allowed us to modify our perspective and utilize “digital suit casing” as an option to be able to hire from within our company across the US to help fill temporary or short term needs without having to relocate entire families and save our clients’ money by having experienced Turner staff step into a need immediately without the extra training.

Q: Any developments on materials costs that prospective owners need to be concerned about?

A: The onset of COVID-19 has resulted in a neutral cost projection for all trades as the industry deals with hopefully temporary and short-lived demand decreases, fabrication slow-downs, interruptions, or shutdowns.  The most recent Supply Chain Forecast indicates relative stability in current pricing and forecasts, trade partners, and manufacturers and points out that the future remains uncertain and are reminding the market that pricing is subject to change. We encourage our Clients and designers to be open to considering alternative products and options when impacts are identified.

Q: And on the tech side, are there any emerging trends/uses that are having significant impact on project planning and execution?

A: The use of virtual meetings has transformed the way many companies are doing business, limiting travel and maintaining the face to face connection, while not completely the same as in person, has been a great substitute during this trying time.  Using technology to maintain business connections that otherwise would have been done outside the office with virtual happy hours, trivia nights, awards banquets, ect. Being able to work with our clients, architects & Engineers and in some cases building inspectors to perform virtual construction inspections allowed for construction to continue while maintaining the safety of all workers.  The use of technology for temperature scanning and tracing for offices and construction sites has allowed us to be more efficient with our entry to the projects and notifications in case of a potential exposure of COVID-19.  Other technologies that we are seeing used more are laser scanners, 360 cameras and UAV’s for material tracking and safety.