How KanBo is Redefining the Recruitment Process in the Construction Industry

According to a recent report, the construction sector is expected to build around 13,000 buildings every day from now onwards to 2050 to accommodate the growing urban population.

Even with over 300 million people working in the construction industry, the demand for new talent and skills has never been higher. Many companies have reported their struggles in terms of bringing new employees on board and retaining the existing talent pool.

With the COVID-19 pandemic having a major impact on the labor market, it has become increasingly difficult for construction businesses to recruit new employees and ensure they stay with the company. Almost half of the construction companies say that they have had to delay their project timelines due to labor shortages. Apart from that, there's also an issue of an aging employee demographic that's leaving the industry to retire causing further shortages.

Given the plethora of challenges, bottlenecks, and issues that currently haunt construction industry recruiters, it has become imperative to rely on developing and nurturing innovative processes through digitalization, inclusion, and the creation of collaborative work environments. That's where KanBo can help construction businesses streamline their overall procedures and introduce efficiencies.

Understanding the Challenges of Recruitment in Construction

When it comes to finding professional construction employees, no matter how big or small your firm is, you've probably run into difficulties. Construction businesses may miss deadlines, omit safety precautions, or even lose personnel who are overburdened when construction sites are understaffed. There are several benefits to using workforce management tools in the construction industry.

Especially in the construction sector, finding the perfect applicant is not an easy endeavor. A precise job role, marketing to the relevant people, and screening through applicant credentials are all part of the process of recruiting the right person for the job. Even before the interview stage starts, the procedure may rapidly become overwhelming. This does not have to be the case, thanks to the availability of the appropriate digitalization tool like KanBo.

An Aging Workforce

One of the biggest challenges that the modern construction industry face is the exit of aging workers from the previous generation. It has become quite evident that a large majority of millennials and Generation Z are not keen on adopting construction as a professional career choice due to the myths, misconceptions, and general absence of technological lacking in the space. They believe the field to be physically demanding and dangerous with limited scope for professional and financial growth in the future.

This inevitable exodus of workers from the baby boomer era along with a restricted pool of new candidates has made it increasingly difficult for construction businesses to find and recruit new talent.

A Multitude of Misconceptions

There are widespread misconceptions about what working in the construction industry has to offer, according to the study's results. Contractors and employees in the construction business were asked to name their top three motivations for choosing a career in the field.

They mentioned the following advantages:

• Income opportunities in the industry
• Building a successful career in the field
• Possibilities for professional growth
• A sense of accomplishment in work
• Opportunity to learn new abilities while working
• A variety of jobs one may have

Contractors' replies to the most common misunderstandings about construction work reveal that these advantages are not well understood beyond the industry. One of the most common misconceptions about construction is that it's a dangerous field that takes just sheer strength and that it's only a way to make a living and not a professional career. Another fallacy is that you can't afford to raise a family on the wages you earn from a construction job, which is patently untrue.

Some of the key myths in the general population about the construction industry include:

• It is a low-paying job with a high demand for physical strength
• The job is prone to risks and hazards
• If you have a college degree, you are overqualified
• Automation is soon going to replace all manual labor

Lack of Procedural and Cost Efficiencies

Employers' use of contingent and agency labor is presently difficult to gauge for many recruiting managers. When it comes to finding the temporary labor needed to satisfy demand, many firms are now dealing with a growing number of vendors. There are many agencies involved in this model and it takes a lot of time to compile reports and obtain data in a uniform manner so that you can see how much money is being spent where and why.

This absence of data hampers proper forecasting and hinders the ability to get insights that might improve cost management. It is imperative that recruiting managers seek out methods to increase visibility and forecasts by gaining access to reliable business information.

Absence of Streamlined Recruitment Strategy & Process

The absence of industry-wide recruiting initiatives also creates difficulties. Many times, contractors chose not to run regular job advertising. Recruitment throughout the sector is more challenging because of this ham-fisted strategy. Businesses in the construction industry should pay attention to this aspect if they want to better attract future employees.

Another analysis demonstrated that most construction contractors do not prioritize reaching out to underrepresented groups in the workforce. Contractors said that just a few of them had strategies to attract women to the field. When it comes to finding competent workers, it seems that contractors aren't pursuing the biggest possible audience in order to increase their pool of potential employees.

