Construction – thirty years on and what’s going to be different this time round?

Last week I gate-crashed a G4C (Generation for Change) event in Newcastle; I was the oldest bloke in the room by at least 25 years. It felt weird and I found myself asking why am I here, though that’s another story. Anyway after a bit of an ice breaker Jackie the speaker asked the young Built Environment professionals about the qualities of a leader in 2025. I was surprised by the depth of understanding in the room; I was nowhere near as savvy when I was 25, there was not much talk about soft skills then.

She then asked what it was like out there now. I sat back and listened and one after another they talked of being stuffed on price by the client, abused by tier one contractors and local organisations being pushed out by nationals bidding under cost. One architect explained how his practice priced all the scope only to find the client had knowingly accepted an undercut bid. It all sounded like we were back in the mid-eighties when I was 25 and immersed in the bear pit of local competitively priced lump sum contracting. I wondered whether anything had changed in the last 30 years.

On the way home I reflected on becoming remote from the majority of the industry having spent the last fifteen years working with leaders of big companies, big jobs, frameworks and joint ventures. I also wondered if this was just a North East thing and if everyone there was scrambling round for scraps of work in a depressed market.

The following day, on another rare outing, I was at a Constructing Excellence event again in Newcastle and all to do with the Governments 2025 strategy for the construction industry. In the ‘any questions’ bit at the end I told of the picture ‘painted’ by the young professionals and asked if this was just the North East and was told by those in the know that it was representative of the industry across the UK.

As I was thinking “whatever happened to the Simons, Banwell, Latham, Egan, and Wolstenholm reports and what is going to be different this time round as we look towards 2025?”, someone asked those very questions. Murray the national Construction Excellence Chairman responded that this time round globalisation and digitisation are going to force the change. I also chipped in with my view that from what I saw the night before ‘our’ young professionals will not put up with what ‘we’ put up with and they will lead in a different way. As that was coming out of my mouth my internal voice was shouting ‘Dave don’t be so naïve’ and so I was relieved to see quite a few people nodding in agreement.

Jackie, the speaker from the G4C event, went on to say “one thing is very clear, they don’t want the sort of leadership they are currently getting, they expect much better”.

So, I am now wondering if these ‘digitals’ or millennials will start to use their greater connectedness to gravitate towards the sorts of leaders they are looking for and aspire to become. And whether their direction of travel will be towards or away from you and me?