Why Construction Organizations Need an Effective Recruitment Strategy to Overcome Hiring Woes

According to a number of reports, at least 1 million construction workers are going out of the workforce this year.

It means that apart from the average recruitment pace, the construction industry needs to hire more than 600,000 workers to plug the talent gap. The shortage of labor in the sector has led to contractors and businesses competing for the available talent driving up the average wages. This situation has not only impacted the growth of many construction companies but has also put many of their existing projects in jeopardy.

All of these factors lead to only one conclusion - the critical need for an effective recruitment strategy that doesn't only enable construction businesses to hire the industry's top talent but encourages younger generations to join the sector to expand the candidate pool. Without a robust long-term recruitment vision that positions your construction business as an appealing and rewarding place to work for, you will always find yourself trying to win an uphill battle with limited success.

This means that construction companies don't only need to strengthen their HR department but provide them with the digital tools and infrastructure they need to execute their strategic planning. The KanBo software can help companies develop and optimize a collaborative work culture where requirements and expectations are clearly communicated to ensure transparency and the perfect execution of plans.

What is a Recruitment or Hiring Strategy?

A hiring strategy is a well-defined approach for pursuing, engaging, and recruiting competent candidates. It is generally a process that specifies the goal positioning from the labor market perspective and consequently outlines the key recruiting channels that need to be considered. Any construction organization's recruiting method needs to be integrated with the corporate strategies, and it must complement the organizational plans and Human Resources Management.

The hiring plan outlines the main objectives for the hiring process and recruiters working for the company must take the established aims into account because that's the only way the company can position itself in the labor market. An effective recruiting method aligns the creative enterprise with diverse human resources.

Prior to creating a recruitment plan, it is essential for the HRM to cover a multitude of factors including hiring objectives, headcount strategy, ideal employee profiles, employees' value proposition, organizational budget, software tools, recruitment marketing plan, and selection approach, and employee onboarding and orientation. You will be able to be more progressive in your strategy for recruiting if you organize ahead, which will lead to improved recruits, lower expenses, and fewer stressful last-minute scrambles to find qualified workers.

A recruiting strategy that has been thoroughly thought out will:

• Reduce the overall time required to hire a qualified employee and bring them onboard.
• Ensure that you get the most out of your money for hiring new employees.
• Assist you in enhancing the quality of your recruiting selections.
• Ensure that the goals you have for recruiting are in line with the overarching goals of the organization.
• Evaluate to see that your company's headhunters and recruiting staff are all continuing to work toward the same stated objectives.
• Put all of your energy towards developing the appropriate talent pool.
• Assist you in securing the financial resources you'll need to achieve your objectives.

Who Can Create and Deploy Result-Driven Recruitment Strategy?

It is a bit surprising to note that many companies in the construction sector don't invest in a highly competent human resources department. Apart from that, they don't have the digital tools like a project, business process, and work management platforms to introduce efficiency and transparency to their business. It is one thing to say that construction businesses should make and execute a hiring strategy but it is a totally different thing to expect them to actually pull it off.

That's why every construction business that is hoping to compete in the current economic reality needs to bring exceptional HR talent on board so they can put the hiring strategy plan into action. A human resource manager isn't just a hands-on job role but a strategic one as well. They provide full-cycle support for filling the vacancies and retaining the existing pool of workers. The job is key for executing employee-oriented initiatives, delivering internal assistance and support, and enabling operational excellence through process enhancement. An ideal HR can do wonders for any organization as they have the following abilities.

The capability of understanding corporate needs and providing recommendations for new strategies, rules, and processes to achieve continuous efficiency in business targets, performance, and the growth of HR within the firm.

• The capacity to set a vision and mission for the recruitment team, as well as the ability to persuade and drive the people to acquire success in addition to providing customer service and fundamental HR procedures.
• A genuine practical learning style, apart from the capacity to effectively measure the heartbeat of the workers required to guarantee a high level of professional commitment.
• They also have the experience to work and adapt in a quickly evolving environment where they need to be versatile to be successful.
• They have a passion for recommending and enabling innovative human resources solutions and the ability to drive process enhancement across different teams.
• HR managers can also lead projects to influence people and convince them to join or stay at the organization by meeting their real needs.
• They usually are workhorses who don't shy away from managing a high burden of work and take pride in multitasking.
• Moreover, they have exceptional interpersonal communication and organizational skills to manage both internal and external stakeholders and drive results that are advantageous for the company.

