Webinar Replay: Solving the Construction Labor Challenge

Autumn Sullivan

We have a lot A lot to cover. So we’re gonna go ahead and get started. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Autumn Sullivan. I’m the Marketing Director at mobilization funding. And today’s webinar is about solving the constructure construction labor challenge. I have amazing guests with me today I’m going to let them introduce themselves and their organizations. Um, Natasha, can we go ahead and start with you?

Natasha Sherwood

Absolutely. My name is Natasha Sherwood. I’m the Executive Director of the independent Electrical Contractors Association ever here on the Florida West Coast and chapter we actually run from Tallahassee in the panhandle, and down to Sarasota ish area, electrical contractors, merit based shops that are constantly looking for labor at all times. So I’m interested to find out if Steve has a solution for me. All right, well, hello, everyone.

Steve Cona

My name is Steve Cona. I’m the president and CEO of Associated Builders and Contractors. We are one of the largest trade associations in the state of Florida. And we also run one of the largest apprenticeship training programs in the state as well. So it’s great to be here. And I was hoping Natasha had all the answers. So that’s why I was here today.

Benjamin Holmgren

Well, that’s three people without the answers. But I’m Benjamin Holmgren, I’m with BuildWit. And we we have to two companies, we have one which is a construction marketing. So we work with heavy civil contractors, dirt companies, earthwork companies, drilling mining, and and we help people tell their stories, we help these companies tell their stories, we help them find great people, we help them with all their marketing, certificate marketing services. And ultimately it comes down to telling stories. Our second business that I’m kind of heading up now is a new project that we just launched called billet leaders, I might talk a little bit about it later. But Bill what leaders is, is really training and development for employees, for teams for leaders. And it’s really about growing leadership in construction. And so I’m sure today, I’ll share a little more about kind of our philosophy behind that and why we started that, because it really has a lot to do with solving the challenges in construction and the the labor shortage. So looking forward to this.

Autumn Sullivan

Awesome, thank you guys so much for your time today. Let’s go ahead and get started. I do want to make a quick note, if you have a question for the panel, please drop it in the q&a section or in the chat. I will be checking that in between questions. And if we don’t get to your question during the webinar, fear not, I will get back with our our guests. And we’ll create a YouTube video specifically answering your question and then we’ll load it up on mobilization fundings YouTube channel. So I promise we’ll try to answer everyone’s questions. Um, so this webinar actually started when I was researching a blog topic on construction labor, and I read a CNN article that said, the construction industry is losing workers faster than it can attract new ones. And I’m going to open this question up to Steve first, Steve, what are some of the factors that are causing this great resignation in the construction industry?

Steve Cona

Well, I don’t I don’t think it’s necessarily a resignation. I think it’s a it’s retirements. I think there are a lot of folks who are aging out of our workforce. And, you know, unfortunately, for our industry, we haven’t done a good enough job to actually replace those folks that that are coming in. So I think a lot of things had to do with it. I mean, obviously, we had a few recessions that hurt our industry. And we just, you know, we just didn’t get the skilled labor backlog. As far as getting our folks trained up now. It is kind of a crisis for us. And we are looking at all avenues to ensure that we are training the next generation of skilled workers.

Autumn Sullivan

Okay. Did anyone want to jump in on that? Or do we want to keep moving?

Natasha Sherwood

I would echo the same thing as electricians are retiring. And it’s mostly retiring faster than we can keep up with it also, I think, and Steve and I live in the same area, it’s kind of seeing the same college for everyone and a big push for college, which, and, you know, my daughter’s at college. It’s it’s great option. But it was in for many years that there was a gap in skilled labor being shown the attention that it should be and the fact that it’s I don’t think it’s an alternative to I think it’s an equal option to college. And that hasn’t been what’s been pushed and so now not only are you overcoming the stigmas with guidance counselors, but teachers And parents and, and there’s a whole new learning cycle that we have to go through. And so we’re seeing that gap between the generation that’s retiring. And this generation that I think we are starting to reach, but it leaves a big gap in the middle. And so I think coming out of these apprentice programs like ABC and IEC offers, is helping to close that. But I think that’s probably one of the most difficult ones is because everyone has been told that college is the first option and if you can’t do college, then we might have these other things for you. And I’m a former K through 12 principal, you know, so I push College on for it but but it’s not for everyone and not just because isn’t the best option. So I think that’s probably what’s driving a lot of our gap.

Autumn Sullivan

Yeah, and we’re gonna we’re gonna get into that, that that narrative precisely in just a little bit. Let’s talk about, um, recruiting and retaining millennials. Then you had the amazing opportunity to speak with Jocko willing on your podcast about millennials and construction specifically. Do you want to talk a little bit about that conversation and what? What is it? What will attract millennials and what will attract millennials to the construction industry?

Benjamin Holmgren

Yeah, so there’s there’s two quick qualifiers before I start one, my boss Aaron, he’s kind of this celebrity Aaron wit. And so I worked for him. He was the one that talked with Jocko. I’ve met Jocko, he’s a great guy. And I saw their conversation. But it wasn’t me. So I just want to clarify that. The second the second is there, there is the millennials conversation. But what’s funny is like, as more time goes on, it’s less and less about millennials, because we’re seeing millennials, like that’s my generation, right? Millennials are all of a sudden in charge. And now we have like Gen Z and these others, these other youngsters that are coming up, and I know I look like I’m 16 years old, but but those kids need to know, you know, and so it’s not just millennials, it’s it’s the next generation as well. So I’ll tell you what we’re seeing and and the conversation with Jocko. This is gonna be maybe the most inflammatory thing I’ll say all day. But I really, really don’t believe that it’s so much a labor shortage, as it is a shortage of leaders who know how to lead the next generation. And that maybe makes a cute soundbite. But ultimately, that’s what the world has changed. And it seems to me that, you know, from traveling around seeing these job sites, talking with people who either are struggling with this, or people companies who have have solved this that, you know, at their level, it’s leadership. Everything’s a leadership issue. And my generation, the younger generation, kids coming out of high school, are less interested in how business was run 40 years ago, kids my age want to get want to have a mission to get behind. They want to have a vision, they want to understand their career path. They want to be led and trained and developed. And, and as Natasha was talking about, the college thing is like, that’s been the you know, we’ll talk more about that. That’s been the big push. But it doesn’t mean that if if I come into the industry or the trades, that I don’t want to be developed that I don’t want to learn, and I don’t want to have education. Absolutely, I do and my generation does. And so that’s one of the big things that we took away from our conversation with Jocko. And it’s, it’s really just backed up everything we’ve been seeing for a couple of years now traveling around the companies who have solved this on the individual level. They understand that it really it’s not about millennials, and the longer that we blame millennials, the longer we blame Gen Z, the worse this is going to get baking ownership of solving this for your company is is the elixir that’s that’s the solution. It’s not millennials.

