Every day in construction we focus on how to work productively and profitably with zero accidents. Our blueprint must include creating respectful work environments.

that workers who felt psychologically unsafe on the job were 80 percent more likely to report they had been injured at work, requiring medical attention or workplace absences.

Employers that highly prioritize psychological safety — a climate where people feel free to express their ideas, questions, concerns and mistakes without fear of negative consequences — are winning the battle for productivity. After studying 180 of its teams, that psychological safety was the single most important predictor of team performance.

Treating people with respect on the job is also key to addressing our workforce shortage. For every skilled worker entering the workforce these days, there are five who are retiring. Because we are already struggling to keep pace with the demand for skilled people, we cannot afford to lose good people to preventable issues like bullying and harassment. Unfortunately, showed that lack of respect, discrimination and harassment drive people out of the trades, with almost 50 percent of women saying they have seriously considered leaving and 76 percent of Black and 77 percent of Asian construction workers reporting limited career progression due to their race.

Harassment is not only an engine of turnover, it is a construction safety hazard. The that because construction work is potentially hazardous and often performed in teams, harassment on construction sites can endanger workers’ physical safety and increase the chance of injury. That finding was borne out in EEOC v. Focus Plumbing (2021), in which a plumbing contractor paid $500,000 to settle a sex harassment and retaliation case in which it reassigned two women who complained of sexual harassment to “undesirable or detrimental work assignments” involving heavy lifting with no help. One of those women suffered a stroke as a result of the difficult labor.

Organizations that ignore workplace culture issues are also at risk of significant and avoidable legal expenses. In EEOC v. Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. (2023), a general contractor paid $1.2 million to settle a race harassment and retaliation lawsuit in which portable toilets were defaced with racially offensive graffiti and a noose. Although Black employees reported these issues several times, the company failed to investigate and instead fired the two employees who complained.

In EEOC v. Boh Bros. Construction Co. (2013), a contractor paid $125,000 to settle a same-sex harassment case. There, after a male iron worker made a remark his male foreman considered “feminine,” the foreman began calling the worker “princess” and “f—-t.” Several times, the foreman approached the worker from behind and simulated intercourse with him. More than once, the foreman exposed himself to the worker.

You might be thinking something along the lines of, “This is construction. It’s a tough environment. People need to grow a thicker skin.” But several courts have held that a coarse or crude working environment is not a defense to harassment and discrimination claims. Courts have also held that women who choose to work in male-dominated trades do not relinquish their right to be free from sexual harassment, and that common use of racial epithets in an industry is not a defense to a hostile work environment claim.

So, what can you do to create respectful work environments where everyone can work safely and in which your potential legal expenses are limited?

• Model respectful behavior and prevent bullying and harassment against all workers, whether or not they are members of protected groups covered by anti-discrimination laws;
• Create an accessible complaint system with multiple reporting channels;
• Conduct regular training for all workers on creating respectful work environments and preventing and addressing bullying and harassment; and
• Adopt a comprehensive harassment policy.

What are some key elements of a comprehensive anti-harassment policy?

• Unequivocal statement that harassment is prohibited;
• Clear description of prohibited conduct, with examples tailored to the work environment, for example:
  • Taunting a tradesperson when the person is performing a difficult or dangerous task;
  • Vandalizing toolboxes or personal protective equipment;
• Description of the reporting processes;
• Commitment that the employer will provide prompt, impartial and thorough investigation;
• Assurance that the employer will take immediate, reasonable and proportionate corrective action; and
• Unequivocal statement that retaliation is prohibited.

What are some best practices for harassment trainings?

• Live, interactive trainings are best;
• Structure trainings to facilitate open communication and opportunities to ask questions;
• Tailor trainings to construction, including specific examples;
• Those with managerial or supervisory responsibility should have specific training on preventing, stopping and correcting harassment;
• Reinforce the information presented in brief segments, like morning meetings or toolbox talks; and
• Inform people how to intervene when witnessing harassment (also known as bystander intervention training).

By taking proactive steps to create respectful job sites that are free from bullying and harassment, construction employers can create safer, more productive work sites while also limiting their potential exposure to legal expenses. While these steps cost time and money, they reap great rewards.