Sustainable Development Goals and Targets for Construction Firms

The pursuit of continuous improvement through adaptable infrastructure is a significant motive for big enterprises, notably those in the construction sector. It is clear that in order to reduce the environmental impact of our actions, we will need more resources and a greater degree of commitment from all of us. A set of goals and indicators has been defined by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs that can only be accomplished if big corporations are involved. While having an inclusive hiring strategy is a must for a sustainable future, there are other factors that need to be taken care of.

Creating a Long-Lasting, Resilient, and Modular Infrastructure

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs aims to develop a robust, reliable, adaptable, and sustainable architecture in order to support socio-economic growth and overall human well-being. In order for businesses to succeed, they must ensure that everyone has fair access to both employment opportunities and products and services.

Promoting Industrialization That Is Inclusive and Sustainable

On behalf of a larger share of global output and employment, the United Nations calls on big companies, notably construction firms, to promote sustainable and inclusive industrialization in the coming decade. Organizations should aspire to quadruple their contributions in developing countries, in accordance with regional conditions.

Enhancing Access for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

In most underdeveloped nations, products, and services, particularly those related to global and regional mobility, are unavailable to the general populace. There should be more support for small-scale businesses so that local residents may explore new economic opportunities.

Incorporating Resource-Efficient And Environment-Friendly Technologies Into Daily Operations

The UN also wants major companies like construction corporations to update their businesses and infrastructure in order to make them more sustainable. Clean and ecologically friendly technologies, effective resource use, and simplified process management must all be given top priority.

Encouragement of Scientific Research and Innovation

It is imperative that multinational corporations work to foster innovation, support scientific research, and enhance the technological capabilities of their economic sectors over the next decade or so, especially in developing countries.

• Assist developing countries by offering better technological, economic, and technical help in the building of resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
• Support local innovation, research, and development in poor countries.
• Access to communication and information technology should be made easier and more convenient, and efforts should be made to provide low-cost, wide-area internet access.

How Construction Organizations Can Create a Great Hiring Strategy?

When it comes to having an effective and result-oriented recruitment strategy, you should keep in mind that it's going to be process-intensive. You cannot just hope to stumble upon a plan that works well for your company and will need to invest effort and resources to figure out different steps. Here's an overview of what a construction company needs to do to create a hiring plan that leads to tangible results.

Invest in Your Company's Brand

Do you know where the young generation wants to work? They want to work at Apple or Google or Tesla. Why? Because these technology companies have established a desirable brand by positioning themselves as the "new cool". Both Millennials and Generation Z people can name a number of technology companies, law firms, accounting firms, financial institutions, and vehicle manufacturers they would like to work for but hardly anyone knows a name of a construction organization they would love to join. The sector has a reputation problem and it needs to be addressed.

That's why it has become more important than ever for construction businesses to invest resources into branding and tell them why they are a great place to work at. Remember that the younger workforce isn't as forgiving as the previous generation so the organizational culture and environment need to be a true reflection of the story you are telling. This is the only way to overcome the current labor shortage that has continued to worsen with time.

Define Your Recruitment Objectives

Without well-defined high-level objectives, it is almost impossible to expect positive results. That's why it is important for every business to create a list of goals that are relevant to their organizational needs and expectations. Some of the key factors may include headcount management, enhancing diversity and inclusion, cutting down recruitment costs, cutting down recruitment time, optimizing recruitment methods to make them more efficient, encouraging recruitment managers to be more engaged, enhancing employee retention, and developing a diverse talent pool.