Autumn Sullivan

It’s not millennials and avocado toast the My Favorite makhado. Toast the well. And I love that you said that because because another data point that I was reading during my research was that culture work culture was actually a major factor in a lot of skilled trade veterans, you know, people who have been in the industry for a long time, it was the reason that they decided to leave. It’s either the reason they decided to leave their current place of employment for another or it’s why they leave the industry entirely. So while we often frame the idea of work culture as a new thing that young people are pushing for, it really seems like everybody wants to talk about work culture in construction. And so my question is open to the panel. Whoever wants to go first. How are you seeing the industry respond to this new call for an awareness of your of your workplace culture. Don’t all jump other ones

Natasha Sherwood

I don’t mind at all I definitely see and you say about, you know, we have a vast, diverse group of contractors, you know, from small to large. And you can tell that no matter the age of the employee, and so we work with our apprentices who are just coming in, you know, just starting in the electrical industry, still into long term. And employees, as we’re looking for the manpower trying to find labor, and they are all looking for a culture that it’s not the perks that we always hear associated with millennial, but it is the benefits, it’s not always a financial benefit, I will see people take a job at a, maybe even a few dollars, even, you know, $1 less an hour type job, but for a good culture for a good company that has benefits and not just like a health insurance benefit, but a family atmosphere, a group that works together flexible time. And, you know, they they are interested in that I just helped a fourth year apprentice with graduate who had opportunity to go anywhere, he took a job at a company that paid I think $2 less an hour, because it was a good fit. And and then we’re also seeing and I’m sure you know, the other thing, we’re seeing people move in from all over the country moving into Florida. So they’re they’re coming in droves. I mean, I think like 900 a day to the state, but many of them are looking for that culture, that they have a feeling of being welcomed, or being included, of having an opportunity to grow and learn whether they’re an 18 year old, or they’re, you know, we just had an apprentice graduate who’s 60 years old, you know, who who wants that opportunity to develop and I think that goes into that culture is that they’re appreciated and that and, and maybe that’s something we did learn from that millennial or, or Xenial. Age Group or whatever, that there’s that level of appreciation that is sometimes more important than the dollar bottom line. And I think that’s sometimes a difference you see between them, but the culture definitely changes where I see them stay, because I see them move the lead here, and they go there, and you kind of track where they go. And I can almost pinpoint clearly where they will end up.

Autumn Sullivan

We had a question from the audience, which I think is an interesting one. And it was about oops, sorry, it was about the correctional industry. So you’re looking at correctional institutions, and working with them as viable solutions for pipeline verge for talent pipeline. Do any of you have any experience working with and I know, there are some groups? I know there’s one out in Seattle, but Do any of you have any experience working with groups that specifically work with, with correctional institutions to train for for construction?

Steve Cona

Think jump in here for a second? Yeah, I think, you know, we’re our our pipeline is we’re looking for all sorts of avenues to fill the pipeline. And one of those avenues obviously, is folks coming out of corrections. And coming back into the industry. What we are saying is that we are getting asked by state leaders, state politicians, to actually, you know, work with them to actually help develop skills while folks are still incarcerated. So we can build some skills when they’re in, in prison or in jail and and work to whenever they get out, help get them back plugged in to society, because I think everyone realizes that if you can give folks opportunities and jobs, when they get out of being incarcerated, I think the chances of them are going back are very, very slim. So we need to make sure that we are doing that investing and I think our industry and Atocha can tell you is very open to partnering with, you know, state lawmakers, state correctional facilities to help us, you know, engage those folks and get them into the workforce.

Natasha Sherwood

We we just started a pre apprenticeship program with the DOJ out of Tallahassee. So I know it sounds weird, but it falls into our area. So it’s our Tallahassee Community College. And the idea is that they will learn a portion of it while they’re in and then they’ll be able to move into a higher level. So whether they test into our second year or third, our programs, a four year program. And so the idea is to start that program, it’s not it’s just in development, and you know, it’s using our curriculum wise but the idea is to provide those workers and both in so you know, it’s a win win is providing some more for them. It means that they have the knowledge something to do while incarcerated. So they have a reason to continue to move towards release. And then from there, they have a skill when they get out a highly employable skill. And then for our contractors who have invested in that in the idea of this program, they have skilled labor coming to them And yeah, I would hope it would expand it is something we’ve just started in. But I see it as, obviously a great place not only for our contractors, but for our state.

Autumn Sullivan

Thank you. Um, so we talked a little bit about, we talked about Gen Z. So let’s talk about shop class, since we’re talking about, since we’re talking about Gen Z and the younger kids, because Gen Z is all the way from 1995 to 2012. Right. So some of them are very little while some of them are already in college. So shop class was almost completely extinct. It’s slowly coming back now. But there’s still a big trade education gap, particularly in high school, but also in middle school. It used to exist and now is almost completely gone. So I’m Natasha, can you talk a little bit about the role of apprenticeships and mentorships, and how they help fill that gap and how companies can get involved? Right, definitely

