2023 Issue 1 - Jan-Feb

What does 2023 have in store for our industry? That depends on whom you ask. In this issue, we look at some of the trends we’re seeing in store, and spend some time looking at construction’s labour force challenges. Look for all this and more inside!

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A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023

As I look ahead to 2023, I do so with some trepidation and with little confidence in projecting what this next year really holds.

Here are a few things we all should consider as we plan for the next 12 months.

Inflation and supply chain

Our industry continues to be plagued by supply chain issues. Resilience will be key. This means reducing exposure to volatile market pricing, as well as building protective measures to deal with shortages and rising logistical costs. It’s entirely possible that we haven’t seen the worst of this yet and that the true costs of these disruptions are yet to be known.

Talent challenges

We continue see the movement of talented

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

workers away from our industry as they reassess the impact of the work they do and the desire to live their best lives.

It will be more important than ever to offer employees fulfilling work as well as ongoing personal and professional growth opportunities.

Sustainability

Investors and consumers are increasingly preferring to work with businesses that embody the right environmental and social intentions. Likewise, employees are ever more inclined to work for companies embracing and

championing sustainability.

Accelerated digital transformation

The continued evolution of the workplace – including hybrid and remote work for office staff, cloud-based business decisionmaking tools, and increased automation – will continue in 2023. Roles will change. Automation and pre-fabrication will increase. Artificial intelligence, robotics and smart technology is our future.

READY FOR WHAT’S NEXT

The answer to that depends on who you ask. People’s opinions can be at different ends of the continuum. While some general contractors and subcontractors seem almost apologetically positive, others are concerned. Many have seen pipelines drying up and their “sure things” becoming less certain.

Some contractors haven’t had to spend much time in the past few years hunting for business. Their mentality has been more about harvesting than hunting. Things are changing. We receive multiple inquiries about how the GVCA can help them grow and sustain their business. Access to our Link2Build plans room expands daily with more people realizing the gold mine that exists within. If you are looking for projects to

bid on, or connections to create, talk to us about the value of Link2Build. Better yet, take it for a test drive.

Concerns about access to talent and the shrinking workforce are also very topical. Many companies are concerned about their ability to execute their plans. Best practices with sustainability, innovation, and efficient business delivery are the most requested topics when discussing the future. We continue to educate ourselves to create relevant programs and plans to assist you.

This year, like every other, promises unique challenges. GVCA is uniquely positioned to help you achieve your business objectives. Reach out anytime.

Jeff MacIntyre

Andrew Bousfield, B. Arch. OAA, NSAA, MRAIC, LEED* AP.

“How is 2023 shaping up?”

SIGHTINGS

And what a great party it was! More than 250 people gathered to celebrate Martha’s contribution to the GVCA, the ICI industry overall, and to wish her well in her next chapter. We know we haven’t seen the last of her yet!

SAFETY

SAFETY PRODUCTS AND TRENDS FOR 2023

Every year there are new tools and resources developed that are meant to make our work lives easier. Who knew that we would one day be able to use our phones to do a medical and send it to our physician to save ourselves an office visit?

Although we feel like we have come through to the other side of COVID, many pandemic legacies will remain. It is now normal to hold meetings via Zoom, hybrid working models are here to stay, and supply chain issues are still impacting many.

Here are some of the issues that I think will be top of mind in 2023 in health and safety.

PPE AND WEARABLES

PPE is always changing and improving for comfort, ease of use, longevity. Fit is also improving constantly with more options available for sizes and body shapes. There are wearables and technology that now offer real time adjustments to self-correct movements and reduce back and shoulder injuries for example. Keep an eye on innovations to ensure you consider new ways to reduce injuries and improve efficiencies.

REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS

Companies need to protect their workforces by keeping an eye on trends and how innovations can make a safety

impact. Many organizations are looking at how the changes in the way they do business can have an impact – positive or otherwise – on their health and safety programs and their bottom lines. Check back into programs regularly to ensure that compliance is being supported.

