Why I 'Left' Construction
Is the culture of the construction industry part of the labor shortage problem?
Look at all the cranes along this street in Chicago, IL!
I wrote this article for the launch of a construction talent retention survey (link). If you have worked in or are currently working in the construction industry, I would appreciate you taking the time to fill it out. This data will be extremely helpful in shaping the industry and providing insights into where construction executives can direct resources.
I am extremely grateful that Darren Bechtel supports all of my crazy construction extracurriculars and helped fund part of this research effort via Brick & Mortar Ventures.
I like to tell myself that I didn’t actually ‘leave’ the construction industry because I am investing in construction technologies. But I did leave construction operations.
Construction is facing a labor shortage.
By now, you’ve likely seen the articles talking about the labor shortage in the construction industry and how to “bridge the labor mismatch.” I think technology can help, but it is not the only answer—it may only be a bandaid solution. I am a huge advocate for construction robotics and its ability to diversify the work force and help bridge the labor mismatch. Though recently, I have been thinking more deeply about the root causes for low employee retention in the construction industry and its potential to exacerbate the labor shortage further. Like many challenges in the construction industry, we may need process change or to focus on the people.
I don’t know whether low employee retention is pandemic induced or has been a trend in the making prior to the pandemic. If I reflect on the construction market conditions over the last 3 years and up until maybe 3 months ago, we saw many booming construction markets across the US. The boom in construction activity can be witnessed by the number of cranes across various cities and metropolitan areas —namely: Dallas/Austin/Houston in TX, Florida, Southern California and Phoenix. Even today, we are seeing large construction developments around the San Francisco Bay Area (excluding the city of San Francisco) and Chicago in addition to the regions mentioned above. Because construction companies grow/shrink by projects, the hot construction market leads to competitive salaries and higher employee turnover.
During my entire working life in and around the construction industry, I’ve seen many colleagues swap between various companies or transition from construction operations to working at construction technology companies (both startups and large corporates alike). These transitions appeared to be more frequent during the last few years. Since leaving DPR Construction, I’ve had many people (people I knew and people I didn’t know) from construction operations reach out to me about how I made the transition out of construction operations. These individuals were interested in transitioning to BIM/VDC or innovation roles, working at construction technology startups or venture investing.
At first, I thought people were reaching out to me to learn about how I got into venture capital. [To be fair, a lot of people are curious about VC and I do have a really cool job 😉.] The more people I spoke with and the more reflecting I did, I realized that a lot of people wanted to hear about how I got out of construction operations and what that transition was like. Funnily enough (or maybe not so funny), one of the construction tech meetups I hosted in San Francisco was rebranded as a ‘construction survivor support group’ because almost everyone was a ‘recovering contractor’ or ‘recovering architect’ now working at a construction tech startup. The conversations were refreshing but also quite saddening as I think about one of the biggest challenges that the construction industry is facing: the labor shortage… and people are leaving construction.
Construction executives have employee retention top of mind.
I continued to collect anecdotal evidence about why people are leaving construction operations. It wasn’t until I started hearing that top construction executives were focusing on resource management and employee retention that I started to see a disconnect between how leadership thought they can solve low employee retention versus what employees wanted. I have no idea if it’s just a misalignment in generational cultures or if there are deeper rooted cultural challenges in the construction industry that is causing a cohort of my peers to leave construction operations.
Some of the ideas that the executives talked about included better health benefits and potentially flexible in-office schedules—though the workplace flexibility was only for individuals working in the offices and not those on job sites. I also heard about assumptions that implementing new technologies and striving towards net-zero construction job sites would retain talent.
I have no idea if any of these things work. But those were not things that would have kept me from leaving construction operations. And those were definitely not things discussed in my conversations with people leaving. The construction executives have no tangible and widely collected data regarding why people leave construction.
The data doesn’t exist. Let’s collect it!
