Although efforts to mitigate the labor shortage often focus on the skilled trades, many firms also struggle to find qualified professional staff. To address that challenge, Skanska has honed their development efforts to better prepare young project management staff to advance in their careers.
Skanska’s Talent Development Council in San Antonio, Texas, includes early-career project engineers, field engineers, assistant project managers, and assistant superintendents, many just coming out of college or switching careers from the trades or other related fields.
“The intent is to help that group learn more about the industry,” said Tom Hull, Skanska Project Executive. “There’s some internal training of processes and procedures, but we also focus on how things are built, what you should look for, and exposing those folks to different types of construction.”
Participants in the Talent Development Council gain a broader base of knowledge and connections to set them up for success in their current and future roles.
“A lot of these folks are assigned to a project that lasts two to three years,” Hull said. “They see a lot of good things on their one project, but if we’re not intentional, they can get siloed and their knowledge is very much based in that one kind of project.”
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Monthly gatherings provide additional learning opportunities.
“We gather the group at a different job site and allow them to mix and mingle and grow their network, seeing the folks at their same level or career point and developing that relationship,” Hull said. “But it also exposes them to the different types of construction we’re involved with around San Antonio. Some folks will see a tilt-wall job for the first time or a pier drilling operation.”
Participants have an opportunity to ask questions at each job site they visit, taking new knowledge back to their own project and into their careers.
In addition, “When these folks run into a concern or question on their job, they can call up somebody else in their peer group across town that may have dealt with a similar issue,” Hull said. “We want to develop that kind of communication pathway so it’s not having to go up and down channels, but more direct with one-to-one peer interaction.”
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The Talent Development Council at Skanska isn’t new but continues to adapt.
“I was in the program 15 years ago,” Hull said. “But it’s taken on different aspects. We used to separate those in the project engineer and project manager track in one group and our folks on the field supervision side in another group, and we’d train them separately. We started seeing that the project engineer group wants to learn more about the field and the field group wants to learn more about the project management side. For the last few years, locally we’ve combined those groups. We feel it’s been more beneficial because it allows the two groups to grow their network.”
Now the training covers both field and office implications, with much of the information presented through lessons learned. For example, “This is what we did over here; here are the things that were really effective that we think you should do on your job and here are the things that didn’t work as well as we thought they would, or here are some pitfalls we ran into that you should be aware of,” Hull explained.
Over the summer, the group’s gatherings include interns, but usually the number of people attending is around 15.
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“That group ebbs and flows as people come on board or get promoted,” Hull said. “Everybody’s welcome to come, but the expectation that you come drops off once you get past that assistant superintendent or assistant project manager title.”
Hull provides executive oversight, suggesting topics coming up on job sites, but the Talent Development Council is led by two senior project engineers who work with project teams to develop lesson plans. Each month, a different team makes a presentation. “Then we’ll spend another hour just walking the job site with the project team, asking questions and seeing what’s going on,” Hull said.
Earlier this year, the group visited Acme Brick in San Antonio to see how bricks are manufactured. In addition, the Texas Masonry Council conducted a bricklaying seminar.
“A day trying their own hand at masonry encourages a deeper appreciation for the trade,” Hull said. “Having a hands-on learning experience like that for our newer construction team members allows our partners to share valuable industry knowledge and skills to build a strong, more capable workforce prepared for future leadership and project roles.”
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Photos courtesy of Skanska.