Lauri Rollings is a former lawyer who now operates a business consulting firm. She has more than 20 years of experience providing strategic advice and solutions as an attorney, an executive director of construction trade associations and as a consultant. Contact her at 414-902-0303 or lauri@laurirollings.com.

The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the preceding commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Daily Journal of Commerce or its editors. Neither the author nor the 91��Ƶ guarantees the accuracy or completeness of any information published herein.

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A quarterly nationwide construction survey found widespread pessimism for future opportunities.

The Construction Industry Round Table Sentiment Index, produced by consulting and investment banking firm FMI Corp., found “declining sentiment across all economic components, including the overall U.S. economy, the economy where members operate, members’ construction businesses and the nonresidential sector.”

Design and construction sentiment have been hit by “receding opportunities,” particularly in transportation, industrial and public works. Slight improvement was expected in commercial, education and industrial sectors, according to the survey.

, released Aug. 29, queried 130 CEOs in design and construction. The results “are consistent with what (Associated General Contractors) is seeing nationally and in the Pacific Northwest,” said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of .

“Public work — particularly with federally-funded projects — remains steady, though we have work to do to bolster state- and locally-funded projects,” Salsgiver stated in an email. “The private sector has been slowing, but we will see what happens if the Fed moves to reduce interest rates in the fall.”

In the Portland metro area, major infrastructure projects such as the Portland International Airport’s $2.1 billion main terminal expansion and the Bull Run water treatment project, which is also expected to cost about $2.1 billion, have buoyed contractors. Others, including the Interstate Bridge replacement, are moving through the pipeline.

Labor remains a top issue for contractors and designers. Nearly half of CIRT members said they had overrun budgeted labor costs this year, FMI Corp. reported. Looking ahead, 61 percent said they expect the cost of labor to “moderately increase” in the next quarter.

“The major challenge continuing to face construction is availability of trained and skilled labor,” Salsgiver stated. “While the market is shifting broadly, the construction labor pool remains a serious barrier. We didn’t get here overnight and we won’t fix it overnight, but AGC will continue to work with our partners in government, education, organized labor and privately to bend that curve in the right direction.”

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By Nate Beck
91��Ƶ Newswires

A year and a half into the pandemic, contractors are contending once again with a shortage of skilled labor that’s compounding supply chain delays and project disruptions.

Before the pandemic, contractors broadly faced a lack of labor, although firms enjoyed a backlog of projects. Results of a survey from the Associated General Contractors of America released Thursday, however, show contractors are facing a labor shortage along with supply-chain disruptions, materials cost increases and other problems brought on by the pandemic.

“Market conditions are nowhere near as robust as they were prior to the onset of the pandemic,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “At the same time, the pandemic and political responses to it are limiting the size of the workforce, leading to labor shortages that are as severe as they were in 2019 when demand for construction was more robust.”

AGC surveyed 2,100 contractors nationally — including 76 in Oregon — to gauge the ongoing effects of COVID on the construction industry. Contractors in recent months have been hampered by delays in the delivery of materials and rapid increases in the cost of building materials.

In AGC’s latest survey, however, many firms reported an acute shortage of labor as well. The shortage of labor is one factor that’s causing nearly nine out of 10 contractors surveyed to say they’ve seen project delays in recent months, Simonson said.

About three-quarters of contractors surveyed nationally said they have increased pay to attract more workers, while about one-third of respondents said they had added hiring bonuses to attract more workers.

Nationally, 75 percent of contractors surveyed said a shortage of materials was leading to project delays. Meanwhile, 61 percent of firms said a shortage of labor had led to project delays.

Stephen Sandherr, AGC’s CEO, said the trade group is calling on Congress to pass an infrastructure package that would bring the construction industry more work. AGC is also advocating for more support for training skilled construction workers.

“The federal government currently spends only one dollar on career training for every six it puts into college prep, despite the fact only one-in-three jobs requires a college degree,” Sandherr said. “Boosting federal investments in career and technical education will help attract and prepare more people into high-paying careers in construction.”

