Its not just about Production
There is a massive amount of energy focused on attracting people to the trades. This Labor shortage was obvious 30 years ago when I entered the trades. Over that time Ive seen wages nearly triple, CTE programs emerge, Non-profits developed, and the launching of fancy marketing campaigns. Ive also seen employers blaming the education system, managers blaming HR, and the gray hairs blame "this generation".
And guess what its still happening.
Now what if I waved a magic wand and got us all the people we think we need? If we stick them in a jacked up situation its just a matter of time till people start whimpering about "people just dont care" "no one takes pride in their work anymore" "there arent any master craftsmen out there"
I get it, its way easier to complain and point the finger.
But the energy spent on blaming and complaining is better spent on cleaning up the jacked up situation.
The jacked up situation I am talking about is the poorly designed work that every craft worker deals with day in and day out. GCs you know what Im talking about, the "means and methods". Im talking about the specific way the assembling and installing is being done. If you are thinking "well thats their problem they should work smarter not harder". Keep telling yourself that while you watch your schedules slide and your budgets die.
But if you are a forward thinking leader that knows we cant just cross our fingers and hope it gets better you may be interested in reading further.
There are hundreds and thousands of labor hours lost in the execution of work and we are blind to it. By we im referring to field leaders and it isnt because we dont care or because we are not doing our job. Its because its invisible from our vantage point. We have forgotten how our requests for better tools or equipment were labeled as being needy. We have forgotten the times our ideas to approach the work in a better way was dismissed and minimized. We have become desensitized to the knee brusing, knuckle busting, back breaking work performed every hour on the hour. Its still there and we have just accepted it.
But it doesnt have to stay there. Actually there are some pretty bad ass leaders out there already working diligently to make the work better, in a very precise way. They are going deep, they are studying the way the crews are doing the work. This is where they find all the overly burdensome stuff and yes the waste too. They arent just some weird watchers, they are doing this to find every time their workers kneel down, bend over, twist & contort their bodies. They do this so they can find ways to minimize all that stuff that is gradually stealing life from our craft professionals.
Then they put in some Sweat Equity to make the work better, side by side with their team mate.
Once they have proven the new approach works, they develop training material so this newest best way can be taught to other team members and on other projects.
Lets go back to my magic wand, wouldnt it be cool if all those people we need came in and were taught the most productive, safest, and healthiest way to do the work. My money says you wouldnt need as many as you think.
Yes its a lot of work and a long road to get there. So why not start now?
One Electrical Superintendent has recently experienced a 20% production gain as a result of simply doing his Virtual SQI homework. And yes he was sceptic too but the most important thing is he did the work. His organization made the investment for their people to learn Sweat Equity Improvement and he did the damn thing.
And you can too!
Want to pick up a few techniques you can put into practice today?
Hit the link and make it happen👉 https://www.depthbuilder.com/Micro-Learning-Experience