Natasha Sherwood

Definitely a couple of different ways. And that we work. And I’m going to flip it over to Steve at the end, because he does a lot just not with ABC, but in his own personal life. But so there’s different ones, we work with specific schools that have programs already. And it’s not so much the shot class, what I would love to see is that new to it, it is available at all the high school. So it’s not just you’re going to one school just for that same as the school that we’re working with our pre apprentice type programs, we’re again, they’re kind of taking the first year of our program over four years. And by the time they graduate from high school, they’re able to come into a second year of our program. There’s some programs and with AI built out of Orlando or ACE program, which we are looking to actually copy and look at it, which is providing that mentoring what you’re talking about. So it’s sending workers from our contractors, and to partner with those schools that are right now more considered technical schools, and their speakers or their job shadowing, when they’re allowed off the campus, we get out of COVID, you know, they can go on field trips, and so forth. But that is and what we’re seeing is those contractors that are more involved in the mentoring are having a much better hiring because they already know, you know, that the students know those names of companies and so forth. But I think beyond that, I think it is a it is a figuring out from a community based and I build is one of the ones we’re working with in Orlando and Tampa areas trying to bring the contractor the school together, to better the community. But there still are some of those bridges that aren’t, they’re not burned or anything, just like you said, they’ve been left alone for years. You know, they haven’t, you know, they’re a little wobbly on the bridge. And I think there’s that aspect, but the one we’re not talking about is really trying to bring that into every high school, you know, so that every kid gets that exposure to it. Because if I don’t make that decision in middle school, like you talked about, so if I didn’t make a decision to go to Tampa Bay tech or whatever, technical school, I probably don’t have the chance to change my mind. By the time I’m in ninth or 10th grade. Like I can’t change schools, especially in our districts. It’s not super easy to change High School. And then do you Where are you in the program. So it really does transfer down into that middle school. And we’ve been working with junior achievement on they do and they did a huge program here out of Pinellas a virtual career fair. We used to do real real I went but trying to hit the middle schooler. So the idea was middle schoolers doing some hands on and just seeing the opportunities. And it was everything from, you know, cosmetology, to electricians, to building constructions to graphics, and so forth. And I think that’s where we have to look at is is introducing it and middle schools and making it more available through more high schools, which is where Steve was doing a great job in my area with and trying to really expand it through Hillsborough?

Steve Cona

Well, I will say, the greatest benefit to our industry would be a solid pipeline out of high school into the trades. That is what we are focused on as an association and as an industry, we have to do a better job of attracting students right out of high school into into our industry. I mean, that’s that has to be the main focus and how that works. Obviously, you know, we have to do a better job from a state perspective, from a educational perspective in making sure that our students are aware of all of the opportunities that are available them after high school, you know, not just a particular welding program at a high school or an electrical program at a high school, it has to be a statewide effort to in our educational system to promote opportunities in in all occupations that don’t necessarily require a four year degree and I think that is what we need to see what needs to happen. Because that’s our greatest pipeline right now in our apprenticeship training program. The average age of our apprentice is 2627 years old. That has to be we have to get that lower we have to get that to be 20 to 21 years old, because, you know, we are getting these folks coming into our program, as you know, it’s an afterthought to them, right? They didn’t go to college, they don’t want to work fast food, they don’t want to work in these, you know, hourly jobs, they want to build skills and careers. They shouldn’t have to wait till 26 We should start promoting that in middle schools and and throughout their, you know, K through 12 career.

Natasha Sherwood

Or they went to college and it wasn’t for them. And now they have a lot of debt and they need a real job.

Autumn Sullivan

Yeah, let’s not have student loan debt, I’ll cry.

Benjamin Holmgren

I agree with what Steve said wholeheartedly. And I would chime in on this from our perspective. So admittedly, we’re a marketing firm. So take it with a grain of salt. But yet again, like I bring us back to Gen Z, millennials of where are the eyeballs? I think that we need to do a better job at telling the story of the trades of working in excavation in utilities in electric, electrical and plumbing. And and understand where the eyeballs are. It’s one thing to put on a show at a trade show or a jobs fair, which I admire that I applaud that. I think that’s awesome for local, all of us kind of that’s, that’s good. That’s a great solution. But what about Instagram? Tick tock, I know you’re everybody’s rolling their eyes, whatever. But But you wanted me on the panel.

Autumn Sullivan

This is what this is why I want to do on the panel. But there’s a there’s whatever. 100 Something eyeballs watching this clip right now. And one thing that they could start doing today, if you’re not doing is using social media, to start telling this story of your business of what you’re up to show people what it’s actually like to work in your industry. Talk about it. Like that’s what we see works time and time again, it’s not that you have to try to make it look cool. The trades is already cool. Like it’s amazing. Like get in here and get get into an apprenticeship program. We’re getting to work with a a journeyman for a while, get some years under your belt come like Come join us. That’s what we need to be telling people.

Autumn Sullivan

Yeah, and the comments rolling in really back that up or people are talking about, you know, do you know how many kids leave the foster care. Without a career path? Why aren’t we tapping into them? What about people who leave the military without, you know, having only served two or three years they’re still young they have a lot of they have they already have a good skills background, they obviously have the dedication, so why aren’t we reaching out to them. And what you’re talking about then really makes me think about how the military does a great job of recruiting kids with ROTC officers and billboard campaigns and all of that. So really wrapping wrapping construction into a cool message that that people can that young people can identify with to make it a more generic really to illuminate that it is a viable option. It’s not it’s not a substitution. It’s not lesser than college, it’s just a different path. And, and telling that whole story of not just it’s cool, and it’s fun. But also you can feed your family, you can travel around the country, like there’s a lot of opportunity here, depending on what where you want to go with it.

Benjamin Holmgren

Exactly right. And to to polish off the point. It’s, we need to the narrative, there is the college thing, but the narrative of it’s not just cool. It’s not just fun. But this is absolutely critical. But we can do with fewer underwater basket weaving degree majors week, we need people to put in pipelines? How are you going to turn on your electricity? How are you going to turn on your shower in the morning, if like, where’s your sewage gonna go? This needs to happen. And this is a critical infrastructure. And so that that’s like, there’s more fulfillment in it than people give it credit for. And this is this, this is it’s critical needs to happen.

Autumn Sullivan

And to Steve’s point and to what you just said, it’s more than just, it is more than just construction, we need to give options that we just need all of those skilled trades options that don’t require a four year degree and you and you can still get one if you want. And we’ll talk about the options for continuing education. And maybe that’s where we where we talk about that is is right now. You can still get a college degree and work in construction, but you can be making a good paycheck in the meantime. So Natasha, Steve, whichever whoever wants to take this, let’s talk about the role of offering continuing education as an incentive to retain workers.