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By KAREN SCHWARTZ
Associated Press

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Lynn Osborne has been remodeling two homes. They are different styles, in different states, with different contractors. But there has been one constant: delays due to a shortage of skilled labor.

The two-year remodel of her primary home in Fort Collins, Colorado, was to update and upgrade the ’90s house, and it included a small extension. It was completed last year, except for the landscaping, which is still under way.

That general contractor relied heavily on subcontractors, she said, and sometimes they wouldn’t show, or would arrive days late, or did shoddy work and were fired.

Her remodel of an old family beach retreat in New England took a Sears kit home down to the studs. The completion date was June 2018, but it’s still not done because the contractor, who has been doing most of the work himself, is stretched and inattentive.

“He’d say, ‘I’ll be out there next week,’ and next week would turn into next month, and next month would be six months,” she said.

Current estimates indicate there are about 300,000 unfilled jobs in the construction industry, and the industry is expected to need an additional 747,000 workers by 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

An August survey of nearly 375 members of the National Kitchen and Bath Association found that almost two-thirds of the respondents said they had difficulties hiring skilled workers in the previous year, and nearly 70 percent felt the problem had gotten worse since 2016.

“Labor shortages have impacted start dates and completion dates on construction and renovation projects, with NKBA members citing delays on 30 percent of jobs,” said Bill Darcy, chief executive officer of the trade association.

A look at 15 different trades found shortages in them all, Darcy said in a telephone interview from NKBA headquarters in Hackettstown, New Jersey. And as with previous years, he said, one of the greatest needs was for carpenters, who do rough-in work and framing, and finish carpenters, who hang cabinets, do millwork, flooring and install molding.

The seeds of the current labor shortage were planted during the Great Recession, when a lack of construction jobs prompted many workers to leave the industry.

“Not enough of them have returned to help us close the gap,” Darcy said.

Compounding the problem is the graying of the remaining workforce, with the median age for a construction worker at 42.5 years, according to January figures from the Labor Bureau. It’s estimated that for every five workers retiring from the industry, only one is entering it, said Silvia Lattoz, Governance and Global Relations Senior Manager at NKBA.

Younger people aren’t interested in construction careers because they think the jobs don’t pay well, are too dirty or physically demanding, or mistakenly think the jobs don’t use much technology, Lattoz said.

“There’s definitely some kind of stigma tied to this,” she said.

Players in the industry are ramping up efforts to address the impending crisis, launching incentives to try to recruit new workers, especially young people, to the trades.

The Home Depot Foundation announced last year it was committing $50 million to skilled trades training, with plans to attract 20,000 people by 2028.

“We want to bring shop class back, from coast to coast,” Shannon Gerber, executive director of the foundation, said in a release. The program focuses on supporting veterans, as well as underserved high schools.

Lowe’s last year started offering employees tuition and other incentives to train for jobs such as carpentry, plumbing, and appliance repair. More than 1,350 associates were enrolled in the Track to the Trades program this spring, Lowe’s spokeswoman Jennifer L. Weber said.

In April, Lowe’s and 60 of its suppliers and partners debuted a new program called Generation T, an online marketplace for jobs, apprenticeships and education programs in construction. It’s also on Twitter and Facebook.

“If we don’t fill the existing skilled trade gap, our businesses, homes and communities will suffer,” Weber said.

The National Association of Home Builders, meanwhile, sponsors student chapters in high schools and colleges. The clubs currently have more than 4,500 members.

The NAHB also supports immigration reform. Foreign-born workers were twice as likely to be employed in construction last year as workers born in the United States, according to the Department of Labor.

Legislation pending in Congress would try to ease the construction worker shortage by establishing a visa system to bring in more foreign laborers. Employers would have to prove they couldn’t find U.S. workers, and would have to pay fair wages based on local rates.

“Filling our workforce needs is a key component to boosting our workforce and our economy,” said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, Republican of Pennsylvania, a sponsor.

For a while at least, homeowners and home builders need to resign themselves to the fact that it will likely be harder to get work done, at least for a while.

