Ingram’s January 2023

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4 1. Don Greenwell said the WBE/MBE requirements on the KCI project had forced the hand of many employers to make good on efforts to diversify their staffs. 2. Gabe Perez addressed the lessons builders learned from the KCI experience, and the need to keep new minority employees on career tracks in construction. 3. Brandy McCombs says the work-flow pipeline at IBC is full into 2024, but wonders what will follow.

calculated, and in consideration for choice assignments and promotions. Pete Browne said his office staff of about three dozen had quickly returned to work when authorities eased pandemic restrictions in the spring of 2020. The bigger issue, he said, came with clients who didn’t make the same commitment. “You have to know the boundaries, and know when a Zoom meeting is appropriate and when it isn’t,” he said. To Centric employees who suggested they wanted to stick with a remote schedule, Swanson said he had a crisp response: “That’s fine … who do you plan on working for?” The company, he said, took a hard line in order to get people back to their pre-pandemic settings. The irony of remote-work demands, suggested Darcy Stewart, should be readily available within this sector. “We’re in an industry that builds buildings,” she said. “We want people to be in them.” The MBE/WBE Evolution The work at KCI set unprecedented targets for participation by companies with designation as minority-owned and women-owned. Some said the targets were too ambitious, but they were met. As an employer and a project partner at KCI, Rosie Privitera Biondo said, “we got to experience that from both sides.” One take-away for the electrical contractor is that KCI drew in large numbers of minority and female employees, she said,

“and we need to transfer that talent to other projects.” The KCI targets, said Don Greenwell, forced the hand of a lot of companies to diversify their staffs. He’s hopeful that additional incentives can be found to keep those people on track with construction careers. A great many, however, won’t. “Even among the higher-educated, there have always been a larger number who will try it and say ‘that’s just not for me’” said Rosie Privitera Biondo. But the long-discussed need to div ersify the construction work force has gained valuable momentum with the KCI experience, said Gabe Perez, of Unified Contractors, an advocacy group created by the 2022 merger of two minority contractors associations. Bringing on large numbers of new employees invariably means extra attention must be paid to workplace safety issues. Long the prime concern of the construction sector, companies have gone to new lengths to emphasize safe job-site practices. While the numbers of fatalities in the sector have declined as a result of those efforts, the numbers of minor-injury incidents has surged. That’s a concern, said Jeff Blaesing, as onboarding and ramping-up continues. The best way to teach safety, said Pete Browne, is to ensure that a veteran is assigned to newer employees to show

them how things must be done. Clearly, that’s not happening across the board: In October alone, the Kansas City region witnessed five fatal workplace accidents. Browne says he makes it a point to visit each site to get an understanding of the factors contributing to those tragic outcomes. “It can’t be a program; it has to be a safety culture,” said Erica Jones. A decade ago, she said, much of the industry was focused on compliance. Safety has easily moved into the No. 1 slot. But things can’t stop there, said Don Greenwell. The sector has considerable challenges with mental-health issues, as well as physical safety. “That awareness needs to permeate the entire industry,” he said. Agreed, said Courtney Kounkel: “The thing that worries me most is the stress factor,” she said. “It’s just so much more difficult now to do the exact things we’ve always done.” Current Hurdles Most at the table said their work orders for 2023 would keep them humming; some of them at record paces. If the much-discussed recession threat pans out, said Don Greenwell, “we’ll feel the ef- fects in 2024.” Those who had managed companies during the Great Recession of 2007-09, he said, “know what’s com- ing at us.” Greg Carlson said it “seems there are more opportunities, but many of them

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