Natasha Sherwood

Well, I think there’s two things you talked on. One is continuing education for our industry there are required to use as well so there’s that part where they have to continue learning but then there’s the optional part. So similar to like what Benjamin said about leadership. So where do those next superintendence? Come where those next forming come? And when? Where do you identify them. And Steve and I both also have apprentice programs. So our apprentice programs, we actually were on a call last week with one of our community college partners. So our kids are not only in an apprentice program where they’re on the job training, they’re actually at a community college where they’re you’re earning college credits that they’re not paying for, you know, that they are, and they’re being paid. So there’s that option. But in In addition, and one of the things I’m working with Florida, Prince of association is articulation agreements. And that’s something as a state that we can do. As well as if we provide those articulation agreements that are across the board for the state college system, then it becomes ongoing learning. So not only is what they’re learning to become an apprentice, giving them college credit, they’re then connected with that State College and able to maybe take business classes, and maybe they do want to become, do want to own their own, become a contractor on their own, they want to become estimators, they want to move up. And those options are available through our partners. But then as well, we’re able to do as an association. And I know Steve does similar trainings that make our contractors better, whether it is technical knowledge, business knowledge, or just contributing community knowledge. And I think that does keep them engaged. And it goes back to that Ben was talking about in the culture is it’s an engaged employee, someone who stays with you. Right? So they like where they’re working. You you do business with people you like, it’s not, you know, so you if you have them continuing to become engaged in investing in them. That’s another part of that culture. So yeah, we do everything from fire alarm, burglar alarm, and OSHA and journeyman prep. And similar to what you know, I’m sure and Steve’s doing down there, but the leadership training, and that really is identified, again, getting those kids when they’re 18, to 24, rather than 24 to 26. They get in that pipeline, they’re running jobs by the time they’re 26.

Steve Cona

Yeah, and just to kind of piggyback I think, you know, what we’re saying is, in this day and age in this economy, you have to invest in educating your workforce, there are no unemployed, electricians, and plumbers sitting on the sidelines, they’re already employed. So if you’re gonna build your pipeline, you have to build your pipeline by investing in people who might not necessarily have the skills that you need at that time. But if you’re going to create your own pipeline, investing in your employees, training them, putting them in apprenticeship programs, and you know, what, and actually maintaining it through their lifecycle as an employee, I can tell you right now, one of the things that we’re we’re doing is, you know, training superintendents on how to lead apprentices. Right. Yeah, we talked about Ben, you brought up a good point earlier, like, this is how, you know, you lead to engage, you know, the younger folks coming into the workforce. So, you know, where as, as an association, we’re offering as many courses as we possibly can to focus on how employers upskill their employees and, and, you know, that’s going to be a continuing effort. And we’re gonna see more and more of that, as we as we grow as an industry.

Benjamin Holmgren

Absolutely, this this is sound like a completely shameless plug. But just to back up what both you just said, I mentioned build with leaders during my intro, that’s exactly what we’re doing for the heavy civil dirt, interest industry, like how our vision is, we’re going to create this training platform, it’s live, you can go look it up, you can sign up today. But we create this training platform that teaches Yes, the skills. And we want to be able to take someone from total total newbie out of high school, teach them how to be a great grade checker, or great laborer, and then teach that guy or gal, how to be a great operator, and then how to be a great foreman, to a great superintendent to a great project manager and estimator, and eventually a business leader, like and we can teach all that those are tangible skills. And I think the important thing that that to note is that we need to give youngsters a path. Like we need to show people a path, and that they’re making progress toward a goal that they value. So many people the narrative is that construction is this dead end job. And if you bump into somebody two years later, and they’re like, Yeah, I’m still working in construction. It’s like a bad thing. Like, no, that’s not a bad thing. I’m on track. Yeah, I’m almost through my apprenticeship program or I’m all I just became a foreman. Now I’m learning how to lead my my crews how to deal with superintendents. So that’s what we built build leaders about and for and that’s what that’s the philosophy is like, give people a path, develop your people invest in people as Steve, Steve said, that’s, that’s exactly what we’re seeing. And that’s the huge part of the solution.

Autumn Sullivan

That’s awesome. We have Question from an audience member. Christina asked, What are we doing to address workforce development in disadvantaged and underserved populations. And it dovetails very nicely with one of my questions, which was about diversity as part of the labor challenge. The last research I did had 6% of the workforce of the construction work workforce was African American, and 10% of the workforce was made up by women. So obviously, a lack of diversity is part of the problem. So, Steve, let’s start with you. What strategies would you recommend for a construction company to address their diversity challenge as part of their talent? And pipeline challenge?

Natasha Sherwood

Yeah, no, you’re? That’s a great question. And you’re absolutely correct. But I will tell you from a construction standpoint, and from our apprenticeship program standpoint, we run a very diverse program, I would say, you know, we are we’re probably hovering around, you know, 35%, Hispanic, 18%, African American, where we do struggle, and it’s something that we have to be better at is getting women attracted to coming into our industry. Now, that has changed quite a bit, when you talk about the, from a general contractor’s perspective from project managers to, you know, Assistant Project Managers, you’re seeing a huge influx of females coming in to those positions. We need to be better from a trade perspective training, giving females the options to come in and be electricians. I think right now, in our program, we probably have, we’re training about 350 apprentices and I would say, you know, 12 to 15 of them are female, which is great. I, you know, I’d like it to be I’d like it to be more, but I’m encouraged by what we’re seeing. And to get to the question on, you know, low income, disadvantaged folks, this is the greatest career path for any individual, the quickest way to become a owner. A CEO, is, in my opinion, through the construction industry, once you learn a trade, and then figure out a way to monetize it, you know, it, you can quickly become, you know, from a from a apprentice to a CEO, in a very short period of time, we’ve seen folks that we brought into our programs from disadvantaged communities, I’ll we have an example of a black female apprentice who started two years ago. Now she’s in our, she’s in our program right out of high school, she bought herself a new car, she’s doing very well, providing for her family. So I tell people all the time, this industry doesn’t really see color, it sees skills. And when, you know, if you have those skills, those skills can can take you pretty much anywhere in our industry.

