To date, one of the most important problems on the project is the lack of a significant number of candidate workers. It is critically important to have a professional staff. Not just workers but highly qualified and educated, who know a lot about their specializations and fields. Subcontractors, when hiring, should try to reduce the risk associated with the lack of the required number of experts. This challenge in construction and other industries is called labor shortages.

Let’s take a look at a few ways to avoid this issue through various approaches. One of the win-win strategies that will help you manage labor shortages together with other pre-construction challenging moments (costing, budget planning, estimating, etc.) is contractor estimating software.

But together with digitization and automation tactics, it is better to apply other ones that cover not only your pre-construction requirements but namely the search for competent workers for your on-site and office tasks. There are eight common ways to manage labor shortages in the construction industry.

Strategy Planning

The shortage of labor is primarily due to high competition. Hiring subcontractors need to streamline their recruitment and selection process. Learn the tactics of other more successful companies. Most result-driven contractors and other representatives of the construction sector will recommend you start with specifying your search channels (social media, forums, local events, recommendations, etc.).

Then, you can pick sides with your own demands for all the candidates. Write down all the criteria but do not forget about the most important ones:

Qualifications (provision of certificates, diplomas, licenses, and other documents);
Scheduling opportunities (to understand the loads your candidate can cope with);
Payments (rates you are able to cover for this or another project);
Recommendations & portfolio (ask your candidates to show any testimonials and case presentations).

Do not forget about briefs and questionnaires that can simplify your search. Add some supplementary questions about possible overtime work, the desire of the candidate to be hired on a full-time job basis, and so on.

Get Extra Help

Hiring employees is a long process and requires a lot of attention. The possibility of contacting a special agency will help you reduce your time spent on finding professional staff. You can inform recruiters and headhunters about your expectations and delegate all these tasks to competent companies.

Specify if you would like to interview candidates yourself or ask agencies to provide all the answers in written form to analyze responses later. But be ready for extra expenditure for such aid.

Your Offer Must be Competitive

Every worker wants to know that he will receive benefits and timely wages for his work. Subcontractors who guarantee the payment of medical insurance, vacations, and other guaranteed payouts have a chance to create a reliable and qualified workforce for construction.

That is why explore all the rates and salaries your competitors offer to workers. Find the best-matching wages for your candidates. Note that you can pay higher salaries for more experienced experts. But all your wages should be competitive.

Build Partnerships

Cooperation in this area will help subcontractors build an effective recruitment strategy. The team must analyze and select the most suitable contracts to improve the workflow, bringing benefits to both parties.

Create an Excellent Working Environment

You can do this in several ways:

Provide employee benefits;
Develop a loyalty system for employees and their families;
Organize various entertainment events in the team that will unite and improve internal communication.
Allow working on a flexible schedule.

You may apply other approaches. But remember about team building and always listen to the demands of your staff. Only responsible bosses have a satisfied team and standing specialists who are highly motivated and love their job.

Use the Latest Technologies

Thanks to the development of technology, there are a large number of tools that optimize the process of both the construction itself and its management. With their help, it will be possible to calculate wages, how much each employee has worked, who is entitled to paid leave, etc.

Estimating, management, and bidding software, together with communication apps, cloud-based programs, and other tech solutions, are always helpful and make all the operations faster, more accurate, and profit-driven.

Take a closer look at artificial intelligence. AI tools can be used to improve the safety of the project, analyze all associated risks, reduce the likelihood of hazards and problems, reduce the number of project costs, and increase or analyze the possible demand for the facility.

It is important to understand that artificial intelligence takes away some of the responsibilities of a person, improving and modernizing the process of managing tasks and their related parameters.