I am sure by now many of you have seen the statistic that shows 75% of companies encounter rework at least twice a week. It is startling, to say the least, but I have some thoughts about what might lie a bit deeper under the surface.
First, let’s dig into the report, which polled 541 decisionmakers from construction companies in the United States and the United Kingdom. The research is from XYZ Reality, which was carried out in partnership with market research company OnePoll.
The research finds delays and defects are squeezing tight markets, with a variety of reasons including supply-chain disruptions (52%), rising construction costs (43%), and sustainability (36%) ranked by company executives as the top three greatest challenges for the coming year. Other challenges mentioned include design changes, a labor skills shortage, and poor communication.
Perhaps one of the most attention-grabbing statistics from the research is that 75% of companies encounter rework at least twice a week.
Exploring the numbers further, four-fifths attributed poor quality assurance, error, and resulting rework to human factors. Poor communication (45%), inexperienced workers (39%), insufficient supervision (34%), and design changes (33%) were consistently identified as the main reasons. Interestingly, less than a tenth of respondents blame ineffective technology.
Error and rework can quickly ramp up project costs, leading contractors to desperately seek ways to bring down elevated construction costs. The report revealed the tendency to change project design (65%), stockpile (64%), and reduce overhead costs (56%) to be the keyways companies are balancing the scales. Technology is another popular option for cost control, pointed to by almost half of company executives.
Certainly, technology can help address rework, which is something we tout here at Constructech all the time. Still, we need to take all this with a grain of salt, as I always say when reviewing reports such as this. While I tend to take such research at face value, the company XYZ Reality is a provider of AR (augmented reality) solutions for construction and has a product to sell. So, we need to keep that in mind when reviewing the research.
And then, there is the other thing that I just can’t stop pondering. The real problem in rework is the lack of skilled workers. I am not sure we can stress this enough.
A look at the numbers paints an interesting story. Private sector employment increased by 278,000 jobs in May and annual pay was up 6.5% year-over-year, according to the May ADP National Employment Report. The Marcum Commercial Construction Index for the first quarter of 2023 also suggests the construction industry is retaining momentum, adding workers at a faster pace than the broader economy during the first quarter.
“Despite economic headwinds, contractors continue to add jobs at a healthy pace,” says Anirban Basu, chief construction economist and author of the report, Marcum. “The industry added 15,000 net new jobs in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and employment is up by 205,000 jobs over the past year.”
Even with all this in mind, here is the question still at hand: Are they skilled workers? I have experienced this firsthand and reported on it. Contractors are not consistently showing up to work. They show up one day and miss three others. Now, I can attest to experiencing trade contractors performing in a manner that matches what GCs have been reporting to us for years.
Simply, trades are ignoring repeated calls and even just quitting projects to take the bigger paying jobs time and time again, even after they are in the middle of a job. Candidly, I am not sure they have the skilled labor to get the job done in the first place. But here is the real issue, somewhere we have forgotten to teach the soft skills. Remember those soft, basic skills that we learned at home or discovered the hard way through those first jobs. You learned to problem-solve and think critically. You even developed a strong work ethic and professionalism. It resulted in teaching us better communication and even networking.
So, yes, I can understand rework is a challenge for the construction industry. It always has been. But now the question remains: Do we have the workers, or should I say the properly trained workers, to get it right the first time? Do we have the technology to enable the seamless transition from one generation to the next? Anything is possible, if we are honest about the challenges the industry currently faces and optimistic about how we address them together.
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