We Can’t Just Say

... that the Construction Industry is a Great Career Choice; It Has to Be True

Someone I work with at Marek said this over two years ago in a strategic planning meeting held for the purpose of determining how we as construction users, contractors, specialty contractors, and other stakeholders might turn around the decline of the construction industry as an attractive career choice.

Out of this meeting was born the Construction Career Collaborative (C³).  As a workforce professional, I was encouraged to hear that key stakeholders in our industry understood what the craft professionals and human resource and training and development folks have also understood.  We have to make this industry an attractive career choice before we can convince young people, parents, and guidance counselors to consider our industry as a desirable career path.

We can do that by ensuring that our craft professionals are treated as valuable members of the team by being paid a decent hourly wage, provided with workers’ compensation insurance, and provided with other employee benefits that most of us take for granted.  And key to the effort of providing a sustainable workforce for our industry is training and development.  Offering standardized safety and craft training in vocational programs at the secondary, post-secondary, and contractor level will ensure our ability to execute our projects with qualified craft professionals without risking the health and well-being of the very people we must depend upon to build our projects.

The commitment to this initiative is great and I would like to thank my company for the opportunity to serve as acting director of C³ and participant in the process of creating standards for our industry that will impact all stakeholders.

A pipeline of motivated and engaged individuals, better-trained and more qualified craft professionals, and a career path that connects credentialed people who want to work with companies looking for them: these are the results we can achieve with C3.

There are currently five construction projects in Houston, Texas that have agreed to participate in a beta process to formalize C³ standards.  I will be giving updates so watch for future blog posts.