When I started in construction it was a common practice to take the “new guy” and pair him with an “old guy” so the job could be learned. This apprenticing or mentoring practice was a method to help the inexperienced get a practical education without learning bad habits or making expensive mistakes. From the 1960’s to now, fewer and fewer firms have engaged in this practice.
This issue is not about open shop versus union shop labor, the unions have the same problem providing skilled apprentices. It is about business management decisions to cut costs. I see companies making decisions to use “apprentices” in lieu of journeymen to cut costs. They seem to ignore the loss in productivity that results in using inexperienced tradesmen versus skilled and trained personnel. The inefficiencies are not just in the craft productivity, they are in the rework required to do it right other than the first time. There are the added supervision hours to oversee the work. There is a loss of future productivity because the training and apprenticeship was eliminated.
It occurs in the jobsite staff ranks too. New graduates are put on projects as project managers. They are not given the training or supervision to manage the project, just told to do it! The thought teaching them how to coordinate subcontractors and managing their own scope of work isn’t even considered. These “project managers” have to relearn basic construction practices that have been around for years. Some of these practices are the bad habits that will take down the overall quality of construction.
It occurs in the estimating, scheduling and project controls arena too. New graduates are put in to estimating to “gain experience” before going into the field. The experience comes by not training them on how to read contract documents or takeoff blueprints, but how to solicit subcontractors. Scheduling is learned by bar chart methods, not CPM. Job costing is something done by accountants. It is now by trial and error methods that cannot be supported in any fashion.
One of these days the industry will need to go back to the 1960’s (my experience basis) to learn profit is not a dirty word. Profit is needed to provide for the “cost” of mentoring and training craft, staff and management. This provides better employees. Better employees provide better productivity. Better productivity leads to better projects. Better projects lead to profits. This would seem to be a winning proposition for anyone involved in the construction industry – owners, architects, vendors and contractors alike.
One Comment
As author of the ASPE’s Mentor-A-Member program in 2003, I am continually frustrated by the lack of support for this worthy cause by our national board of trustees. I have also encouraged ASPE to affiliate with the national ACE mentoring program and to develop a program for “reverse mentoring” (where younger, tech savy members mentor the older paper and pencil members in the new technologies). All of this has pretty much fallen on deaf ears, or been dismissed like, “we can’t do that” because of this, or because of that. Keep raising the banner Don, things become traditional because they work.