CENTRALIZED COMMUNICATION

Having a centralized system can help with all the interlocking elements of a safe workplace: inspection reports, training and certificate maintenance, daily inspection requirements, etc. This can also assist with proper adoption of new requirements because of the decrease in administrative burden and the minimal disruption in workflow and operations.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

In a nutshell, this is about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different. Diversity and inclusion helps companies improve their productivity and efficiency, and broaden the base from which new and critical decisions can be made. It goes without saying that this can have a positive impact on health and safety.

Monica Szabo has more than 30 years of experience in health and safety. She is a Registered Occupational Hygienist, a Canadian Registered Safety Professional, and a Certified Occupational Health and Safety Technologist. She can be reached at szabomonica739@gmail.com.

MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS

The days where wellness programs focused exclusively on employee's physical health are over.

Wellness programs today encompass social, financial and emotional well-being, which can help workers make positive adjustments in areas beyond the scope of safety programs. COVID has organically caused an increased awareness around the importance of psychological health and safety, wellness and work-life balance. All these issues need to be addressed with a lens on the well-being of individuals but also a lens on organizational effectiveness. A balanced approach is key.

HEALTH AND SAFETY EXCELLENCE PROGRAM

The Health and Safety Excellence program has topic choices that can help you address some of the priorities listed above and earn rewards for your efforts. Some of the benefits of participating in the program include reduction in injuries, better safety culture, rebates (including double rebates for small businesses with fewer than 100 employees), guidance through implementation of topics, and networking with others.

sales@delta-elevator.com

FORECASTING FOR UNCERTAINTY

After weathering years of uncertainty due to the pandemic and related measures, the economic forecast is showing signs of continued uncertainty for the next few years.

Rising interest rates, employee-related costs, and material costs are colliding with an economic slowdown, making forecasting more important than ever.

As uncertainty increases, the spread in the sensitivity analysis of a forecast often grows. But only from completing that exercise can you truly see where immediate attention is needed to weather the next few years.

Interest rates

Prime interest rates have risen from 2.45% in late February 2022 to 5.95% in late October 2022 after years of

minimal movement in those rates. The 3.5-percentage point increase in an eightmonth period has quickly bumped up the cost of new borrowings as well as the cost of any current variable debt. Companies that were able to lock in fixed rates before the interest rates began to climb, will have the advantage of low, predictable debt costs. Meanwhile companies with variable debt will need to factor the potential of continued rising rates into their forecast’s sensitivity analysis.

Labour market

The construction industry is continuing

to be hit on all sides of the labour market battle. Not only is the industry facing labour shortages with fewer people entering the industry, but there are also pressures to fill the gaps as a large portion of skilled labour is nearing retirement age.

Combined with the current employees’ market, all these factors add up to rising costs to attract and retain construction labour at all levels from labourers to site supervisors and beyond. These additional costs need to be included in the company’s forecast and plans set in place to get more out of your staff and information technology to help close the gap.

Build a pipeline

Having a pipeline of secured work provides some certainty to the revenue portion of your forecast while reducing the stress on key employees to keep everyone busy. Focusing on building a pipeline will help to ensure you have profitable work lined up in advance rather than taking on low or no margin work when jobs dry up just to keep your staff on payroll.

Tying it all together

As you pull all the variables together in your forecast to factor in as much of the uncertainty as possible, where does that leave your company in a worst-case scenario? If it leaves things a little too tight for comfort, you can consider some of the following:

• Do you have capital elsewhere in your organizational structure that can be

used to pay down third-party debt to reduce interest costs? Of course, you must weigh the cost of lost income potential on that capital in say, your holding company, against the benefit that the operating company will get with reduced interest costs.

• How much of the additional costs in borrowing and labour can you pass on to your customers? Are you building in enough room in your tenders to still obtain work while covering potential further cost increases?

• What will you do to retain your key staff, without compromising the business, if work slows?

• Can you automate some of your more manual processes to use your scarce people resources for their highest and best use?

• Can you reach out to customers who provide you with regular work and

formalize as much profitable work as possible to lengthen your pipeline?

• Can you diversify your pipeline to capture some work that might be impacted differently by an economic slowdown?

Seeing the best- and worst-case scenarios in times of uncertainty will allow you to identify areas that require your immediate and near-term focus. Then update the forecast regularly as factors become known to avoid as many surprises as possible.

Putting some time and energy into modelling your company’s forecast can easily mean the difference between profits and losses.