In order to narrow down your goals, you will also need to forecast your recruitment needs. Don't expect the forecast to be absolutely precise but it will give you an idea about the number of people you need to bring on board enabling the organization to make an adequate budget and allocate sufficient time. Some of the following steps can help your HR manager to create a reasonably accurate forecast:

• Create an organizational chart to get an overview of the current structure
• Improve the chart by identifying potential promotions, resignations, terminations, retirements, and redundancies
• Evaluate the need for new hires according to the organization's growth projection
• Find skill and talent gaps within the company that need to be filled

Create Your Ideal Employee Profile

With so much competition for talent, companies that can clearly articulate why a recruit should join them instead of one of their competitors are more likely to prevail. That's where you need an ideal employee profile along with a value proposition. It's not just about what the worker can offer you but what the organization can offer them as well. This will make it simple to observe the positive and negative aspects of working at an organization from within. For example, you realize what your workforce is like and what you can anticipate from your employees. You'll be able to see within the first quarter if a newcomer will be a good match or not.

Conversely, if you're a candidate, features like the company's design aesthetic, workforce diversity, and leadership aren't readily apparent. As long as the business doesn't make a concerted attempt to convey this information right away. And it is not exactly a surprise that the businesses that do so are the ones who end up with the best employees.

Everybody hates to take a job, just to discover it's totally opposite from what they expected. That's a huge letdown. It also contributes to a high rate of employee churn. Everyone's effort is truly wasted in this situation. Consider it your duty to make it perfectly obvious to potential employees what it is like to work at your company. The suitable prospects will find out about your company and your new recruits won't be taken aback on their orientation day if they know what to expect. As a result, they're much less inclined to wander off.

Reconsider Job Sourcing and Posting

It is unfortunate to see that so many construction companies, even to this day, continue to rely on conventional sourcing channels and subpar job descriptions. If your construction business is looking to hire top talent, you will need to position and communicate like a top organization. That's why the entire process of filling a vacancy needs to be reconsidered and redefined. Depending on what your organizational goals and expectations are, you can search for candidates through job board advertising, print marketing, job fairs, college recruitment, human resource agencies, and finding someone from the current talent pool.

You have to keep in mind that different sourcing channels will give different results with a range of varying budgets. Apart from focusing on the sources, the HR department also needs to consider job postings or descriptions. Instead of relying on the traditional style of postings, make them engaging and tell about the role along with the culture and environment your potential employees will work in. Drum up their excitement to ensure they just don't join your company out of a need for a stable paycheck but actually enjoy what they do.

Optimize the Selection Criteria and Approach

The construction industry has an employee churn rate that is twice the average turnover rate of other large sectors. Apart from a few other factors, the issue can be traced back to poor hiring practices that focus on short-term gains. That's why it is essential for a construction business to not only refine its criteria but improve the overall recruitment and selection process as well. Some of the factors that need to be taken into account include:

• Ensuring every candidate gets an objective evaluation without biases
• Ensuring communication with the top candidates to keep them in the loop
• Ensuring your headhunters are deeply involved in the process
• Ensuring efficient use of company resources to cut down recruitment expenditure
• Ensuring minimal bureaucracy and administrative red tape

With the aforementioned objectives in mind, construction businesses have a better shot at finding and selecting candidates who would prove to be a long-term asset to the organization. These can be achieved by:

• Deploying blind hiring so no recruiter biases come into play
• Relying on qualitative and quantitative scoring for objectivity
• Automating interviewing and other processes for convenience and efficiency
• Ensuring strategic communication for cultivating relationships
• Minimizing the role of administration in the documentation and other processes

Identify and Deploy Efficiency-Focused Digital Tools

It is now possible to automate tasks that formerly required a lot of manual labor and consumed a lot of energy. Additionally, it is also possible to save data in a centralized place instead of a multitude of workbooks, and contemporary job websites can be maintained constantly to keep them up to date. The recommended digital tools are no longer prohibitively expensive. It's time to get some assistance from today's current HR technology.

Automated Recruitment Advertising

In-house hiring managers are given the ability to run finely tailored recruiting advertising throughout social networking sites and the venues where their preferred prospective recruits spend much of their time. This is made possible by automated hiring advertising channels, which can be accessed with the click of a finger. There is software designed specifically for talent acquisition that may be used independently, in addition to other technologies that are integrated directly into contemporary candidate tracking systems.

Applicant Tracking Software

Commonly known as ATS, the applicant tracking software cuts down the time and effort required to hire an employee by getting rid of "work about work" and administrative tasks. It also enables the organization to acquire qualified candidates and deliver enhanced experiences. ATS can perform a number of tasks for you including communication management, interview scheduling, HR collaboration, maintaining talent pipelines, and data analytics for informed decision-making.