Natasha Sherwood

And I would get our numbers, I just pulled them up to make sure. So we have about 403 across the state, we only have eight women, it’s super sad in an organization run by a woman here and I you know, I still struggle. We diversity wise, it we do better, you know, so we’re pretty similar numbers, we’re probably about 25%, African American, 25%, Hispanic, and then the percent white and other and so forth. And that area seems to work. But I think part of that the diversity is just getting there is again, back up the very first question that gap. So we’re talking a long time ago, when electricians were first being it then we didn’t educate them. So now we’re catching up and, and diversity, we do have a, I think a good handle on but some of that’s reaching out. So like we work with a migrant workers, and we’re heavily involved with the migrant workers around the area and Ami, which is a group with works with kids who have maybe gotten a little trouble and so forth. And then some just disadvantaged groups, and you mentioned foster children as a super big heart of mine. And we have looked at how do you reach out into those groups, as well. And we do have some work with Eckerd. And those are, really is to get to, I mean, believe me, I drove my daughter all the way up to college two weeks ago, being like, you could be an electrician, if you want to do my apprentice. You’d own it for years, like I wouldn’t be dying for this college to drive you to and then I got I got 90 employers where you and you you can pick which one and they will they will hire you. If I get resumes in and if I get a minority woman it is a bidding warfare on my resume first. No, give me the resume first. And then but we do we do have a lack of availability in to connect with them. And I don’t know exactly what it is Steve and I weren’t like I said we were working on a community college today. How do you how do you reach that at that point? population and part of it is a stigma is is again, breaking down those stereotypes that what is involved in it, I think, you know, there’s positives coming out of COVID. And we got to find some right there’s got to be something is that we’ve I want to send workers are none among I’ve stopped working, most of them are working overtime from March 13 2020. They haven’t stopped yet. And so there is there’s that aspect, but also for us to learn how to reach out and some of it comes to the military, someone was asking about the military reach out and some of it is women coming out in military and and where do we direct our resources? And I think it may be one of those things where we have to start working more to all the skilled labor together, you know, kind of working as how to where and how do we reach out and then working with our educational partners? Let’s use some of the funding they get from the state to go target those people who will best build our tomorrow’s literally and figuratively.

Autumn Sullivan

Yeah, there’s there was a great comment in the in the chat that said, it’s not that the space is disadvantaged, but that it lacks opportunity reach outs, and I think that that really speaks to like, you know, each individual organization, each of you are doing great work reaching out to these different to these different populations, these different groups. But it’s really hard to get, you know, to your point, where are we going to put our resources, and it’s it to me, it speaks to a need of a strategic cooperation among many different organizations or many different skilled trades to address this issue. But it’s it’s very, it’s, it’s to me, it’s a positive to see how much work is being done in that area. And then, you know, someone else was talking about, oh, Natasha, real quick, we had a question in the chat. What does that

Natasha Sherwood

mean? I’m actually looking at the actual what it means is AMI kids in in Tampa. And so it’s a group that it’s across the whole state. So I’m looking at real quick what it actually stands for, because I should probably know that but I just always call them I started out as I’m really working with Marine Institute to take students who may have had problems in schools or problems at home, and it took a man they taught them they did High School, and really probably a what you would call apprenticeship but worked on Marine, and that’s what it was, was Marine Institute. But now it has gone out they have pre apprenticeship, construction, pre apprenticeship trainings, and so forth for the students that’ll, so instead of going through their juvenile detention, or to some other diversion, this is a process they can use. And I’m looking it up right now it’s ami kids.org. But let me find out what it actually means. So, um, but it works across the state and they have chapters across the state. And it may be like FFA, FFA, where they’ve gone away from Future Farmers of America. Now they’re just FFA that doesn’t. Yeah, and I’ll tell you if I find it. My kids, it’s all about hey, my kids, but that’s what it is. And if it Yeah, they say my kids.org. So if anybody is interested in how that does work out, I don’t get any kickbacks or anything. They’re just a great group.

Autumn Sullivan

I love it. We have a bunch of questions in the q&a. I have one last question for the panel, which is about that narrative, the narrative that construction is a last resort, the narrative that construction is a dead end job. We know that that is a systemic problem in the industry. We also know that we can’t change the whole industry, because we’re only for people. And so my question for you guys is what can an individual company do to start changing that narrative? What is some of you know, what would you recommend a business owner turn around and start doing today? To to help change that narrative?

Steve Cona

I can I can start. Look, I come from a family of carpenters. Right. You know, my grandfather owned a general contracting business, he built a huge amount of homes in the Tampa Bay area. And when I would work with for my grandfather’s company in the summer, my grandfather would tell me like, you need to go to college, so you don’t have to work like this. So it’s self inflicted, right? So as you know, as we, you know, my grandfather had and you know, an eighth grade education. But he also learned to be a carpenter learned a skill, and, you know, and he ended up having beach houses and a really nice house and, and really nice cars. And I can remember saying, Well, why don’t I want to do this. So I think as an industry, we need to the folks who work in this industry, we need to be are the biggest promoters of that. We need to talk to parents, look, there are parents of, you know, electricians that still want their kids to go to college. And when they say they want to be an electrician, you know, the parents are like, well, but you know, so we have to change the culture. We have to change the narrative, because, you know, this country was built because people learned skills and built it. And, you know, no one can say this country was built because people went to college and I know that sounds bad, but this country was because people learn skills and created things and build things, and I think that’s what we need to continue to push. And you know, and as a parent, I want my kids to learn skills that that can self sustain them, whether it’s college, or whether it’s learning to trade. So as parents, as an industry, we need to be better avenues for pushing, you know, the narrative that this is a viable option.