Home Depot, for instance, said this year it was eliminating the service it had been offering that hired third-party contractors to install roofing, siding, insulation and gutters.

Projects are also likely to get more expensive, as nearly 60 percent of respondents in the NKBA survey said the shortage was affecting labor costs.

Osborne’s husband previously worked in the construction industry, but even so, she said, they suffered sticker shock when it came to their renovations.

“It’s that market right now,” she said. “You want something done and they throw out a big number, and I guess it’s a matter of, ‘How badly do you want it done and how soon?”

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To navigate the current building boom amid a labor shortage, Walsh Construction and other Oregon builders have been hiring less-experienced workers as well as older beginners.

But Walsh’s project leaders for the Couch 9 mixed-use tower say the practice hasn’t affected their commitment to safety. They say they’re doubling down. Each new hire at the jobsite is partnered with a journeyman worker and doesn’t work alone.

“It’s communication and training, every step of the way,” Walsh superintendent Ted Friedman said. “There’s an emphasis on the simpler things.”

In the U.S., construction regularly tops all other private industries for – 899 in 2014, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Of those, 40 percent involved falls from height.

Walsh is using a new fall-protection system featuring highly adaptive guardrails – simpler and easier to use – at the jobsite, according to project manager Ryan Wilde.

“It’s a constant topic,” he said of safety.

Since starting work for Couch 9, Walsh has dug two stories, installed shoring around the perimeter and added two levels of subterranean parking with post-tensioned concrete. Now, the team is building upward with the concrete decks. This week, crews tackled level four of the 11-story tower.

“We’ll cycle floor to floor every 10 to 12 days,” Wilde said.

Work is scheduled to wrap in August 2017. Aside from the decks, the remaining work includes steel-stud framing; mechanical, electrical and plumbing elements; and finish work.

Building elements include window walls, second- and 11th-floor gardens, metal-panel framed skins on the building exterior, many cantilevered decks and a wine room.

“I’d say, personally, it’s a pretty typical construction type,” Friedman said.

The construction labor shortage has had an effect.

“We have to take it into account when we’re scheduling, and in making sure the quality is upheld,” Friedman said. “We have less-experienced people that are backfilling the talent pool. And it’s not only a labor shortage, it’s a material shortage too.”

Metal panels, insulation and steel stud framing have proved difficult to procure.

“The lead times are doubled, sometimes tripled; where something would normally take two to three weeks, now it’s taking four to six,” Friedman said.

The Couch 9 project occupies three-quarters of a half-block at the corner of Northwest Ninth Avenue and Couch Street in the Pearl District. Plans call for 137 residential units, 87 parking spaces and 8,000 square feet of ground-level commercial space. A roof garden will provide stormwater management. Exterior finishes will include cast-in-place concrete; three types (12-foot-wide flush, interlocking and flat lock) of zinc and prefinished metal panels to be installed vertically and horizontally; bright red, perforated metal panels for balcony guardrails; metal wire mesh for rooftop screen walls; aluminum storefronts and fiberglass windows.

Walsh Construction is building Couch 9 for developer Urban Asset Advisors under a construction manager-general contractor negotiated contract. Vallaster Corl Architects is the designer. The building is replacing West Side Auto Body and Paint, across the street from landmark breakfast spot Fuller’s Restaurant.

Subcontractors include concrete specialists RDF Builders, ironworkers with Farwest, MEP contractor Hunter Davisson, Merit Electric, Peninsula Plumbing, Western States Fire Protection.

Walsh these days is tackling a lot of multifamily projects as well as health care projects and academic ones, like Oregon State University’s new Bend campus. The firm is handling an OSU project in Corvallis incorporating cross-laminated timber, and has been named contractor for the Framework CLT tower planned in the Pearl District.

Access to the site has been a tricky issue for the builder. The foremen estimate that most of their crew carpools to work, and about a third takes public transit – in part due to the price of parking. Walsh provides bus passes to employees.

In general, employees are happy working downtown, according to Friedman.

“The pay is definitely better for the downtown commercial scene,” he said.

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Despite some challenges, crews are approaching completion of the mixed-use Sky3 tower in downtown Portland.

