Why Hiring Experienced Workers is Difficult but Vital to Project Success
As the world continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still considerable stresses in the labor market impacting ongoing and pending construction projects.
While construction professionals deal with fractured supply chains, staffing is always a pain point for companies, which means that your company is better served by implementing an agile staffing strategy, even post-pandemic.
Where is the Labor?
According to the U.S. Labor Bureau, there are 266,000 vacant construction jobs as of February 2021. This gap not only drives up company costs as they pay higher wages against competitors, but idle sites mean longer timelines, less efficiency and delayed future projects.
Finding qualified workers is half the battle. To keep ahead of the competition and get projects up and running with a smaller workforce, automation and other technology can pick up the slack. Implementing technology comes with its own issue: Finding digitally savvy workers.
Why Getting the Hire Right Matters So Much
As reported by Glassdoor, the average company in the U.S. spends nearly $4,000 for each new hire and takes 24 days to fill a position. The more specialized the position or skills required, the more effort required. But the effort is merited, as a McKinsey & Company employee acquisition study found that “Superior talent is up to eight times more productive than unskilled labor.”
For construction sites, an Associated General Contractors survey shows that 29% of firms are putting longer completion times into their bids.
The Cost of Inexperience
The wrong hire isn’t just a matter of spreadsheets with poorly designed pivot tables or lost productivity—there are real safety concerns when hiring unskilled or inexperienced workers. Skilled workers understand how to navigate the hazards of a site, while new, inexperienced workers might not be able to foresee hazardous situations and require more supervision.
The Construction Industry Research & Policy Center found that new hires (i.e., those with less than six months of experience on the job) accounted for 30% of job site injuries. When the average cost for a medically consulted injury is $42,000, you can understand why cutting corners to hire cheaper, unskilled labor can cost more in the long run.
Staffing Services Bridge the Gap
As construction projects grapple with hiring the right people, they must also navigate the supply chain issues limiting access to materials. It’s a lot to juggle, which is why a staffing service is a useful resource to relieve workload while looking for talented labor.
Besides sourcing qualified workers, a professional staffing company can improve your bottom line.
- Eliminate many upfront hiring costs.
- Decrease internal HR overhead.
- Reduce the financial impact of new hire turnover.
This flexibility can help you streamline the hiring process and find people for vital roles so that you can get your project running sooner. By hiring skilled, dedicated and experienced staff, you reduce new-hire turnover that would otherwise leave you in the same position as when you started.
Code Red Staffs for Short-Term and Long-Term Construction Projects
At Code Red Safety, we have a national database of 15,000+ safety professionals to quickly and locally staff construction projects throughout the country. In fact, we’re able to staff 85% of positions at a local level, giving you reliable labor while avoiding long wait times. Get your site to a safer, more productive place with Code Red Safety.