It was accurately predicted that by 2015, millennials would bypass their older co-workers and become the majority age demographic of the workforce. They now rank at over 50% of all employees worldwide. That trend, for obvious reasons, will continue to rise. In fact, it’s now forecasted that by 2030, millennials will make up somewhere in the ballpark of 75% of the global workforce.
Despite this, the construction industry is battling to fill its open positions (to the tune of an estimated quarter-million of jobs left unfulfilled). Adding to this conundrum is the daunting statistic that the bulk of the industry’s labour force falls into the demographic of GenX or baby boomers which translates to aged 40 plus – meaning they’ll be approaching retirement or ageing out of manual labour jobs soon.
Having established these facts, it’s clear that the construction industry (among others) has a pressing imperative to engage their millennial workforce to both thrive as well as simply survive. The upside to all these mounting realities is that technology is on the construction industry’s side. Millennials are tech-savvy by design and technology is a perfect tool to help non-desk employees achieve a higher level of engagement. It’s the perfect combination!
How To Tap Into Mobile Technology + Millennial Engagement In the Construction Industry For The Win-Win
Keep them in-the-know
Your mobile HR platform helps non-desk employees in the construction industry stay informed, no matter where they are. Spread-out teams pose challenges to communication flow, and in-app messages create one uniform place to house resources, provide critical team updates and even log their receipt for compliance purposes. Not to mention that most millennials express the desire to work for companies that excel in the area of communication and offer higher levels of transparency to their workforce.
Make a visual appeal
Your millennial workforce is full of digital natives that typically embrace visual learning and the visual presentation of data. Dashboards are second-nature to this younger workforce. Your mobile HR app should offer the level of visual data that they crave. From performance management to personal progress to safety KPIs, you’ll be able to easily share it all with your millennial team using mobile technology tools.
Help them collaborate
A key desire for the millennial workforce is collaboration. They want to learn more, grow in their careers and find collaboration with their team members. While this seems like a great idea, it is not always easy to facilitate and implement especially among non-desk workforces. Mobile app HR tools, again, come into play helping spread out teams find access to one another’s brainpower and putting collaboration back on the table – and even providing a mechanism by which it can be measured. This could be your construction business’s ultimate win-win.
Encourage and empower
While the generalisation is oft made that Millennials are lazy, entitled and lacking in work ethic, the truth is they are commonly misunderstood. They find little satisfaction in showing up for a paycheck and working in jobs that have no purpose in their eyes. In fact, according to findings put out by the Building Design & Construction Network, when Millennials are empowered and engaged, they are 25% more likely to stay longer with the company and work harder toward their goals.
It’s been widely reported that Millennials crave innovation and expect technology to be present at a high level in any job they undertake. In the construction industry, this can translate into digitised tools and automated processes that help them perform their day-to-day tasks, stay in touch with management and manage human resources needs. Embracing new technologies for your construction enterprise might mean implementing the use of drones, virtual reality, augmented reality and more to show that you’re truly on the cutting edge and appeal to this coveted workforce demographic. This along with using technology to help them excel, grow and feel empowered in their own personal journey at your company will be the key to not only recruitment but also retention of the Millennial workforce.
StaffCircle offers a tool that can help you tap into powerful yet easy-to-use mobile technology to keep your millennial workforce engaged and loyal to your construction industry based business. Check out the StaffCircle platform including:
- Keeping employees in the loop on their device and on their timeframe.
- Providing a portal to reinforce the company values, mission statement and goals with easily searchable (hashtagged) keywords.
- Offering a centralised intranet that satisfies the BYOD (bring your own device) standard of today’s Millennial workforce.
- Performance management dashboards that sync up across departments for easy access to progress.
- Customisation capabilities to keep branding identity throughout the app.
- Much, much more!