Natasha Sherwood

I think part of it is also showing what we’re doing that narrative, and we’re making sure that we are living that narrative, but we’re also whether it’s the videos if the TIC TOCs, it’s it’s the espousing the virtues of it, the fact that you can go home, you know, your workday and start early, but you can be home with your kids, you can buy, you know, you’re getting your home, because you’re earning instead of collecting debt, and it’s, um, there is that aspect of reaching to the kids, the TIC TOCs to the kids, but there’s also that part of getting into the guidance counselor’s in the high schools, or the middle schools and, and creating that set, you know, one of the things we’re looking at is what we do field trips, for the guidance counselors, we see what it takes to run a, you know, come see an electrical contract or day an electrical contractor, come see how many aspects you know, come meet my vice president of XYZ company that has a nice boat, and a nice car, and a nice house and no college degree. And, and I think that part of it is it’s discussions like this, it’s discussions that we have as a community is it’s working with our chambers and, and working with our legislators working with our Councilman our representatives. And we’re lucky with the papeles career and we have a governor who is gung ho about funding apprenticeships, and you know, that kind of workforce investment, and I think it’s championing that is talking about it. And it’s not saying just, that’s my worst thing, when I hear I just know, you didn’t just do anything, and yeah, I don’t, I don’t like that I’m just a stay at home mom, or I’m just an electrician, or I’m just an apprentice. And, you know, it is changing that narrative on that part that this is cash, and let’s be honest, financially can be awesome. I mean, let’s speak their language, you know, you can buy a car, you don’t have debt, you can buy a nice house, you make good money, and you have good hours. In there’s also lots of overtime, if you want it and you can go be an instructor, you can be a lifelong learner. And I think those aspects that apart, you know, I didn’t do a good job with my first kid, I got three more, maybe one of them, I’ll get to be an electrician, and that’ll be awesome. But and I think that’s what it is. And it I said I was a K through 12 principal and knew nothing about these opportunities. And any, and I’m like, wow, and I worked with all so low economic kids, you know, the 34,000 for a family for and didn’t know this opportunity existed. And I want to like, you know, hit my forehead like, gosh, I didn’t tell it to these kids. So it’s how, you know, it’s changing that narrative and talking about it.

Benjamin Holmgren

You very well said, Oh, echo some of what you said. But I also want to make a point. Because for, I don’t know, 567 years, owners and leadership in construction, have been saying, We just it’s so hard to find good help. You asked them what what their biggest problem is like, Oh, we just can’t find good help. We have all this work, we can’t find good help. Don’t people get tired of talking about how they can’t find good help. But don’t you just get exhausted saying the same thing for five years, seven years, 10 years. We know you can’t find good help do something. And this is kind of an ironic thing, because we’re on this on this conversation about solving the challenges of labor shortage for the industry. I’m not interested in solving the industry’s labor shortage challenge. But if there’s one person on here, who can take something from this, and it lights a spark and may consult it for them. That was a win, you’re not going to solve the problem for the industry micro isn’t going to fly, bless his heart, he’s not going to fly to your house and help you solve your your, you know the industry’s labor problems. But you can solve it, you can do something for you. And we work with dozens of partners who build it ourselves. We have 40 people, we don’t have a hiring problem. We don’t have a retention problem. Because we tell stories. We see it with our partners all the time, these contractors who are having people moved to new cities to come and work for them. We have dozens of case studies like that, where someone was like, I didn’t even realize that existed. Cool, but I saw you on Instagram 100 times. And now I’m going to move to Tennessee and work for you as a scraper operator, because that’s a bargain. No, by the way dirty little secret is he makes 80 or 100 or $120,000 a year doing so. And so I’ll echo what Steve said well said my friend, we need to be like if you’re if you’re in this and you’re struggling with this, but you’re not talking about it. You’re not being The biggest promoter of it, you’re part of the problem, you need to be telling this story. That’s That’s it and telling a story can look like Instagram and Tiktok. But it can also look like reaching out to your schools and starting these programs and apprenticeships, but it’s on you. That’s the that’s the point, you’re not going to solve it for the industry. Don’t worry about that. Solve it for you.

Autumn Sullivan

Yeah, and that, you know, we talk a lot Mobilization Funding about being a purpose driven business and putting a purpose behind what you do every day. And I really think that that is, is key when it comes to to the talent, the talent challenge as well, if you are, you know, if you are a woman owned business and construction, and you are passionate about spreading that message of opportunity, then you need to be reaching out to those organizations, to see how you can help put your efforts toward, you know, toward that success, reach, reach down, reach out and be helping the next the next generation, you know, whether it’s working with kids, whether it’s working with people coming out of the correctional facilities, whatever it is that you’re that’s part of your purpose, that aligns to your purpose, because when you have that, that authenticity, you will pour into it and it doesn’t feel like extra work, it actually lights you up. And if your team is behind that your whole team becomes advocates for that message, you can really like your whole company becomes part of that machine. And I you know, I could get on my high horse about that for all day. But this is about you guys. So we have a we only have like 10 minutes left. And we have a ton of questions in the q&a. So I’m going to start firing these off. First is from Seth. What about processes for employees seeking to apply? I’ve seen many companies who don’t have a formal process, or make it way too over complicated. And so so that people just don’t apply what what would you guys say to that about processes for hiring?

Natasha Sherwood

I’d say some of ours are super quick, like I got a resume Monday and the guy’s already hired today. And he starts Thursday. But there’s some of my contractors that have a much longer process. And some of it depends on the size of their company and their company. Same thing, their vision and mission. And some of them have a longer process. And some of them, I send them a resume and they’ll hire them. And I think getting past maybe some of those stigmas that it’s difficult, or working with those who don’t, but ours, ours is super simple, but I just don’t think people maybe no, it is, for the most part, not fill out an application. It is send me a resume and it goes out to 90 people. And they probably will have five or six phone calls before I finished sending out the email. Again, like Steve said, there’s no electricians or plumbers sitting waiting for the jobs for the most part anywhere.

Steve Cona

Yeah, and I and I agree with Tasha and and to be perfectly honest in this, in this day and age, not even sometimes a resume is necessary. Sometimes someone who is just willing to get to work and makes the right call or the right call a company, I can tell you that. I would say seven out of 10 of our our companies are hiring right now. So really all you have to do, you can go on the abc.org website, look at our membership list, make calls, just call the company and ask if they’re hiring. If they are, I think it’s a great opportunity for you to take advantage of.

Benjamin Holmgren

It’s important to note that recruiting is sales. So don’t make it hard to sell. You know, don’t make it hard for people to buy from you or come and work for you make that process easy.

Autumn Sullivan

Our next question is from Sharon Do any of you believe a four year degree in construction sciences or construction management adds value and or makes a difference in being promoted?