Written by Kimberly Aitken, CPA, CA, Co-Leader of RLB LLP’s Construction Team. Contact her at 519-822-9933 or kimberly.aitken@rlb.ca.

C M Y CM MY CY CMY K

Strassburger ad 7.125x4.675 GVCA Final.pdf 1 2022-03-17 10:07 AM

Sometimes the outcome of a claim turns on the facts: Was the work deficient? What is the value of an extra to a contract? Was the contractor at fault for a delay?

Far too often, however, the success or failure of a claim turns on whether a party complied with a deadline to preserve a claim or a defence. Knowing and complying with the applicable deadlines is a core responsibility of any project manager.

List of deadlines applicable to a CCDC 2 – 2008

The applicable deadlines will vary depending on the terms of your contract, the age of your project, and the date of the prime contract, among other things. Set out below are key deadlines that apply to an unamended CCDC 2 contract between an owner and contractor to which prompt payment and adjudication apply:

• Pursuant to GC 6.4.1, a contractor must give written notice of any claim arising from unknown site conditions within five working days of the first observance of the conditions.

• Pursuant to GC 6.5.4, a contractor must give written notice of any delay within 10 working days after the commencement of the delay.

• Pursuant to GC 6.6.1 and GC 6.6.3, a contractor must give “timely” written notice of any claim for an increase in the

contract price and quantify the amount of the claim within a “reasonable” time.

• The deadline for an owner to dispute a contractor’s “proper invoice” is 14 calendar days from date the invoice was delivered to the owner.

• Pursuant to GC 8.2.2, the deadline for a party to deliver notice in writing disputing the finding of a consultant is 15 working days after receipt of that finding.

• The deadline for either party to refer a dispute to adjudication is the date that the contract is “complete”.

• The deadline for the owner to publish a notice of non-payment of the holdback in a construction trade newspaper (e.g., Link2Build or the DCN) is 40 days after the trigger date, as described below. Furthermore, the owner must serve notice

of publication upon the contractor within three days of its publication.

• Most claims by the contractor against the owner for breach of contract or negligence are deemed to be waived pursuant to GC 12.2.1 after 55 days from the trigger date, unless the contractor gave the owner notice in writing of its claim on or before the 55th day.

• The deadline for a contractor to preserve a claim for lien is 60 days after the trigger date.

• The limitation period for a contractor to sue on an outstanding invoice is generally two years from the date that the invoice became due and payable.

Three of the deadlines listed above run from the “trigger date”. The “trigger date” for a prime contractor is the earlier of the publication of a certificate of substantial performance of the prime contract, on the one hand, and the completion, abandonment, or termination of the prime contract, on the other.

The deadlines that apply to a subcontractor are generally similar, with the biggest difference being the “trigger date” that starts the running of the 60-day deadline to preserve a subcontractor’s lien rights. The trigger date for a subcontractor is the earlier of the publication of a certificate of substantial performance of the

prime contract, the subcontractor’s date of last supply, and the date of any certificate of completion of the subcontract.

Serve notice early, often — and politely

I know what many of you are thinking: “I don’t want to serve notice of a claim because I often don’t know whether an event will have a financial impact until long after the fact”. If that is the case, then say so to the owner. For example, you can say, “X happened. We don’t yet know if it will have an impact on our work, but, out of an abundance of caution, please consider this notice of a potential claim for the purpose of GC….”

You can always withdraw a claim after the fact if the event did not end up having an impact on your work. If you are unable to quantify the impact of a claim at the time that you are giving notice, then just say so. For example, you can write, “We don’t know at this stage what the financial impact of ‘X’ will be, if any, but we are provisionally assessing the impact of ‘X’ at $10,000”. You can always update the amount of your claim as the financial impact comes into clearer focus. Know the deadlines that apply to your contract and comply with them. Otherwise, your right to payment may be DOA.

From the biggest machines to the smallest tools, all it takes is one call to Battlefield

and it’s done.

Ted Dreyer is a lawyer and adjudicator at Madorin, Snyder LLP in Kitchener. This article should not be relied on as legal advice.

INDUSTRY OUTLOOK 2023

Making predictions for any industry is always a gamble. You might have a great handle on the variables at play, but in the end, you’re simply making an educated guess. Look back at the last year in construction as a great example.

