Grading and Excavation Contractor

John Trotti

Over the years we’ve shined a spotlight on various aspects of the “changing workforce” situation, pointing out among other things that for a majority of construction workers, English is a second language. Led by such factors as job-site safety and efficiency, we’re facing some stiff challenges that have a number of groups such as OSHA and insurers taking a hard look at how we’re dealing with them.

Several years back we presented an article titled “Making Use of Hidden Strengths in Your Changing Work Force” whose message is even more vital today than it was in 2002. In it, author Don Shearer Jr. points out that the “keys to the kingdom go to the company that can take the most productive aspects of both ethnic cultures, braid them with their organizational culture, and then create a safety culture steeped in excellence.” This message has gone beyond the optional stage and is now a mandate. Take a look at the accompanying figure and see how this matches up with your organization. If it comes anywhere close, I strongly urge you to go to http://www.forester.net/gx_0207_making.html, take note of Shearer’s extensive research findings, and then consider how to incorporate them into your own company practices.

Some Doors Need Unlocking
In the last issue, I floated out an idea in this column that bears repeating: Hidden within the challenges presented by the continuing influx of Latinos into the workforce lie enormous potential benefits—group loyalty, along with the willingness to learn and to work, is a trait that comes immediately to the fore—but there’s another factor you may have overlooked. Many of these workers—perhaps most—bring with them a gift no amount of formal schooling can instill … a fundamental knowledge of dirt and how it acts.

Certainly urbane Game Boy skills are a benefit when it comes to wiggling joysticks, but they rank nowhere near that of knowing intuitively the difference between how one type of soil will react to the blade compared to another. Consider then just how much these traits and gifts could be worth to your business over the span of a year or a decade, and compare this with what it might take to make up for language or education shortfalls. Can you afford not to make the investment?

Knocking Other Doors Off Their Hinges
In the main I like where we are today and don’t feel much threatened by most of the bogeymen advanced to show that we are going to hell in a handbasket. But there is one area—a critical one in my curmudgeonly opinion—that we need to fix in a hurry … the increasing mismatch between the necessary knowledge and skills required to move us forward against increasingly competitive global challenges versus the preparation provided by our education systems at all levels.

Even if this is not your hottest topic of conversation, I’ll bet you’re as mystified as I that for all the time, money, and effort devoted to education, we seem to be falling further and further behind the actual demands of society. There’s nothing I’d like better than to tell you that I have the answer to the situation, but I don’t, anymore than I have the ability to fix things with a wave of my magic wand. For years I’ve been immobilized by the sheer magnitude of the problem, excusing my inaction with the convenient cop-out, “Hey, I’m not an education professional.” But I’m no longer willing to sit back and bemoan my inability when I do have an opportunity—small though it may be—to do something to address the problem through this column and the platform this magazine provides me.

An Action Plan
Starting with our June 2007 issue, we will be begin a series of what are, for lack of a better term, roundtable discussions to lay bare the various aspects of the situation that affect construction; discuss options for dealing with them; and then throw down the gauntlet and ask participants to make a commitment to action. In a sense we are looking for a response to the question, “What are you willing and able to do about it?”

If you’re as concerned as we are about the need to address the situation and would like to participate in these roundtables, please contact me at gxeditor@forester.net.

GEC - January/February 2007

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