We need to be imaginative to tackle the skills crisis

We must tackle this skills shortage in new ways, says Construction Leadership Council member, Mark Wakeford.

I suspect that if we tackle the shortage as we always have then we will have the same problem at the next recession. Our industry should be looking to tackle this skills crisis in different, more imaginative ways.

There are three discrete areas where construction industry companies must concentrate their efforts. These are: tackling the structural causes of skills shortages; treating the symptoms of a lack of skills; and making better use of the skills that we have through a massive improvement in productivity.

Beating the causes of the skills shortages

The failure to attract new recruits to our industry is well documented and there are many worthy initiatives run by professional organisations that seek to address this imbalance. In the latest, government chief construction adviser Peter Hansford has encouraged organisations to adopt a school. This makes good commercial sense for companies seeking to recruit from their local communities and those thinking further ahead will include primary schools in their area.

Construction’s boom and bust cycle is a far more intractable issue and I doubt that our industry can single-handedly create a steady demand for new works. There are, however, things that we can do. Organisations need to learn to retain their assets so that they can diversify during the tougher times.

I know that on a small scale Stepnell used to enjoy a number of measured term contracts that could absorb employees during quiet times, but which could provide additional resources when the industry started to overheat. To do this we had to have managers who could adapt to different procurement regimes and operatives who were multi-skilled and versatile. The current trend to have highly focused managers and operatives puts organisations at a disadvantage when work dries up.

Far better to have organisations with a variety of work streams (and an asset base to see them through the bad times) employing multi-skilled staff who can adapt to a variety of work during their working lives. This would be a responsible response to a cyclical industry.

Tackling the symptoms of our skills shortage

Businesses looking to secure their workforce and that of their supply chain are out recruiting and also pressurising their supply chain to do likewise. The easiest way to achieve this is to recruit apprentices and/or trainees. Forward looking businesses recognise that 8% of their employees would be trainees or apprentices. (An average working career may be 50 years and an average apprentice or training programme might be four. Therefore 8% of employees should be on a training programme.) Those planning to grow will clearly need a higher percentage.

A welcome change is the unrelenting march of apprenticeships and the increasing breadth of recognition within our industry. Apprenticeships as a route to professional qualifications now demonstrate that NVQs have matured and really do match traditional academic qualifications. Creating these alternative routes is a great way of broadening out the appeal of construction to those who may not have considered it as a career.

Other initiatives are aimed at upskilling those currently employed in the sector. The recurring issue when people are busy is finding the time and the resources to invest in training. However, many organisations recognise that in times of great change, it is more important to train than ever and it is great to see the amount and breadth of training that is happening within the industry.

Mitigating the skills shortages through improving productivity

The third action must be to mitigate the shortages as best as we are able. In this crusade there are two principal targets. The first is offsite construction, which is much heralded and provides significant advantages in discrete areas. Clearly if the economies of scale are to work then we will need a significantly higher level of standardisation of common building elements so that we can garner the efficiencies promised within a factory environment.

The second target is far more powerful. We must train our managers to increase productivity, which has remained stubbornly low. From an industry perspective a few percentage point improvements would reduce the skills gap significantly. From a business perspective a few percentage point improvements would improve quality and add profit to the bottom line through lower prelims.

There is a growing number of tools in which managers can be trained that can significantly improve productivity. The tools fall into two areas: communication tools and soft skills.

The ability to communicate large volumes of information to a large number of people has been available to the industry for many years. The recent change has been in the ability to communicate the relevant information to those who need to know and avoid burying our staff in gigabytes of information.

Clearly BIM contributes to this capability and there is growing evidence that projects using this technology have higher levels of collaboration. This clearly helps productivity prior to reaching site and there is anecdotal evidence that this is being reciprocated on sites.

Soft skills are also crucial. Within Stepnell we have found it necessary to start with some self-awareness of our strengths and weaknesses to be able to demonstrate that none of us can be all things to all people in all situations.

The next stage is training in “lean” techniques, which aim to help our managers identify and reduce waste throughout the construction process. The first tool for most of our managers is collaborative programming, which is a great tool for securing resources from throughout the supply chain and ensuring that they work productively.

Real gains in productivity come when enhanced communication tools and “lean” practices are used together. This allows designers to complete the design before site activities start and for site teams to plan around a certain requirement.

From an industry perspective training management teams in “lean” practices, particularly when done with self-awareness, allows a single training package that can alleviate the skills shortage for all skills used on that site. This must represent a good use of limited training funds.

There is an opportunity to tackle our skills shortage in a new way that will help prevent a future crisis using the advances in collaborative tools to train our managers in lean techniques that will prepare managers for a variety of new business situations as the economy rises and falls.

Mark Wakeford is managing director at building and civil engineering contractor Stepnell, and a board member of the Built Environment Hub