We entered 2022 with continuing supply chain challenges due to pandemic disruptions and knew they would continue to impact projects. But none of us expected the economic uncertainty that began in the spring. On March 2, the Bank of Canada made the first of an eventual six interest rate hikes over the year to fight growing inflation. Today, the key interest rate sits at 3.75%—the highest since 2008—and it continues to impact consumers and businesses.

But will interest rates impact the construction industry in 2023?

If you ask 50 people in the industry, you’ll get 50 different views on what will happen in 2023. The one consistent thing we’ve noticed from many of our members is that they are “apologetically optimistic” about 2023. It’s fascinating, considering the constant stream of doom and gloom stories about interest rates, supply chain issues, and skilled worker shortages.

Instead of predicting where the industry is headed in 2023, we’ll look at three challenges that construction leaders should consider.

WE ARE A FORCE FOR ACTION.

The feast is over, but can we avoid the famine?

The last three years saw one of the most significant construction booms in recent memory. The combination of low interest rates, increasing demand for industrial and large multi-tenant properties, and an influx of COVID-19-driven government funding led to multiple new project starts.

As the workload increased for subcontractors, many made significant capital investments. Whether it was investing in new facilities, tools, or vehicles, many of these subcontractors THERE

made

As we look at a potential slowdown in new project starts and pauses or cancellations on current projects, some subcontractors could find themselves in negative financial situations. There will likely be some consolidation or liquidation in 2023 as subcontractors begin competing again for projects.

Will

Inflation

Focus Economics has predicted that the average inflation rate for 2023 will be 3.5%. The consensus is that the Bank of Canada’s October increase to the key interest rate is the last one of this cycle. But if inflation rises in 2023, the Bank may pursue further interest rate hikes.

While private developers are more heavily impacted by interest rate hikes, large-scale public projects— hospitals, infrastructure, and post-secondary institutions—will continue without issue. One concern is subcontractors with outstanding financing on tools and vehicles. Increasing interest rates could lead to business and staffing issues impacting project timelines.

The skilled worker shortage will continue.

Even if the economic situation improves dramatically in 2023, there will continue to be a shortage of skilled workers across every trade. The Royal Bank of Canada recently reported that over the next five years, Canada will experience a shortage of 10,000 Red Seal tradespeople. To make matters worse, RBC said that a projected 700,000 skilled tradespeople are expected to retire by 2028.

We need to continue working with our post-secondary partners to change the narrative on skilled trades. The demand is there, but many potential carpenters, electricians, and plumbers are pursuing less demanded four-year degree programs due to a continued stigma on the trades. This change in narrative is especially important when reaching out to women. BuildForce Canada reported that there were over 190,000

women employed in the construction industry across Canada in 2021—but they represent just 5% of the one million tradespeople who work on-site every day.

Working together

So what will 2023 look like? Sometimes it can feel like there’s no logic or rules. 2023 could be a year of doom or a year of expansion. But one thing is constant— the communities our members serve still need buildings for people to live and work. Those needs aren’t decreasing for industrial and manufacturing space. They are increasing as reshoring continues to be a go-to strategy to alleviate supply chain issues.

These are our best guesses, but hindsight will show us where we were wrong and right when we look back from 2024.

IS THE FUTURE OF CONSTRUCTION MODULAR?

Winter is never a great time to be out at a job site. One week you're dealing with a muddy site, and the next, you're shovelling snow and running through HotHands like they were candy. That's not to mention coping with freezing portable toilets.

By Alex Kinsella

We all want to avoid construction in the winter—and NRB Modular Solutions may have figured out how.

With plants in Grimsby and Cambridge, NRB Modular Solutions has taken some of the best practices from manufacturing and applied them to construction. From design to build, NRB's modular construction process has been one of the most significant advancements in construction since the first drywall use over 100 years ago.

NRB has completed projects at the Bruce Power nuclear plant, a major pharmaceutical manufacturer, a steel plant, and other industrial and commercial applications. Touring NRB's plant and seeing projects in the field has us asking if modular construction is the future of our industry.

