Managing remote workersl

Managing remote workers

How ASRC Construction Holding Company is leveraging leading-edge technology to better onboard workers

By Jenn Said

Construction projects in easily accessible locations are complex enough, but remote jobsites come with unique considerations that range from limited transportation options and extreme weather to hiring challenges and site complications.

For more than three decades, the Alaska-based ASRC Construction group has overcome these obstacles while executing complex construction projects in some of the most remote locations in the world. The company’s focus on data and automation led ASRC Construction to become one of the most sought-after contractors in Alaska. That tech-forward approach is one of the reasons the company was awarded several projects at the Clear Space Force Station, a remote military installation approximately 75 miles southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska. Established by the US Air Force acquired in 1958, the station’s primary purpose is the surveillance and tracking of intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In 2018, ASRC Builders and Builders Choice Modular, both part of the ASRC Construction group, constructed a 320-bed housing, dining, and recreation facility to accommodate teams working on construction projects in support of the Missile Defense Agency’s long-range discrimination radar, which is targeted for completion in 2023. The self-contained facility is equipped with water supply wells, wastewater treatment, fire suppression and detection and a series of heated utilidor systems, as well as a complete kitchen capable of serving more than 300 people in a single meal shift. ASRC Builders used a modular building system to reduce onsite construction activity and allow facility deployment during interior Alaska’s

ASRC has already begun using its data to make informed business decisions. Moving from paper-based workflows to the cloud has helped the company better understand its data, plan and forecast.

harsh winter, during which temperatures exceeded -45 degrees Fahrenheit. The project involved the offsite fabrication, temporary staging, and transportation of 110 building modules by Builders Choice Modular. Today, ASRC Builders manages the facility, locally referred to as “construction camp” because it houses employees from 70 different companies who are temporarily staffed on projects at the Space Force Station. The company is also managing its own employees who are active on several multi-million-dollar construction projects onsite. Managing the employees who work at the camp and on ASRC Construction’s Space Force Station construction projects is a constant cycle of onboarding, mobilizing, demobilizing and terming. Workers are mostly short-term, with some contracted for as little as one week and others employed for months. “Due to the nature of the work and the remote location, there is high turnover and movement of our workers between projects, at the Space Force Station and other even more remote locations throughout Alaska,” says Scot Strickland, MIS manager at ASRC. “From March to September, when weather conditions are favorable, managing employees

Onboarding employees can be a timeintensive headache, especially on remote projects. ASRC credits automating its HR processes five years ago with the company’s ability to scale its staff up and down based on project demands.

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coming and going, usually with little time to prepare, is a challenge.”

Automated onboarding works

Onboarding employees can be a time-intensive headache, especially on remote projects. ASRC credits automating its HR processes five years ago with the company’s ability to scale its staff up and down based on project demands. Strickland says onboarding is historically a very paper intensive tedious process, and that over the years, it has converted paper to electronic forms and PDFs. But the process still required a great deal of effort and re-keying for the HR team. “After we automated onboarding with Viewpoint HR Management, new and returning employees follow a digital onboarding workflow that gets them on the jobsite faster. During peak season, we hire and term 50 to 100 employees a week. In the past, processing that many hires required as many as four people working 10 or 12 hours a day.” Now he says it only takes one dedicated manager with a shared recruiting team and is a much easier process, particularly with rehires.” Given Alaska’s location, ASRC Construction routinely re-hires employees, many of which will work with various subsidiaries of its parent company numerous times throughout the year. “We have employees who work with us up to 10 different times during a year, for three or four different companies,” Strickland says. “More than 50% of the HR packages we process are re-hires and during peak season, that number is closer to 80%. Digital onboarding has transformed this aspect of our business and without it, I’m not sure how we would scale.”

Empowering employees

Moving from paper to digital HR processes has also helped ASRC retain and attract talent. Before digitizing HR management, every change to an employee record was emailed to HR and manually keyed into a database. Today, employees independently complete a variety of HR-related tasks directly from their computer or mobile device. “Our employees can easily manage their own time-off requests, access important documents and training materials and view pay stubs,” Strickland says. “This greatly reduces the burden on our HR staff and shows potential employees that we are a modern, innovative company. Before automating our HR management, it wasn’t unheard of for HR to send a new employee a PDF onboarding package and never hear back. This happens far less now that we’ve made the process digital.” Automating HR management has reduced ASRC Construction’s number of full-time HR staff by two full-time employees. “Our HR teams are no longer shuffling paperwork and re-keying data so they have time to interact with employees and focus on other aspects of their jobs that they couldn’t always get to before,” Strickland says.

Scaling for the future

After successfully modernizing its HR processes, ASRC Construction also migrated its operations to the cloud with the ViewpointOne suite of connected construction solutions. Strickland shares that having data flowing into one system has streamlined operations, helped the company better manage complex projects and provided valuable insight for making important business decisions. Strickland says that with all of our data in one connected system, ASRC does not worry if it is accurate or current. “It saves us a great deal of time and effort. When employees complete their onboarding forms, their information is automatically live within our ERP. Data capture and management is seamless across every aspect of our business.” ASRC has already begun using its data to make informed business decisions. Moving from paper-based workflows to the cloud has helped the company better understand its data, plan and forecast. “We have more than 20 years of project data in our ERP,” Strickland says. “When we are bidding a new project, we can look back at previous projects that have similarities for insight. Because of this, we can bid more accurately so our projects are coming in at or below cost. This is just scratching the surface of what we can do with data and can’t wait to see what the future holds.” CCR