The culture in the building and construction sector as a whole, as well as in individual firms, is another barrier to skill development. Culture in this sense refers to attitudes, beliefs and values. This shapes how people within the industry interact with each other and with their customers.
The culture of the sector is often perceived as lacking in customer focus, demonstrating poor risk management, being slow to embrace change, not always being well coordinated and sceptical of ‘outsiders’ to the industry. While these views are not applicable to all firms, they have an impact on the industry. Some of the impacts include creating negative perceptions of the industry by customers, creating barriers to enter the industry or change roles in the industry, a lack of focus on quality and a failure of firms to engage in training. All of these impacts can have negative consequences for economic and productivity growth within the sector. While a skills strategy can't directly change culture in the industry, it can bring focus to changing behaviour which, over time, will change the culture for the better.
Fragmentation
One of the issues relating to culture which impacts on productivity is fragmentation. Many people in the sector don't think about their work in the wider context of the industry. Focusing on jobs rather than on projects stifles innovation and sustainable design, and is a drag on productivity growth.
Skills can help address this issue by ensuring that people in the sector have a greater awareness of how the work they are doing fits into a wider context and how improving the whole of the sector in this area will benefit individual firms and workers.
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RESPONSES |
KEY GROUPS INVOLVED |
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Require collaboration during the procurement of government-funded projects |
MBIE, MoE, MoH, Corrections |
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Encourage collaboration of people and firms working on all stages of the building process |
Industry associations and institutes |
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Incorporate material on collaboration into training and education packages |
ITOs, tertiary providers |
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Celebrate good examples of collaboration |
Industry associations and institutes, Constructing Excellence, Productivity Partnership, tertiary providers |
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Encourage use and development of digital tools such as BIM and IPD so that teams can work collectively on whole projects and understand their role in them |
Productivity Partnership, MBIE, LINZ, industry associations and institutes, ITOs, tertiary providers |
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Encourage cooperative arrangements between businesses of different size where large firms contract work to smaller firms and support them with training, supervision and management advice |
Industry associations and institutes |
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Raise awareness among customers of the benefits of having a trained, experienced project manager who can ensure different contractors work together |
Industry associations and institutes |
Attraction and retention
Perceptions of the industry and a lack of clear pathways create a problem with attracting people to the industry. Some people perceive jobs in the sector as being relatively low skilled, having poor safety standards and as undesirable, compared with jobs in other industries. This leads to some potentially very capable people not pursuing jobs in the industry.
Retention can also be a problem as people are likely to exit the industry in bust periods, leave for higher pay in Australia, or retire early when they are no longer able to meet the physical demands of many jobs. Failing to retain workers is an issue because the industry loses skills and experience and this impacts on productivity and growth.
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RESPONSES |
KEY GROUPS INVOLVED |
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Improve information available to potential skilled migrants about the steps they need to take in order to settle effectively in NZ, such as further qualifications and occupational registration requirements |
MBIE, industry associations and institutes, tertiary providers |
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Provide information for construction sector migrants for inclusion on the main immigration portal at www.newzealandnow.govt.nz |
Industry associations and institutes, tertiary providers, ITOs |
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Encourage and incentivise sector workers to remain in NZ |
Industry associations and institutes |
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Develop and implement a whole-of-sector marketing plan promoting the sector and highlighting building sector roles as careers rather than jobs |
Industry associations and institutes, Careers NZ |
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Encourage businesses to rely less on labour only contracting and form more supportive employment relationships |
MBIE, industry associations and institutes |
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Use innovation in the sector as a tool to keep workers interested and retain them in the industry |
Industry associations and institutes |
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Ensure that skilled migrants have qualifications that are appropriate and recognised |
MBIE, NZQA |
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Address management skills at a firm level as this is a key factor to retain people in the industry |
Industry associations and institutes, TEC, ITOs, tertiary providers |
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Make use of mixed media to attract young people, migrants and women into the industry and connect with other workers in the industry |
Industry associations and institutes, tertiary providers, ITOs, Careers NZ |
Quality
The perception of the building and construction sector by the general public, and to an extent from within, is tainted by recent events such as the leaky home experience. This is often voiced in complaints such as late starts, late delivery, variable quality, unexpected costs and lack of customer focus.
These traits are symptomatic of a lack of planning and lack of communication with the customer, and can lead to rework and reduced value of the product. This type of behaviour places a significant drag on productivity in the sector.
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RESPONSES |
KEY GROUPS INVOLVED |
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Introduce aspects of quality control into training at all levels |
Tertiary providers, ITOs |
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Raise awareness at all levels of the costs of rework and the ripple effect flowing from products that don’t meet quality standards |
Industry associations and institutes, tertiary providers, ITOs |
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Introduce at all levels an understanding that customer satisfaction is a core industry driver |
Industry associations and institutes |
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Celebrate good examples of quality projects as often as possible |
Industry associations and institutes, MBIE |
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Train more procurement professionals to ensure procurement processes include risks and a whole-of-life value approach |
Tertiary providers, ITOs, TEC |
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Set up a feedback website to allow customers to record their experience including a simple rating system on a few key indicators |
Industry associations and institutes, MBIE |
Engagement with education and training
The building and construction sector has an advantage in that it has a long-standing culture of education and training in the form of on-job learning and apprenticeships. However, there are some parts of the sector where there is not a long-standing tradition of education and training and there are firms within all parts of the sector that do not see the benefits of education and training. The sector needs to find ways to promote the value of training and encourage training to take place, particularly where a training culture has not traditionally existed.
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RESPONSES |
KEY GROUPS INVOLVED |
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Ensure that industry has buy-in to education and training by involving them in the development of education and training initiatives |
Industry associations and institutes, ITOs, tertiary providers, TEC, MoE |
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Map and publish the network of qualification based and non-qualification based training required |
ITOs, tertiary providers, industry associations and Institutes, NZQA |
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Incorporate generic skills into training packages so that training is relevant to all parts of a person's job |
ITOs, tertiary providers |
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Ensure that training and education packages are fit for purpose and make sense to employers and employees |
ITOs, tertiary providers, industry associations and institutes |
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Encourage employers to formalise training by incorporating it into employment agreements |
ITOs, MBIE, industry associations and institutes |
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Make clear linkages between different activities within the tertiary sector including trades academies, apprenticeships, ITPs, and mentoring |
ITOs, tertiary providers, TEC, MoE |
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Align the requirements of qualifications, registration and licensing |
ITOs, tertiary providers, industry associations and institutes, NZQA |
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Investigate the further development and application of a shared workforce demand model to determine if it could usefully influence tertiary provision, immigration, and other pathways into the industry |
MBIE, TEC, Productivity Partnership, industry associations and institutes, CERA |
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Support schemes such as Limited Service Volunteer scheme as they provide young people with drive, work ethic, and goals |
Industry associations and institutes |
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Raise awareness within industry about the merits of secondary level education qualifications and pathways that are entry points to the industry |
Industry associations and institutes, MoE |