What our millennials really feel about the industry

Most construction professionals under the age of 40 wouldn’t recommend the industry to their peers.

We know because we asked them.

This is serious. The industry needs to attract good talent; we’ve been talking about it for decades.

But what hope is there for that if our young people are “meh” about it?

Young people are strongly influenced by their peers, so if construction’s millennials aren’t promoting the industry, who will?

The answer is: nobody who matters to young people.

How we found out

You might recall that I’m pursuing a Big Idea.

I believe that instilling a culture of coaching in companies will change them for the better and improve the industry from the ground up.

It would unleash hidden talent, improve communication and collaboration, and boost engagement and job satisfaction, all of which are crucial for results, i.e., the bottom line.

To lay the groundwork for this Big Idea, I wanted to find out how young professionals felt about their industry.

So the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) let me tack three simple questions onto its “Tomorrow’s Leaders” survey, which went out to around 9,430 under-39s in the industry in August.

The questions are adapted from the Net Promoter Score (NPS) method of gauging customer satisfaction.

This is a simple and wickedly effective technique for finding out what people really feel about you. It’s used by at least two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies in the US, (check here) and many companies in the UK.

Would you recommend working in construction? Really?

The first question was: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend working in construction to other young professionals?”

If I give a 9 or 10, I’m a “promoter”, meaning I’m so enthusiastic I’m going around saying good things about you.

If I give a 7 or 8, I’m “passive”, meaning I’m broadly satisfied, but indifferent and unenthusiastic.

If I give a 6 or below, that means there are issues. I’m a “detractor” and I’m likely complaining.

To get your Net Promoter Score, you subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

“Not bad” ≠ Good

750 people returned the CIOB survey and of those, 566 responded to the NPS bit.

Of those, 16% were detractors, 43% were promoters and 41% were indifferent or passive.

Take the detractors (16%) away from the promoters (43%) and construction’s Net Promoter Score is 27%

In the NPS world, anything over 0% is considered positive territory, because the group of promoters is at least one person greater than the group of detractors.

From that point of view, an NPS of 27% is “not bad”, in the literal sense of the phrase.

But if I was a retailer in a really competitive market, how would I feel about a score that was “not bad”?

Not good, is the answer. Because it isn’t good.

50% or more is considered excellent; 70% or more is considered world class.

27% is “meh”, big time.

The headline finding here is that only 43% of our young people are promoting the industry. The majority, 57%, are indifferent or disaffected.

What’s their problem?

The other two questions probed why millennials feel the way they do.

We asked them to 1) state the primary reason for their score, and 2) to state what needs to happen for their score to be a 9 or 10 next time.

These questions drew out a multitude of disparate issues, most of them I’d describe as perennial.

Here’s a selection of the most common themes:

• ‘more diversity and inclusivity, less discrimination’

• ‘shift in culture and mentality’

• ‘more high quality training’

• ‘raise standards and quality’

• ‘shorter hours and better work-life balance’

• ‘better job security and stability’

• ‘better working conditions and safety’

• ‘less pressure’

• ‘more women included’

• ‘better salaries’

• ‘we need to attract young people’ (Quite.)

• ‘heavily affected by the economy’

• ‘more modernisation, more tech driven’

And so on.

What are the good bits?

The Promoters love their jobs for the same reasons I love the industry. Here’s a representative sample of their comments:

• ‘challenging, interesting and varied work’

• ‘good prospects’

• ‘acquiring new skills’

• ‘rewarding’

• ‘It’s a good industry’

• ‘shaping the environment’

• ‘making a difference’.

These people are enjoying their careers. They feel secure and at home.

They’re excited about what they’re doing.

They feel a sense of forward movement, that they’re contributing to something important and getting better at it.

This is what happens in a coaching culture.

So, we can infer that in pockets of the industry a coaching culture, or something like it, is happening already.

That’s great.

But it needs to spread more widely if we’re to get more Promoters and fewer Detractors, Indifferents and Passives.

How do we do that?

The negative comments show that there is no single, big problem to fix.

And, in fairness, bosses have been trying to address these issues for at least the 44 years I’ve been in the business.

I was a boss once, too, and tried really hard to address the issues, with limited success.

It’s hard because it’s about culture, and culture is about relationships: how we are with each other; what we assume about each other; the conversations we have or don’t have; what we expect; what we care about.

You can’t dictate stuff like that reliably with top-down rules and policies.

Instead, relationships need to change.

Imagine struggling on your own

People on the sharp end of construction are not paid and incentivised to work on relationships.

They’re paid and incentivised to win and deliver projects so, naturally, they focus on that.

It means we don’t give a lot of thought to the new people coming up behind us, those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to find their way in a complex, high-pressure industry.

Imagine struggling on your own in construction’s unique culture, trying to decipher all the unwritten rules and work out what’s expected of you.

Imagine not knowing whether you’re any good or not, not knowing what getting better actually looks like, or how to do it.

If you’re struggling like that, you’re not enjoying your career.

You don’t feel secure and at home.

You’re anxious about what you’re doing, not excited.

There’s no sense of forward movement, just hard, risky slog.

“I’m not cut out for this,” you’d be justified in concluding.

Would you recommend construction as a career? No.

It doesn’t have to be like this

I want to be part of a world class industry. I know you do, too.

I want 50% of our young people to be Promoters, rising to 70%. Not a measly 27%.

There are positives now, but the majority of young people don’t feel them enough to be Promoters.

This is serious. “Not bad” is not good enough for this industry and the challenges it faces.

Coaching doesn’t come naturally to everybody, but nor does estimating, surveying, site management, or any essential, transferable skill.

It’s not rocket science, though. It’s a mindset and some techniques for interacting with each other in a way that fosters a sense of security, belonging, progress and excitement.

These are things you can start doing as soon as you hear about them.

They build effective relationships, and effective relationships are the foundations of results.

What we’re going to do

Construction’s young professionals can lead this culture change.

In fact, only they can do it, and they can do it from the ground up, with challenge and support from the bosses.

The bosses are not going to make this change. The young people can.

So here’s the Big Idea.

We’re going to equip young professionals, at scale, with the skills and tools they need to enable them to make the changes they want.

To create an industry culture they can promote like crazy, one where they’re surrounded by enthusiastic people achieving great things and having a ball.

Details are coming.

If you’re a boss and like the sound of this, get in touch. This project needs all the help it can get.