91% of employers are experiencing a skills shortage

What’s your strategy for staff retention?

Outlined in a recent Infrastructure Partnership Australia Pipeline report is evidence of a ‘once in a generation’ pipeline of civil works. The report identifies the pipeline in our region as having a value of 713.9 billion dollars, representing significant growth opportunities for our industry; as these projects come online.

One of the major business challenges for contractors today is ensuring they can take advantage of the growth opportunity provided by the pipeline. However, there is an inherent risk for contractors that may prevent them from tapping into this opportunity and that is their ability to manage the significant skills shortages currently being experienced within the industry.

The 2022/23 Hayes Salary guide report showed that employers are recognising staff turnover as a significant expense.  By focusing on retention, employers remove the costly process of advertising, interviewing and onboarding new team members.  Organisations that focus on their existing teams, by having a strong retention game plan, are shown to perform better in the long term.

What’s your retention game plan?

The Hayes guide highlighted two key components required in any retention strategy. 

Firstly, and unsurprisingly, is a focus on salary.  Regular pay reviews, and staying on top of market rates is key to ensuring your organization is aligned with external offers.

Secondly, a focus on career progression – though this may not mean what you think. 

How do you define career progression?

Historically, career progression meant moving up the ladder to more senior positions.  Today, career progression has a broader definition, focusing more on the holistic development of the individual as a person; rather than just their career.  Holistic development includes learning, development and ongoing training to improve the person’s knowledge of a range of skillsets – which may fall within their job roles, or may be of personal interest.    

Mind the gap!

The Hayes report goes one step further, stating that only 18% of employers use training, learning and development as a key component of their retention strategy, while 60% of employees articulated a strong desire for career skills development, learning and training.

Providing your team with an opportunity to improve themselves and their knowledge should form the basis of your staff retention strategy. Developing your teams set of skills, offers benefits for individuals and organisations alike.

It’s evident there is a clear desire amongst team members to learn while they are a part of your company – it’s now up to you to provide this opportunity.

What’s the solution?

Fortunately, the Civil Contractors Federation (CCF) recognised this challenge in 2018, creating the Institute of Civil Infrastructure (ICI) Australia. 

Working in partnership with CCF Victoria, ICI Australia supplies Civil specific courses tailored to both industry and employee needs - with facilitators that are industry experts in their field. 

The high impact material is delivered via 2-to-4-hour courses across a range of learning streams – including Technical Management, People Management and Business & Operations.  With over 70 industry specific courses to choose from, civil contractors can customise their learning program by skillset, by capability gap, or by career path. 

As a Not-for-Profit organisation, ICI Australia has the ability to provide high quality content at an extremely low cost.  This goes beyond the financial - down time is reduced by using interactive online delivery methods.  This allows attendees to return to their work immediately – and put their learnings to practical use.

In a further bid to ensure CCF Victoria can help you proactively attract and retain talent; ICI Australia has recently launched the Employer Recognition Program (ERP). 

The ERP provides Nationwide recognition to companies who both invest in staff, and work towards improving the standard of management in our industry. Successful applicants have the authority to use the ERP Partner logos and branding and display their compliance certificate; recommended for use in tenders.

Most importantly, the ERP allows civil contractors to showcase themselves as an employer of choice to both current, and future staff. There is no cost to participate in the ERP and there are varying levels of partnership available. Applications are reviewed annually, providing an opportunity to adjust your partnership level.

Recent years have seen significant changes in working methods and staff expectations – requiring civil contractors to continually evolve and adapt.  Employers should expect the demand for rapid reskilling and upskilling to increase.

ICI Australia allows you to dynamically manage your teams learning and improve their capabilities – reducing risk of staff turnover and providing a long-term competitive advantage.

To learn how you can become recognised as an Employer of Choice, visit www.iciaustralia.com