Workers of various trades – around 150 on Monday – added exterior siding and interior finishes and framing to the 15-story prefabricated steel-framed building at Southwest 11th Avenue and Jefferson Street. Absher Construction project executive Blaine Wolfe said the $42 million project, which began at the start of 2015, should wrap late this year.

The quarter-block mixed-use building employs a unique modular frame system. The structure is the tallest ever to feature steel framing by Innovative Green Business System, Wolfe said, though Absher does have experience using IGBS on a larger (but shorter) project in Ballard, Wash.

“The system just being as tall as it is, and the fact that it’s the first of its kind, has been a bit of a challenge,” he said.

But “by far” the biggest challenge faced by the Puyallup, Wash.-based contractor has been a shortage of skilled workers, Wolfe said. Crews lately have been working Saturdays and select trades have been staying late.

“There’s just not enough labor to go around,” he said. “We’ve been challenged with subcontractor participation, and also maintaining a workforce. It’s a finite resource, and there’s infinite opportunity. Some of the key subs are able to keep up with us, but some of the smaller trades are having trouble.”

The good news for Absher is that it has almost completely eliminated hand injuries on the project, safety manager Tyler Robinson said, by requiring all employees to wear gloves. The company reduced annual payouts related to hand injuries from $80,000 to $7,000.

“We haven’t seen a hand injury out here in a long time – over a year,” Robinson said.

Sky3 is Absher’s largest Portland project to date. It was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects and developed by Molasky Group of Companies, the Las Vegas-based developer of the FBI Portland building. With amenities like a library, a game room, a large bike area, a rooftop “sky lounge” with an indoor-outdoor fireplace and a test kitchen, and car stackers in the two-level garage – Molasky hopes to provide “a little bit of everything,” Wolfe said. The developer is even designing a wine room to go above the garage in a space originally planned as a stock room for retail tenants.

“They have a level of quality that they expect to hit,” Wolfe said. “So I think this is going to be a pretty cool project when all is said and done. And the views are amazing.”

Sky3 has 196 residential units, including three penthouses, and ground-floor retail space. One tenant, Coava Coffee, has signed on.

Subcontractors include Steel Panel Supply Inc., Bergelectric, J.E.T. Plumbing, Hunter-Davisson, Cascade Acoustics, Corona Steel, Insulpro Projects, Marion Construction, Coffman Excavation, Snyder Roofing and Innotech Windows. Innotech supplied unique windows with multiple tilt-out functions.

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The shortage of skilled craft workers in construction has been perhaps the top story of the current building boom in Portland. Insufficient manpower has already led to rising costs of public projects, and its full effect likely won’t be understood for years.

But the problem doesn’t stop with employees in the field. With construction work now abundant following a deep and debilitating recession, general contractors say it’s difficult to recruit and retain the best office talent, and their best subcontractors are stretched to the breaking point.

Headhunters are prowling LinkedIn on behalf of clients willing to pay above market rate –bolstering a client’s workforce as much as it weakens the competition. Reportedly, several exoduses from top firms have occurred in the past year – the result of new, out-of-state ownership, or scandal at national offices. In some cases, things have gotten nasty.

Home/office

There are two worlds in construction, Hoffman Construction vice president Bart Eberwein said – the field and the office. Workers in the field are critical, he said, because they make up the vast majority of a company’s workforce, as well as perform the actual building of things. The reasons for the craft labor shortage are deep-seated and cultural. The tightness in the market for top office talent is similarly complex.

The pipeline for estimators, accounting professionals and project managers seems solid, Eberwein said, according to graduation rates in relevant college majors and his experience in the Portland market. Hoffman has a strategy of hiring primarily young people and trying to keep them as long as possible. But the workers emerging from college today aren’t like earlier generations.

Loyalty is different for millennials, who’ve faced a more mercenary professional landscape and wages that have more or less been stagnant since the 1970s. This has led young people to see themselves more as “free agents” increasingly willing to jump ship.

“Most people used to be impressed at career fairs when you’d tell them they’d be able to stay until retirement; now it’s not the same,” Eberwein said. “Now you know that if things don’t work out, you can always move to Austin or something.”

