Modern hiring: closing the construction skills gap

With 2030 fast approaching, the sector faces a growing skills gap amid rapidly evolving technology, a steady decline in available employees and an ageing workforce. 

While the CSMB marks a laudable step towards tackling these issues, more is needed from the industry to spearhead a sector-wide shift in attitudes to attracting, recruiting and retaining high-calibre talent.

Namely, recruitment and selection processes must be brought in line with the needs and expectations of today’s workforce and ensure that employers select people with the right competencies and behaviours. 

We need to see innovations and changes in ways of thinking that will not only get us closer to achieving government goals, but will also modernise and diversify the industry in a highly competitive and fast changing landscape.

Competency-led selection

It is crucial to properly assess prospective recruits’ competencies, behaviours and potential to the roles on offer within the construction industry.

This will allow the workforce to ultimately be optimised, the skills gap addressed, and retention rates improved. 

Applying a competency-led lens to the selection process helps ensure that the right people are hired to the right roles at the right time. 

Mutually beneficial to both employers and employees, this approach to assessment will increase efficiency for businesses, as well as nurturing the needs and skills of new employees. 

It also enables us to identify any training needs at an early stage so these can be quickly addressed on appointment.

Critically, focus must be placed on retention to lighten the load on recruitment.

A good first step to achieving this is to invest in skills development and early careers programmes targeting graduates, apprenticeships and work experience for those still at school to dispel possible misconceptions about careers in construction. 

Better career mapping will allow skills to be harnessed and nurtured in the long term, ultimately incentivising individuals to develop their careers within the industry. 

For example, we have developed a bespoke competency frameworks that we use to regularly assess employees’ competence, with the aim of providing technical feedback and training that allow people the opportunity to develop their career or try new things if they so choose. 

This approach also helps us comply with our obligations under the Building Safety Act 2022, where we must demonstrate that we have competent people on our projects.

This approach is beneficial to both our company and our employees.

It is also important to give our future leaders the chance to develop and hone their skills at all stages of their careers, something we strive to achieve through our work with Cranfield School of Management.

Modernising attraction 

To meet recruitment targets, we need to extend the reach of traditional attraction to diversify and modernise the workforce. It is urgent that we engage with the widest possible pool of diverse talent. 

While the sector has traditionally not been diverse, we are undoubtedly making progress. For instance, the number of female construction professionals has increased by 53.5% in the past decade.

To unlock this untapped market, we must challenge prevailing misconceptions and tailor our talent attraction and deployment to appeal to everyone. 

It is clear that the career choices of young people are becoming increasingly purpose-driven, with social value and environmental considerations becoming more and more important.

Many roles within construction cater to these interests, but it is the industry’s responsibility to make sure that this is better understood by potential candidates.

Social media and third parties such as recruitment agencies and job centres, which the CSMB has pledged to work with closely, can help promote this and fight negative stereotyping.

As an example, sustained social media campaigns appealing to young people in a sphere that is accessible to them can be a way to illuminate clear construction career pathways to our target audiences.

By highlighting industry efforts to build a more sustainable future, recruitment, selection and retention processes are vital. 

Deploying competencies throughout the hiring lifecycle can help us hire the right people and create a platform for their ongoing training and development. 

As the industry changes rapidly, more emphasis needs to be placed on the good it can do from a health, safety and ESG point of view to recruit people who want to feel fulfilled in their role and make a demonstrable difference to the world they live in.

Cross-generational collaboration

The youth have a crucial role to play in the future of construction, not least as technology advances. But this does not mean that older groups do not have wisdom to impart. 

Cross-generational collaboration should be encouraged to maximise the efficiency of the sector, accumulating lived expertise and to modernise practices.

This will allow the collective workforce to prepare for a shift towards AI software and digital construction, ensuring that we do not lose vital sector knowledge and lived experiences.

All things considered, the CSMB has undoubtedly catalysed a push towards renewed recruitment and selection across our industry. 

Its £625 million funding needs to be meticulously considered and allocated accordingly to make significant inroads in the government’s promise of 1.5 million new homes by 2030. 

And as an industry impacted by false perceptions, an ageing workforce and growing skills gap, revolutionising recruitment, selection, deployment and retention to meet our future needs is vital.

Nicola Markall FCIOB is workforce planning director at Sir Robert McAlpine.