Attracting and securing top talent is an ongoing challenge facing every business today but no more so than in the construction industry. Recruiting top talent however is often only the beginning of the challenge as you then have to retain them in the long term or face starting the time consuming and costly process all over again.
Finding solutions that are more cost effective and offer improved efficiency is key, especially for an industry already challenged by limited increases in productivity and rising material costs. Of course this is easier said than done, although for many in the industry technology is seen as holding many of the answers.
Technology is viewed as essential in tackling the growing need to attract more young people and new talent into a career in construction. How? By getting the message out where young people spend a large amount of their time: social media. Growing a new talent pool is however a long term solution and it won’t help with the positions that need filling today or with retaining existing talent. Technology again is offering solutions in these areas by allowing construction workers’ skills and capabilities, a historically challenging, error prone and time consuming task, to be assessed quicker and more accurately.
Technology is also being used to pre-filter top candidates quickly to ensure they don’t lose interest when faced with a slow and lengthy recruitment process. Time consuming processes, such as onboarding and background checks, can also be simplified by technology and both employers and workers can benefit from workers being able to clock in and out with a tap of an app on their phone. This information can then be used for payroll processing, overtime compliance, pay as you go insurance and even location and site tracking.
Technology is saving the industry time, cost and effort while also ensuring that we hire the best talent by helping us secure talent that is a fit for our businesses. Above all else technology is allowing businesses that are small, medium and even at startup level to now compete with the big boys when it comes to attracting and securing the best talent.