Workforce Development: Training the Next Generation of Industry Leaders in the Concrete Industry

The next 20 years of constructing the built environment will look nothing like the previous 20 years of constructing the built environment. The concrete industry is on the cusp of a monumental technological advancement and climate regulation shift that will touch everything. Both challenges will only be exacerbated by a rapidly aging workforce and a younger generation that is, at best, drawn to other highly skilled industries and, at worst, lethargic.

Traditionally, the concrete industry has not come to mind when considering rapid change. There is a tried-and-true method to producing and interacting with the finished product. We are looking down the barrel of a 180-degree turn over the next two decades. If you doubt this, you must realize that it took 13,037 days (35.71 years) to go from Orville and Wilbur’s Kitty Hawk Glider to The Heinkel He 178, the world’s first jet fighter. We shouldn’t underestimate how quickly the leaps happen. People reading this have been behind the same desk for a long time.

Most of these challenges will be recruiting, developing, and retaining top-tier talent from the younger generations. The other challenges of navigating technological advancement and climate change/regulations are moot if we don’t have enough skilled workers at all levels. This isn’t isolated to the “blue collar” segments of the industry either. However, we are DOA if we can’t find enough of mixer drivers, carpenters, rebar crews, and finishers.  

Largely, the “blue collar” issue can be solved through immigration. Mexico and the Central American countries are well equipped to fill this void. Given where they are in their economic development cycles as nations and the inherent characteristics of their cultures, those civilizations will play a major role in our industry in the coming years.

As an industry, it would be wise for us to push for a comprehensive and generous immigration plan tailored to individuals from these countries who have the skills we deem essential to the industry. America’s youth has decided to go another way, so we must look outside our borders. This is evident by the number of college graduates who come out of school with minimal practical skills. To many humanities graduates, not enough humanity swinging a hammer.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics research on skilled labor in the construction and extraction occupations, “About 646,100 openings are projected each year, on average, due to employment growth and the need to replace workers who leave the occupations permanently. Meanwhile, some people have walked from Honduras to Texas looking for work and opportunity. This is the obvious solution to our problem in this regard. This legislative solution can and should be accomplished by the industry aggressively lobbying for it.

Now, that leaves us with the other side of the coin: the “white collar” position. This might be the tougher issue to resolve. This is due to the nature of the concrete industry itself. It is not an industry where people fresh out of a top-ten MBA program with zero industry experience can walk in and be successful. 

If you want to run a concrete business and you can’t walk onto a job site, see a concrete pump running vertically 53 meters, and not immediately identify a laundry list of potential issues, you’re in the wrong business. This level of practical knowledge is essential for the “white collar” positions and all the “business” knowledge

You could be the best financial analyst on Wall Street and run a concrete company into the ground quickly.

So, how do we solve this? We grow our own talent. Luckily for the industry, different types of 

leadership/management development programs exist.

They vary from company to company, but they’re all in the same vein. Where we are lacking is the volume of young talent. We are losing the talent race to other industries such as tech, healthcare, and finance. These individuals have the intellectual capacity to do high-level jobs but not the experience these various rotational programs can provide.  

The key impediment to filling this gap is earning potential. Outside of business owners, the concrete industry does not pay well across the board. Graduates from various engineering programs should be able to look at concrete contractors/producers and see entry-level salaries for developmental programs above six figures. These programs don’t entail shuffling paper or browsing the internet at a desk. This is real work, on-site, in the mud and rain and snow, for 60+ hours a week. Only after these individuals have such experiences would they be qualified to ascend in the ranks.

Now, I can anticipate the obvious rebuttal to this proposal, “We can’t afford it.”, and they are correct. Prices need to double, triple, or quadruple. The price of concrete nationwide is approximately $125 per cubic yard. Despite the recent price inflation post-COVID-19, I still feel that concrete is vastly undervalued for this simple reason: fresh water. Fresh water is the most consumed product on earth; concrete is second. Fresh water is essential to life on the planet and essential to concrete production, and we consume a lot of it. The increase in concrete prices needs to reflect this.

The price increases must be used to recruit, develop, and retain the aforementioned “blue-collar” and “white-collar” talent. To accomplish those recruiting efforts, I’ve proposed legislative solutions, free market wage solutions, and corporate development solutions, all of which will require a tremendous amount of capital. We must leverage the ingredients of concrete to acquire the capital needed to sustain and drive industry workforce and development at all levels. Only then can we fully tackle the other issues of technological advancement and climate change/ climate regulations.

If you’re thinking this all sounds outlandish and farfetched, I understand. You’re probably not alone. However, as I've stated, you must remember that the concrete industry is looking at some daunting numbers regarding workforce availability. We are running out of options.

Still not convinced. I offer this: the iPhone 13 starts at $599 per unit. 

The national price of a yard of concrete is $125. The value of concrete production and contracting is ~$128 billion, but we’ll round up to $150 billion for argument's sake.

Apple’s market cap is $2.98 trillion. The entire concrete and construction market cap in the United States of America is worth approximately 5% of Apple.

 I’ll leave it to the reader to ascertain which one is more valuable. A clue: You don’t build hospitals and schools out of discarded iPhones, although that’s not a half-bad idea.

The next 20 years will bring with them some incredibly big obstacles for our industry to overcome. It all starts with the people because who’s it all for without them?