For the contractors themselves, recruiting new employees is best done by creating a superior reputation for excellent pay in the business, developing more trade schools, and making the road to progression in this profession more clearly visible. – To entice the next generation of employees, they believe that a clear route to growth, competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits are all critical.

Poor Vacancy Management

A construction company is faced with several difficulties when it has to fill an open job. All of this requires time and dedication, from selecting the ideal individual for the position and screening resumes to optimizing the vacancy management process. Other than that, it's important to keep everyone in the loop so that everyone can prepare ahead of time.

There is a clear correlation between the lack of an effective vacancy management procedure and a decrease in overall organizational efficiency and productivity. As a result, identifying and streamlining the most important components of a company's employment process has become a critical requirement.

Sustainability Goals for Construction Companies

Research and development on sustainable production and consumption are essential if construction businesses aim to fulfill climate goals. This has to become a focus for the construction sector if they want to attract millennials and Generation Z to the industry as the climate and environmental causes are one of their priorities.

New techniques are required to achieve climate neutrality, even if present technology and economic models can reduce carbon emissions today. Environmental sustainability must be addressed by concentrating on innovation in every area including recruitment and talent hunt. As new technologies emerge, there is an increasing need for digital solutions as well as greater quality, usefulness, and design.

Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs introduced Goal 9 which is closely tied to the construction industry. It motivates global corporations to spend in and create robust infrastructure while also encouraging a long-term and broadly accessible process of industrialization and economic growth in general. Organizations are also compelled by the objective to create an atmosphere of innovation supported by vigorous research and development.

Construction Companies Should Strive for the Following Sustainability Objectives:

Access to Infrastructure that is Both Resilient and Sustainable

Environmentally friendly and certified infrastructure development and implementation of PPP concepts. Additionally, the development of the telecommunications system and the construction of new transportation facilities as well as industrial involvement and activities.

The Promotion of Health and Well-Being in the Community

In addition to real estate development in the healthcare business, this involves promoting workplace health and safety as well as health services and sports activities for workers. Corporate sponsorship and citizenship should be implemented for the benefit of the communities in which firms operate.

Students with Disabilities Learning Opportunities

A broad variety of continuing education options should be made available to all employees, as well as the development and supervision of institutions of higher learning. There should also be support for intellectual efforts, interaction with academic institutions, and engagement in corporate social responsibility and sponsorship programs that help the young talent.

Accessible and Sustainable Management of Drinking Water and Wastewater

Make sure that the construction of water supply and wastewater treatment and disposal systems is coordinated with the construction of flood protection and water treatment facilities. Throughout the construction process, companies should take steps to minimize their impact on the environment.

Affordability of Sustainable and Resilient Energy

Building and infrastructure initiatives that are ecologically friendly should be paired with energy infrastructure developments. Companies in the construction industry should also be involved in the development and operation of alternative energy projects.

How Can Construction Businesses Enhance Recruitment Process

Embrace Technology and Process Digitalization

The use of advanced technology in construction management may assist in speeding up the process of finding new employees. Automated procedures, such as hiring and onboarding become more efficient. According to many construction firms, manual operations tend to be the most inefficient. Therefore, it is more crucial than ever to depend on technology and adopt automation and digitalization.

The construction sector can benefit greatly from digitalization as workers will be able to perform their responsibilities more quickly, efficiently, and economically when labor-intensive activities are automated. As a result of quick acceptance and investment in technology solutions, such as cloud-based management software, integrated networking, and mobile project planning, productivity will be considerably increased. When deploying new technologies, businesses must, however, take a planned approach.

Contractors and subcontractors will be responsible for ensuring that their employees have the necessary skills and expertise to deal with technological transformation. A new generation of digital natives will be attracted to companies that embrace new technology. As more and more young people learn to code in languages like Java, they may be more receptive to pursuing careers in the construction industry.

There are a number of crucial areas to concentrate on:

Automated Application Tracking with ATS

Employers may find and hire the best applicants fast by using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) with versatile management software like KanBo that facilitates the entire cycle of recruitment from talent hunt to onboarding. Candidates with construction or engineering expertise, for example, maybe targeted by an ATS across several job sites, and referrals can be tracked automatically.