Steve Cona

I can tell you, as you know, someone who was a college trustee and a school board member, one of the things that I fought for the most is we have all of this amazing curriculum in our industry and Natasha, she has the same. The curriculum is amazing. Why do why does the educational I like to call them the educational authority not say that that curriculum is worth an associate in arts degree or in a bachelor’s degree. You know, it requires the same amount of work and rigor and in fact more because it requires on the job training hours as well. So I think we need to get the educational institutional complex on board with actually saying if you have these credentials, then we will give you you know, a degrees and bachelor’s degrees because there’s no rhyme or reason why someone who is a trained electrician shouldn’t have the same degree as somebody who’s an English major in my opinion, I just don’t see the difference in that and we’ve tried and we’re gonna push and that really needs to change from the educational sector in my opinion.

Natasha Sherwood

Kind of just again, it’s one of the main pushes I have in this apprenticeship Station. association is to make those state colleges to look at our curriculum across the board across the state of Florida. All the state colleges. Here’s if you do this, you take this many courses, this OJT counts for that. So it doesn’t, you know, come back to the questions as a four year, you know, construction degree. My college roommate has a four year construction degree and works in a construction agency and the construction contractor and worked with people who don’t have a degree. And on the same level as he does. He put in his work, I would say four years in college, many of them put him for years and OJT. I don’t know, that necessarily gets them ahead. I think some of what it does is there are some exposure to some other courses that they sometimes are able to see which, which opens your horizon a little bit when she gives you sometimes it This isn’t fair, but I mean, it’s just the honest truth. It gives you the courage to apply for jobs you might not necessarily apply for I don’t necessarily think that you’re any more necessarily qualified. But all of a sudden, there’s that stigma associated and that history that we have, and that I have a college degree I can apply for this job. So many jobs require well requires a high school degree, but preferred is a bachelor’s and I used to be K through 12 teacher I had some great teachers that were a teacher assistants that were much better teachers with no degree than some of my teachers, you know, who went through the master’s degrees? And so does it help? Yes, it helps. But it is more sometimes I think, because of the courage that and sometimes the, the they feel I get from it not because they necessarily know a whole lot more. And I think we’re changing and moving away from that. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see college degrees. And college programs become more mirroring our apprentice programs than vice versa. You know, you already see specialized degrees that are steering away from the undergraduate liberal arts and are steering more towards really getting into their industry, which essentially as an apprentice program.

Benjamin Holmgren

I’ll just ask who’s paying for it? If mom and dad are paying for it, help yourself? Yeah, go for it. If you want to just become a construction superintendent. And you think the degree is gonna help, I would just go to go to work. Again, you don’t settle up yourself with six figures in college debt, and end up in the same spot.

Natasha Sherwood

And many companies will pay for it after you’ve been there. That’s right, you do have a degree to get that degree.

Benjamin Holmgren

Yeah. But if you can go as Natasha said, you can go and, and get exposure to other things and network and all that. And have a good time. Congrats, good for you.

Autumn Sullivan

So our next question is from Amanda, a big thing we’re seeing in outreach efforts is job readiness, or lack of job readiness, which is you know, being on time and preparing ahead. This varies from high school age to other groups. How would you address job preparing people job readiness for a job and construction, the details of like, you have to be here on time and should probably wear close toed shoes.

Natasha Sherwood

It’s so true. We have in front of our new a new worker training on the new worker trainings we do. But we make it available for our contractors, but it’s something that’s being developed but we see it even in the resumes or applications. I say resumes because sometimes they don’t know how to write a resume, right? So they don’t even though they’ve been through high school, not necessarily capitalization is not a big thing anymore, right? It is you text is all in all lowercase. And so some of it’s that and then showing up and some of there is some talking through what’s appropriate to wear. And it doesn’t have to be nice. It can it can be from the goodwill down the street, a nice pair of khakis and go for you know, $2 khakis and a $2 collared shirt and, and then also just answering questions. But showing up not just on time showing up for an interview is something that we’re working through. I was Dakota, I just had a board meeting and one of the members said, Yeah, he got a raise, because he made it to the second interview. And I was like, wow, okay, you know. And so we do have that problem. But I don’t think it is specific to construction. It is specific to where we are in this and the world we live in right now. And we were virtual for a year like we didn’t we didn’t leave our houses like we didn’t leave PJ’s. And, you know, we put on shirts and maybe had on shorts. So there is that aspect. And it is a portion of, we go over dress code, the first night of our apprentice program, and that is, please don’t wear opaque clothing. And please wear things that I don’t see, you know, cover your shoulders. And I don’t want to see portions of you that don’t need to be seen. And that is something we go over the soft skills, per se is what you say, you know, and we talked about proper email. And those things are important for them to do that progression. And that is that constant learning that Ben was talking about is it may not be constantly learning about bending pipe. It may be constantly learning about how to work with people because essentially what we’re all doing right, we’re all working with other people. If we’ll learn along the way, it’s great, but if you can’t work with people, you’re probably not going to do well in any industry, any industry, right?

Steve Cona

That’s exactly and I think one of the things that Sorry, sorry, sorry, Ben, I think one of the things that and I’ll be quick, one of the things that, that we tell our apprentices is look, or people who are wanting to get into the trade, you know, show up, be on time and be eager to learn. That’s all you have to do. That is all you have to do. But that, but but that’s tough for some folks. And I think, you know, that’s kind of the world we live in today. But you know, be present, be on time and be willing to learn. And I think if, if they can, if they do that, they’ll go far in our industry.

Natasha Sherwood

And I would ask, I would add, one thing we’ve told them is to ask for help. There is a unwillingness to help ask for help. So whether it’s you need a ride, because many of the kids is 18 year olds, they don’t have driver’s license, like to me was the biggest thing, that driver’s license, because they never even thought about getting a car, or they would be able to get a car. So if you need help, ask if you don’t understand the math of it, ask. And that has not something that’s always been pushed in there K through 12. world, but ask ask ask.

Autumn Sullivan

Well, and interestingly enough, I’ve read a lot of material about how that’s part of the construction culture that that has been pervasive and now is changing is it’s a culture of you don’t ask what you don’t know. You just, you just figure it out. Or you just pretend that you know and hope that it works. But But now research is showing that that that’s a productivity issue. It’s a performance issue, it’s also a safety issue. So it’s a huge safety issue. So So that’s part of the culture that is changing. And that’s kind of opening up the topics of it’s okay to admit you don’t know something, it’s okay to ask a question. It’s okay to be a little bit, a little bit vulnerable, right. And this, you know, kind of what has been historically a male dominated kind of tough industry, it’s starting to open up and say, Look, you have to be able to talk because if you don’t know how to do something, not only does it mean that we’re gonna have to redo this later, but you might get hurt. So our next question is from John, and it is how can technology play a role in attracting new construction workers gently is a great and great topic to dive into in our last few minutes. I’ll go first.