Worker Onboarding Solution

Digitalizing onboarding gives your construction business the ability to provide personalized orientation for each new employee. It enables you to reduce paperwork and documentation as everything can be handled through a central platform. The tool also helps the newcomer to develop an understanding of the organizational culture and hierarchy with little to no manual effort. Similarly, HR policies and training can be uploaded to the cloud in the form of videos, reading materials, and other types of documents.

This is the initiative that can be managed with the help of KanBo – a comprehensive business process and work management platform. It doesn’t only provide your business with a central hub of communication and data storage solution but allows everyone in the organization to keep an eye on the projects without having to rely on traditional time-consuming communication channels. KanBo can be an ideal digital platform for companies that are looking to create and deploy long-term hiring strategies. Here are some of the reasons why:

Make Critical Decisions with a Long-Term Perspective

Your company may provide the possibility to organize and monitor the success of numerous teams throughout the business by relying on KanBo Board. Every management has access to specialized KanBo Boards, which keep them informed about the employees, initiatives, and activities that are presently being worked on, as well as their progress and development towards another target. This guarantees that performance will never suffer and that you will meet all of the objectives within the budget and time constraints that have been established.

Pinpoint and Reduce Recruitment Strategy Dependencies

Every company now has the capacity, thanks to KanBo's collaborative work environment, to monitor and define dependencies across a variety of teams throughout the organization. Combing through a number of projects included in your hiring strategy to overcome these dependencies, you can get rid of anything that may act as a possible future stumbling block in the way of making effective progress.

Create an Explicit Strategy for Each and Every Task

By using KanBo Cards, leaders of the HR team may add specifics of what has to be completed to reach strategic goals and benchmarks, and bring the project to a successful conclusion. To ensure that all team members are aware of who is responsible for what and when it has to be completed, all you have to do is add cards to a project schedule, fill in relevant information to the cards, and then update the status.

The Most Effective Method for Ranking Things

KanBo is a tool that can be used by companies who are interested in formulating a workable plan for the long run that will drive their particular corporations in the direction of expansion. KanBo will teach you how to synchronize the objectives, strategies, and aspirations of your company so that you can complete all that needs to be completed. It will do so by assisting you in the creation, management, and ongoing updating of your hiring strategy.

Plan to Make Unconventional Choices

Business as usual is no longer a possibility if you want to succeed and thrive in the construction economy. Whether you are just a contractor or a full-fledged enterprise with impressive architectural projects under its belt, you should be competing for the top talent. This is the reason why it has become crucial to adopt some of the strategies that are not-so-traditional. Here's what you can do:

Go for Passive Candidates

Those people who are not actively looking for employment are usually the ones who are supremely qualified and great at what they do. While they may not be job hunting, they can be convinced to switch if you are strategic enough. Identify which people you would like to join your team and initiate formal communication just to establish an understanding of what they want right now in life. This will allow you to create a personalized strategy that can help you bring the cream of the crop onboard.

Let Insights Drive Your Decision-Making

Most companies generally take data too literally which means they end up making decisions that are statistically correct but not visionary. Remember that data is only useful if you can contextualize it through different perspectives. Instead of focusing too much on the numbers, try to understand the relation between them and how they react to different variables. This will give you the opportunity to position yourself as a high-performance employer in a cutthroat market.

Hire Back Your Most Competent Ex-Employees

Sometimes people are let go because of reasons beyond the company's control. Other times the employees have issues that force them to quit. It's important for construction companies to maintain an amicable relationship with ex-employees, particularly those that have been successful in their role. Bringing such employees back is also resource-efficient as they are aware of the company values, vision, and work environment and you don't need to spend time and money on training them.

Focus On Hiring Inclusivity and Diversity

It is not a great look for the construction industry when only 1 in 10 employees are women. Many studies have suggested that companies that bring women onboard are more likely to generate profit because of diversity. That's why any construction business today devising a hiring plan should look to employ and retain women. This can be achieved by investing in "women in construction programs" and creating a more women-friendly compensation package with better childcare, health insurance, and maternity leaves.

