Best Practices Guides

One of the biggest challenges facing many building trade industries is the shortage of skilled workers. No longer are careers in the trades considered desirable, as every student is encouraged to pursue a university degree after graduating high school. Thus, fewer individuals are entering the profession at the same time as many experienced workers are reaching retirement age. Construction contractors even find it difficult to fill back-office positions like accountants, book keepers, and human resource and marketing professionals. However, if there are no jobs for union labor and their signatory partners, this shortage of skilled workers isn’t meaningful. Thus, any campaign to increase recruiting must go hand-in-hand with a marketing program that educates potential customers about the advantages of using the SMART-SMACNA team.

There is never a bad time to begin long-term planning for market expansion. In Central California, signatory contractors, members of the Local, plus staff at SMACNA, SMART, and the training center sat down when the market was excellent to map out a long-term plan for market expansion that included outreach, education, marketing, and training. As it turned out, timing was key. By not waiting until the market hit bottom, contractors and their union laborers had more options available to withstand the drastic downturn in construction when it hit. The team also set into motion the means to have crafts persons available as the market demands by supporting the Lincoln High School Engineering and Construction Academy and other recruiting programs.

SMACNA Kansas City and SMART Local 2 came together on strategic planning efforts in order to identify and address their top concerns. Together they applied for and received funding from the national SMACNA-SMART Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force to hold a local partnership conference, where they established a structure to ensure that action items would move forward in an effort to improve market share in the Kansas City area.