Organize Talent Pools in the Company

Rather than always searching for fresh employees, construction businesses can begin to cultivate their own pool of talent. A depth of talent is a collection of potential employees who have expressed an intention of working for your business. People who applied to your firm but were not deemed to be an adequate fit for the post at the time are often included in the talent pool, as are existing employees. You can speed up the hiring process by using a talent pool.

Large construction businesses tend to use an evidence-based recruiting procedure. The recruiting and hiring procedure for most construction organizations is continuous. Many construction firms are still used to such working circumstances, and as a result, suitable applicants are searching for these organizations to join their workforce.

In order to ensure that your recruiting approach remains consistent all across the exploration and application process, each construction job role must be laid out explicitly. When a job specification is well-written, it helps prospective workers decide whether or not they want to proceed with the recruiting process. For employers, job descriptions may assist express the company's vision and mission, as well as show prospective workers where they could fit into the overall scheme.

Create and Nurture a Better Employee Experience

Employees' expectations of their companies have changed, with a focus on the direction of an organization, mental wellness, and social responsibility becoming more important. Companies require leaders who can balance employee demands with employer expectations in light of today's changing labor market dynamics.

Contractors have a chance to highlight their unique proposition's distinctive features. Identifying what workers love most about their environment and what they are prepared to give up is crucial for these companies. As a construction industry staple, competitive remuneration and career advancement are two of the most important factors in determining whether workers join, remain, or quit their employer.

Defining an employee's experience may be done by looking at the confluence of their aspirations, their surroundings, and the circumstances that form their experience in the workplace. In the construction sector, as in any other, the level of satisfaction that employees have with their work makes all the difference.

According to the 2021 Global Talent Trends Report, six out of every ten firms aim to rethink agility, which is an essential part of modernizing employee engagement.

As a result, organizations must follow a four-step process:

• First, learn to know their workers;
• Second, get to know the whole customer lifecycle; and
• Third, establish a focused plan.
• Finally, bring staff and management together to brainstorm and produce solutions.

Several companies have taken the initiative to improve the working environment for their employees. Workers at certain companies have embraced the shift to a five-day work week from the customary six-day work week. Such a shift may have a significant influence on an employee's capacity to maintain a healthy work-life balance and, as a result, their productivity.

Develop a Robust Plan to Overcome Skill Gap

In the last several years, the construction sector's expansion has been stifled by a lack of skilled workers. Many construction companies have difficulty filling available jobs owing to resignations and industry development because of a lack of competent labor. This has resulted in a decrease in efficiency and a rise in safety concerns.

Many things can be done to reduce the skills gap, despite its seeming enormity:

Start Investing in Young Talent

Some high schoolers are turning to technical jobs as a substitute for four-year college degrees because of the escalating costs. To attract younger employees to your firm, you should engage in traineeships, attend school networking events, or organize student tours of the workplace. To attract younger employees to your firm, you should engage in traineeships, attend school networking events, or organize student tours of the workplace.

Provide Continuous Training

On a worksite, education doesn't stop on graduation day; rather, it's a continuous process. Take courses or use training management software that will aid your personnel in their roles. Making training a priority can benefit your organization in many ways, not the least of which is increased employee commitment to the firm's vision and values.

Create Tailored Mentorship Programs

It is possible for seasoned workers to pass on the information they've gained over the course of their careers by participating in a formal mentoring program. Mentoring new employee over the first few days of their employment is a great approach to getting them up to speed and developing a trusting relationship with their supervisor.

Introduce Diversity

The construction sector is vibrant and diversified, and it is essential to recognize this plurality and accept it wholeheartedly. Maintaining profitability requires a dynamic work environment. Recruiting women, persons with disabilities, veterans, and minorities is now simpler than ever thanks to specialist employment portals.

For employers, this means greater opportunities to find and hire female construction workers. Employing, training, and retaining skilled workers is doable amid industry-wide workforce issues, construction businesses should rest easy knowing. There has never been a more critical time to attract skilled workers for construction-related employment than now, given the impending aging process and departure of the baby boomer generation and the bad public perception of the sector as a whole.