Benjamin Holmgren

We already talked a little bit about social media, the internet, the interwebs. But I would also say that what we’re seeing there’s there’s more and more technology being developed, to help do the job better. Everything from you know, and you guys see it in your industry as well. But But laser, and, and GPS, and all this stuff, there’s actually like a, there is a tremendous amount of technology in the industry. And I think that’s another dirty little secret. People think that if they go work for a dirt company that say that they’re going to end up with the, you know, the dumb end of a shovel all the time. It’s like, No, you can you can, if whether it’s software or hardware, there’s tons of technology that takes a lot of learning and a lot of training and a lot of skill to be able to use there. Like it is incredible. It’s like someone’s rocket surgery. So I think there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of opportunity there for people who may be more interested in a kind of a technology background, like you can work for a company who work for an electrical contractor, and have a heavy tech bent, and get what you need. From that, get your get your kicks from that.

Natasha Sherwood

I think we’ve also seen I mean, the electrical industry goes, it’s changes, right? So we’re always gonna need electricity. It’s just where’s that electricity coming from? So is it low voltage? Is it solar? Are they coming from, you know, what aspects are that? You know, you’re, we’re gonna need air conditioning for it right? You’re always gonna need air conditioning, it’s just not gonna not be something you need in Florida. So how’s the air conditioning? Getting? Is it solar? Is it ah, you know, are you low voltage? Who’s working on it? Who’s putting it in your cars? Like, are you gonna plug your car in? Well, that’s electricity. So there are those new edge parts of technology. But then kind of going back to almost an old technology, like we’ve started offering more of our apprenticeship programs, apprentice programs online, so our students are working in different parts of the state, and they’re going in, we’re making that available to them. Again, we had a small program online, COVID hit and we’re like, Okay, this can work. So now there’s a larger portion. And we’re able to reach more students and students who might not have been in an area, but it also identified an area where, where we didn’t necessarily know that there was a gap in that technology. So as the technology becomes positive, it’s also opening up those areas where we know that technology is maybe a deficit. So I think it’s both

Steve Cona

just to add and kind of what Natasha and Benjamin both hit on. A lot of these commercial buildings are built online way before they’re actually built in real life. So You know, they are building jobs because of the lack of workforce. A lot of these jobs are very efficient and they’re built and you know, someone who sits in a, in a, you know, in a forklift or you know, those things are air conditioned now, like it used to be before. So technology is radio a lot easier. Yeah, technology is making it a lot easier for, for our for our skilled labor workers. And, you know, we’re we’re proud of all of the technological breakthroughs that we’re having in the construction industry right

Autumn Sullivan

now. Well, it’s 101. I want to respect everyone’s time. Thank you guys so much for doing this. I think each one of you said you didn’t have all the answers. But I think collectively, you provided an awful lot of answers and an awful lot of help for our audience. So thank you so much. I appreciate each and every one of you. And thank you, everyone for for joining us today. It was a huge turnout, I am so honored that you chose to spend an hour with us. The last comment in the q&a is great conversation on preparing for the future. Any suggestions on resources to find construction management type folks, quality control superintendent, safety managers? I’ll let you guys answer that. But one thing I did want to say is, I know for a fact there are some recruiting people who specialize in construction who are in the audience right now. There is a LinkedIn event chat for this for this webinar. You can email me at a dot Sullivan at mobilization funding comm if you need a link for that. But if you go on to LinkedIn and you look up, mobilization funding, you’ll find it, I thoroughly encourage all of you to introduce yourselves in that chat and what you do so connect with each other, there were 200 people on this webinar, let’s start connecting, let’s start building these things. Let’s find the solutions for each other. So I just wanted to put that out there. And then if any of you have a resource for finding those kinds of high level people, then let’s go ahead and share and then we’ll we’ll wrap up for the day. Well, if

Steve Cona

you want to go to ABC, FL golf, Gu lf.org, go to our website, my email addresses on there, you can look at all of our resources, you can look at all of our member companies. And if you are interested in any careers in the construction industry, please feel free to email me and my email addresses on the website.

Natasha Sherwood

And I would say I mean ours is ours is IEC florida.org. And I don’t know where to find them. If you do if you’ll let me know because my people would like to hire them. But in the end, I think the part is is building them to part of him is investing and you may have to create your own pipeline for me who you have. But similar to Steve’s all my informations on there, you can reach out through the IEC florida.org. And we do have resumes on there under resources for people looking for jobs. They’re not they’re very long, they don’t last a whole long time. So feel free to check them out. And I think the other part is there are kinda like answer. There’s some staffing companies that work specifically in that some trade partner and there’s just different ones you can look out. If you look up, you know, construction, and temp jobs and so forth, they sometimes will have people in there or join one of our associations, I’m sure I’m sure it will take a member I definitely remember I’ll tell you we don’t borrow. So that is our solution. When I’m one of my guys, one of my companies needs more workers they borrowed from another company in our association. So that’s how we we solve that. So if you’re an electrician, give us a call and give Steve a call. I definitely can help you with this or we’ll train them for you put on my apprentice program. We got some good ones.

Benjamin Holmgren

Okay, yep, for anyone who’s left on the call here, please reach out to me on LinkedIn, just send me a connection request so you can kind of be in touch I post about this stuff all the time, like nearly every day on LinkedIn. So that’s a great place to reach me. And then we also have a handful of recruiters that work for us in house so if you’re interested in anything in dirt in excavation, heavy civil, we can we can definitely help with that either. If you’re if you’re somebody looking for a job or if you’re looking to recruit people we might be able to help with help you out with that at Build with so reach out to me.

Autumn Sullivan

Thank you everyone. If you had to leave early or you didn’t get to join live just so you know we will be doing a webinar replay it will be available on YouTube and I will be sending out an email with a link to that to everyone who registered so you can watch it again and again. Thank you everyone so much take care be well.