Have you ever heard of a college or professional sports team that wants to win but doesn’t invest heavily in selling and recruiting top talent for their teams? Probably not, and some sports teams even have “Farm Teams” to make sure there is an adequate pool of developing talent to choose from. These teams want to win so bad that they leave nothing to chance. After all, getting the best team on the field is truly the key that unlocks the door to winning.
It is amazing to me that the United States can have such a low official unemployment number, yet have so many people unofficially out of work and no longer counted. The number of people that are out of work has rarely been higher, yet there are industries that are desperate for skilled labor and can’t find any. What a paradox! No matter what the cause of this condition the question really is how do you fix it?
The construction Industry for instance has been surviving by finding lower and lower cost labor for years but eventually that backfires and there is no enticing draw for top talent. In addition to that negative the industry is notorious for its booms and busts. With all these challenges there are very few in the industry it seems that actually have a strategy to recruit, develop and keep skilled labor. It has just been assumed that it would always be there. But now it’s not!
So, what would an innovator do? Innovation can come from looking at an old problem with a new set of lenses or from borrowing ideas from another industry and adapting them to your own. In the case of the construction industry it might be time borrow from the sports teams create a training mechanism for developing skilled labor and creating closer relationships with sub contractors. There might also be opportunity in promoting the industry to the younger generation like a good college or military recruiter. If any of you remember the movie “Top Gun” when it came out in the 80s, it was just another exciting Hollywood movie about being a Naval Aviator. But the glamorous picture it portrayed of life in the Navy initiated an enormous boom in naval recruiting. The Construction Industry needs a glamorous promotion of their industry. Now maybe there isn’t a top gun movie for construction right now but promoting the benefits of the industry might just be a timely move for some innovative thinkers. And, yes it does take money to do these things but it’s hard to win the game without a team on the field!
It is amazing to me that the United States can have such a low official unemployment number, yet have so many people unofficially out of work and no longer counted. The number of people that are out of work has rarely been higher, yet there are industries that are desperate for skilled labor and can’t find any. What a paradox! No matter what the cause of this condition the question really is how do you fix it?
The construction Industry for instance has been surviving by finding lower and lower cost labor for years but eventually that backfires and there is no enticing draw for top talent. In addition to that negative the industry is notorious for its booms and busts. With all these challenges there are very few in the industry it seems that actually have a strategy to recruit, develop and keep skilled labor. It has just been assumed that it would always be there. But now it’s not!
So, what would an innovator do? Innovation can come from looking at an old problem with a new set of lenses or from borrowing ideas from another industry and adapting them to your own. In the case of the construction industry it might be time borrow from the sports teams create a training mechanism for developing skilled labor and creating closer relationships with sub contractors. There might also be opportunity in promoting the industry to the younger generation like a good college or military recruiter. If any of you remember the movie “Top Gun” when it came out in the 80s, it was just another exciting Hollywood movie about being a Naval Aviator. But the glamorous picture it portrayed of life in the Navy initiated an enormous boom in naval recruiting. The Construction Industry needs a glamorous promotion of their industry. Now maybe there isn’t a top gun movie for construction right now but promoting the benefits of the industry might just be a timely move for some innovative thinkers. And, yes it does take money to do these things but it’s hard to win the game without a team on the field!
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