Create a Retention Plan and Address Challenges of Returning Employees

One of the best strategies to keep your construction business afloat is to retain well-trained construction workers on board. These individuals, who have stayed with you through tough times, are your firm's foundation. These people may provide insight into the challenges and requirements of the construction industry. It's time to cut down on time-consuming activities and sluggish payments that have long plagued the sector. It's important to have clear channels of communication with your workers at all organizational levels to ensure that they feel valued and engaged with the firm. When workers are happy, they spread the word about their employer's brand.

Many people have been out of work for months because of the epidemic. Requests for unemployment benefits were overwhelming in most countries. Those in need of restitution typically had to wait a long time before receiving any monetary recompense. People who are rejoining the workforce are those who previously held occupations at or below entry-level. In order to sustain themselves and their family, they're going through a difficult financial period.

This implies that companies will have to deal with a new set of challenges with regard to negotiating salaries for new hires. If you're serious about hiring and maintaining long-term staff, you should revisit your company's budget. You'll also have to think about the impact that hiring new staff will have on your long-term workers who have been helping out. Bonus payments and long-term benefits may be used to foster a sense of community and appreciation among workers.

Make Sustainable Construction a Core Focus

Millennials and Generation Z employees are worried about the environment surrounding them, with climate change, safeguarding the planet, and catastrophic events among their top worries. Sustainability may be a selling point for construction industry leaders. Organizations are already forging ahead in this sector because of the strong societal and political pressures to do so.

Automation and innovation are expected in the workplace by millennials and Generation Z individuals who were born and raised in the digital age. Almost half of them believe that new technology will help them in their work. More than half of contractors now use modern technology on the construction site, and the vast majority expect to do so in the next three years to introduce sustainability.

KanBo’s Role in Embracing Sustainable Recruitment Practices

Small businesses and huge corporations alike need to have an integrated digital platform that serves as a central hub for all of their operations and tasks. Any construction company may benefit from KanBo's work-and-business process management platform's scalability and versatility. Building organizational silos are no longer necessary for building contractors when it comes to cross-departmental interaction and the generation of new ideas and discoveries. It doesn't matter what a company's structure is like, KanBo can support it all, from the CEO down to the lowest-level employee.

KanBo is a C-Level Executives Digital Headquarters

KanBo provides easy access to critical information for the company's network of collaborators, such as goals and projects, responsibilities and abilities, and internal communications. Senior management may use an agile work management platform as a virtual home base if desired. This implies that executives in the construction business now have rapid access to data and analytics that are displayed in a highly visual manner. Corporate decision-making speed and accuracy might be advantageous to an organization's overall innovation strategy.

KanBo's Low-Code Platform is Open to Citizen Developers

Only two of the benefits of a low-code approach are mentioned here: faster application delivery and less hand-coding. It is now possible for non-programmers, such as project managers and business analysts, to design and develop mobile applications. By minimizing IT backlogs and eliminating shadow technologies, non-technical personnel may have an even greater influence on the firm. As a result, the operating system is more effective. As a consequence, new and potentially game-changing technologies are created.

An Excellent Choice for No-Code Workers

No-code development platforms (NCDPs) enable both developers and non-developers alike to create application software without the requirement for conventional computer programming. If the people at the top of the organization don't know how to code, they may be unable to do their jobs successfully. KanBo and other no-code platforms are equivalent to low-code platforms in terms of speeding up application development. Businesses are increasingly turning to these platforms for assistance as the number of mobile employees rises and software specialists become harder to come by.

KanBo is a Project and Workflow Management Tool for Information Workers

Processes, for example, are long-term behaviors required to achieve a certain objective. KanBo's platform offers all the required tools for employees to properly manage projects and procedures. Using the software's building pieces, many different teams and departments may effortlessly interact with one other.

Final Word

Construction businesses, in particular, have suffered as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, which has affected the worldwide economy and continues to impede economic expansion. As a result, they've been given the difficult challenge of slashing their costs while maintaining the same quality of service for their consumers. When faced with such a difficult circumstance, construction companies have been forced to examine their internal business processes and optimize or restructure them including recruitment.

Using KanBo software, construction businesses can create and implement a comprehensive recruitment process that is specifically adapted to their own internal rules, goals, and objectives. To further enhance these procedures, they may use a broad variety of KanBo functions such as labels, boards, and cards.