Every time I talk to Sasha Reed, I always get to take a step back and look at the construction industry from a 30,000 ft view. We were on a great panel discussion during AGC and continued the conversation around the culture of the construction industry afterwards. She and I ended up talking about diversity, challenges with innovation and change in the industry and most importantly, the lack of data around why people leave the construction industry.
Fast forward a few months, I’m proud to share that the Construction Progress Coalition launched a construction talent retention survey with support from NAWIC, WiOPS, Brick & Mortar Ventures and other industry organizations. The survey is conducted by Pulsely.
If you have previously worked in or are currently working in the construction industry, I would super appreciate it if you can help us fill out the survey. This is the data that we need to help drive change in some of the intangible and tangible things that impact the culture of the construction industry. This data will also provide us with insights regarding whether or not the problems around employee retention can be solved with technology—my bet is that these problems cannot be solved with technology, but I would love to be proved wrong and then can challenge entrepreneurs to help build a solution.
Why I ‘left’ construction.
I joined the construction industry at what felt like peak excitement around BIM/VDC and the first entry of construction tech startups building tools for the field. By the time I left, I was beat down by the slow moving industry and saw inefficiencies that started to eat my brain. Before I left construction operations, I made a pro/con list. I am only sharing the cons here, but there are so many more reasons why I love the construction industry. I think that’s why I’m investing in construction tech, helping people make the transition from construction operations to construction tech and trying to make transparent some perspectives around construction culture. Here are my cons:
Number of hours spent in the construction trailer matters. What time you show up to work and what time you leave work implies how hard you work. Because productivity of office workers in construction is so hard to track, it’s easy for management to track how hard you work based on how many hours you are on site… even if you’re on Facebook all day. Can there be technology that can track true productivity here? And not just how many RFI’s you put in, but the impact of the decisions and the work that you’re putting in?
Number of years spent in construction matters. Climbing the construction corporate ladder takes a long time. In the industry, you have to put in the years to grow in your career. There is a general cadence to promotions regardless of your impact and your managerial or leadership skills.
Mismatch in roles and responsibilities. Not every good project engineer makes a good project manager. Not everyone wants to or should manage people. The construction career ladder doesn’t have much flexibility to be an individual contributor and frowns upon people who don’t ‘climb the ladder.’
My life was tied to the construction schedule. Projects are fast paced and so much is happening on a day-to-day basis. I only felt OK taking time off between projects and felt like I needed to be plugged in 24/7 on what’s going on in the project. I had no life outside of work. I also have no regrets.
It takes a long time to become a shareholder — if you even have the opportunity. Some construction companies are employee owned or have options for employees to buy in to the company. Even on an expedited track, it can take 10 years to become a shareholder with limited equity. Joining a construction company provides little to no upside if you are interested in equity. People from construction are looking for upside potential by working at a publicly traded company (stock options) or at a startup. I wanted to own a piece of the company that I work at.
Parents who leave work early to pick up their children are seen as lacking commitment to the project. I don’t have kids, but I have heard the comments… and I have heard people at other companies share these same comments. These comments are for both mothers and fathers.
I have been in rooms where nobody looked like me. This may actually be worse now than when I was in construction. I did love that once you’ve built a working relationship with your team on site, respect was merit based.
Construction workers have to be tough. My dad was a carpenter and his body aches in old age. I don’t like that the industry has a culture of being ‘tough’ or ‘manly’ when in reality, we should protect human bodies and reduce wear and tear. From visiting so many construction projects around the world, I felt like the commitment to better tools or safety didn’t match marketing—this is an industry wide sentiment of mine.
From my many conversations, I know I am not alone in my observations and feelings about the industry. I would also love to hear about what you want to change in the construction industry culture. Let’s change the industry together!
Ever Forward.
P.S. - If you have previously worked or are currently working in the construction industry, I would super appreciate it if you can help us fill out the survey here.
Out of touch! I left the construction industry (framer, finish carp, cabinet builder) because Im sick of the blatant disregard for the small towns that the industry is raping. We dont need more development but smarter development. The almighty dollar is the driving factor and i grew sick of it.