Apart from that, it is important to develop an all-inclusive recruitment strategy that can attract Millennials, Generation Z, minorities, and other marginalized communities. This also means that organizations need to redefine their vision and culture as 8 out of 10 millennial workers want to be in a company where they feel they are a part of something bigger.

Achieving Success with KanBo's Strategy Management Solution

For lean project management and business process monitoring, KanBo is a multifunctional digital solution. Not only does it give a versatile approach to management, but it also doesn't require firms to use a variety of different tools to accomplish their goals.

Board Collections, Groups, Boards, Cards, and Lists are the basic building blocks that a company can use in a range of methods to construct and implement new hiring strategies, perform efficient work administration, stimulate inter- and intra-departmental coordination and interaction, assess performance, and provide constructive criticism. Because of KanBo's unique design, all of the organization and its stakeholders have the freedom they need to accomplish their specific objectives and priorities.

Because of this, KanBo is an excellent digital tool for achieving strategic excellence across many teams including human resources management (HRM). Here's how it benefits everyone, from C-level executives to project managers and team members.

An Information Hub for C-Level Executives

A hiring strategy requires a large number of variables to be taken into account in order to make well-informed decisions. C-level executives are essentially in the dark if they don't have access to data and knowledge about how various HR processes function. KanBo's deployment allows them to adopt an agile work management solution in a smooth and simplified manner.

Using KanBo, workers have access to company messages, job descriptions, and performance objectives, as well as company goals and projects of all kinds. Senior management may employ agile work management tools to establish a virtual base of operations. Executives in the construction industry may now access data and analytics that are more visually appealing. An organization's innovation strategy may benefit from a more speedy and accurate decision-making process facilitated by KanBo.

If KanBo isn't in place, C-level executives have to undertake several meetings, interviews, and discussion sessions to understand all the hiring processes and infrastructure complexities, or they have to assign the responsibility to lower-level managers. Even more importantly, they will need to gather a large amount of information from the staff to guarantee that the whole planning and execution process can be successfully implemented.

Low-Code Platform for Citizen Programmers

There are two major benefits of low-code programming - quicker application delivery and less human coding. Mobile apps may now be built by anybody, including those without a background in coding. It is possible that non-technical employees will be more effective if IT backlogs are reduced and "shadow" technology is eliminated. Now the entire OS is more productive because of it. Thus, cutting-edge technology is created.

An Exceptional Tool for Non-Coders

Software applications may be created by both programmers and non-programmers equally because of the functional variety of KanBo's language and framework. If a company's executives don't know how to code, they may not be able to carry out their duties. Rapid application development is facilitated by a platform like KanBo or a comparable no-code solution. As the number of mobile workers grows and software expertise becomes rarer, these platforms are becoming more critical.

Project Transparency for Team Leaders or Middle Managers

When undertaking a significant project, such as deploying a comprehensive recruitment strategy, it is necessary to constantly monitor the progress. In the absence of constant monitoring and oversight by the organization's middle management, the project might go off track at any moment, resulting in further delays and avoidable losses of both financial and human resources. The ultimate timeline might be seriously impacted by a few unresolved bottlenecks or dependencies.

KanBo software allows you to set up a board or board group just for the deployment process, allowing you to set start and due dates for each job and to-do item. With this, middle management's work is made considerably simpler since they don't have to communicate through traditional methods which can be both time-consuming.

Project managers and team leaders in the HRM are able to keep their team motivated and avoid weariness since they have all the information they need right in front of them. When big construction firms use KanBo, agile strategic deployment may be streamlined such that it becomes an integral part of their business. Many people are resistant to change since it doesn't seem to be a different effort.

Final Word

There are no two opinions about the fact that hiring in the current market has become a major hurdle for construction companies. Couple it with the glacial pace of embracing innovation and change and you have a situation where the sector finds itself almost a million workers short. That’s why it has become an existential matter for construction companies to deploy an effective recruitment strategy that can help them reposition themselves as an attractive employer in the economy and acquire top talent from all over the world.

As the deployment of a hiring strategy can be process-intensive, it requires an efficient business and work management tool. That's where KanBo can empower organizational personnel working at all levels to develop a collaborative work environment and work towards the shared goal of successfully implementing a hiring strategy.