To keep its office talent, Eberwein said, Hoffman tries to provide three things – freedom, respect and money. Hoffman doesn’t have a human resources division, in part so employees are treated like individuals, he said.

“We instill loyalty by giving people a heck of a lot of rope,” he said. “We give them the freedom to grow into their own strengths, and learn from their weaknesses. You don’t see a ton of people get fired. We take the long view and make it attractive to stay a long time.”

More than a century old, Hoffman is Portland’s largest builder, with about 600 salaried personnel and around 1,500 hourly, primarily union workers at any given time. Eberwein admitted that having downtown offices in Portland and Seattle is also crucial in landing top young talent.

Darin Stegemoller, vice president of JE Dunn, agreed. His company, the eighth-largest construction firm in Portland (according to local billings), last year relocated to a thoroughly modern space in the Pearl District. The new office is a far cry from the former, in the industrial North Columbia neighborhood. There’s now a palpable buzz and new, creative energy, Stegemoller said.

“Location is key,” he said.

Some of JE Dunn’s younger employees have been up front about their intention to work for a few years before taking time off to travel the world. Ultimately, it will be years – even decades – before the company reaps the benefits of its current corporate practices.

“Loyalty’s really determined over time,” he said. “That’s the real litmus test.”

Matt McClenaghan, 29, has a friend who was fired from his first job out of college for having a beer at lunch. On a Friday. His birthday.

That company is a major investment firm in Portland. It’s the kind of place that McClenaghan said he never wants to work.

“You want to work in a place you’re proud of, a place you want to show your friends,” he said.
JLL, with specialization in tenant representation, works at the edges of the building industry. It pays particular attention to cultivating a stress-free office, said managing director Matt Newstrom. It recently moved into an ultra-sleek space in the trendy Brewery Blocks district. The move was partly due to its commitment to employee retention.

Sub-plot

Though many building and development firms focus on fostering an enriched office culture to retain skilled workers, much of their work around town is ultimately performed by subcontracted and union labor, which is another beast entirely.

Western Partitions Inc. of Tigard is among the busiest subcontractors in the Portland area. It installs drywall, plaster, steel-stud framing and other interiors/exteriors. With regular work at Intel, Nike and other large commercial projects, WPI lately has been quite busy in Portland, according to Mike Roach, who founded the company 45 years ago with his wife.

“In the Northwest there was a lot of pent-up work stalled by the recession,” he said. “Now it’s humming like the mid-2000s. It’s kind of dumbfounding it’s so busy. The architects are busy, and they’re hiring, so you know it’s going to keep going.”

Being a big subcontractor during a building boom presents unique problems. Roach said GCs get a leg up on hiring the best talent emerging from college. WPI does post job listings (accounting professionals are especially in need), but the problem is that everyone else is also looking to hire. The company has resorted to using a headhunter to fill open positions, Roach said. Some new hires have been lured to Portland from outside the area, while others have come from local firms. But often, Roach said, the process works the other way around, with cold calls coming from competitors’ employees who are interested in greener pastures.

“Word gets out,” he said. “Then people start to call you. It’s unfortunate that it happens, but what are you going to do – not hire them?”

Along with worrying that their best workers will be snatched away by competitors paying above market rate, subs can be undone by pressure to say “yes” to the general contractor. Word is, one sub was recently undone by work at Intel, growing too fast too soon.

That’s why when a recent Nike project experienced delays, WPI decided to walk away to keep its cash flow regular, Roach said.

“We had to pass,” he said. “We didn’t want to, but we had to do it.”

One advantage WPI has over smaller subs is four other regional offices, meaning it has a little more leeway to shift resources and draw in talent.

The building boom has allowed companies large and small to become choosier with their workloads, Eberwein said.

“Everybody knows that you’re only as good as your résumé and your relationships – why set up yourself for failure with a C team?” he said. “My view as a general contractor is that there were a lot of lean years, and so you want to make hay while the sun’s out. The temptation is to make as much hay as possible to make up for the lean years.”

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