Scott van Rooy, director of operations at NRB Modular Solutions, has worked in manufacturing for nearly 30 years and joined NRB in 2019. He said awareness and understanding of modular

construction are starting to grow, but there is still much customer education needed to show the advantages over traditional construction.

NRB does not produce prefabricated buildings. Instead, it designs to spec and manufactures what van Rooy described as Lego blocks that get assembled at a site.

"As we're building the blocks, the foundation is being poured and the site is being prepped. We ship the blocks and it is erected on site. You go from a blank slate with a foundation and within 12 to 15 days, you've got a three-storey building," van Rooy said.

Tying the modules together and completing site finishes typically takes six to eight weeks, depending on the project's scope. For most projects, van Rooy said you could have occupancy of a building within nine to ten months.

NRB has been producing modular buildings for over 40 years. The company originally started with smaller buildings, including kiosks and portable classrooms and now produce buildings for commercial, industrial, healthcare, and other applications. Van Rooy said that NRB's Grimsby plant makes more than 200 portable classrooms a year.

THERE IS STILL A SIGNIFICANT GAP IN THE NUMBER OF YOUNG PEOPLE PURSUING A TRADE CAREER DUE TO MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE WORK AND EARNING POTENTIAL.

The City of Toronto is working with NRB to use modular construction for one of its affordable housing projects. Van Rooy said the feedback from the nonprofits operating the housing projects has been fantastic.

"You're getting people off the streets faster—that's the beauty of modular. It gets the building done faster. Gets people off the street faster. Toronto Mayor John Tory is a big advocate of it. He's been through our facilities a few times and loves the modular concept because of that speed," van Rooy said.

One of modular construction's most significant advantages is hiring and retaining skilled workers. Since the construction of its modular buildings happens inside, NRB can offer a climatecontrolled environment for its staff.

"Typically you'd be out in the mud right now. At NRB, you're indoors on a steady shift. We're on public transit, we have plenty of parking. Some sites in downtown Toronto, you'd be lucky to find parking within blocks of where you're working," van Rooy said.

With work happening inside, NRB operates year-round without stops due to inclement weather. Van Rooy said this benefits NRB in two ways. First, they can plan out projects while avoiding weather delays. Second, they can offer steady work to skilled workers throughout the year, which improves the retention rate.

"We still have some turnover, but it definitely minimizes it," van Rooy said.

Despite these advantages, van Rooy said NRB still faces many of the same challenges in attracting and retaining skilled trades workers as traditional construction. He said there is still a significant gap in the number of young people pursuing a trade career due to misconceptions about the work and earning potential.

"We've really got to start selling the math. Graduating university with a four-year degree, you may make $60,000 a year. Going into trades, you're going to make that much along the way as opposed to paying $80,000 after graduating," van Rooy said.

Another major misconception is that modular construction means cheaper construction costs. Van Rooy said lumber costs are the same whether in the factory or on-site. NRB also deals with the same supply chain challenges that traditional construction companies face. Van Rooy said they are looking at 12 to 14-week backorders on basics like windows and doors.

"When we're trying to sell speed, we have to think ahead on that kind of thing," he said.

As for whether modular construction is the future, van Rooy said he sees the needle moving forward in 2023.

"You've got a lot of old school guys that stick with 'this is the way we've always done it.' But we're on the cusp of something here. It's no different than the electric car was 10 years ago."

ONTARIO WON’T REACH HOUSING AFFORDABILITY TARGETS BY 2030,

CMHC SAYS

A follow-up report in October looked at the labour supply required to build those homes, and concluded Ontario would be a long-shot to reach that target.

Housing affordability and residential construction are big topics in the news at the moment, but if the industry is to reach the construction targets set in the spring by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), something will have to change.

In June, CMHC released a report titled, Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating what is needed to solve Canada’s

housing affordability crisis by 2030. The document concluded that 3.5 million more homes need to be built across the country by 2030 to achieve affordability.

"Increasing supply will be difficult. Critically, increasing supply takes time because the time to construct is significant, but so is the time to progress through government approval processes," the report says. "This delay means that we must act today to achieve affordability by 2030."

If current rates of new construction continue, CMHC said the country's housing stock is expected to increase by

2.3 million units by 2030, reaching close to 19 million units total. But in order to achieve affordability for all Canadians, the agency said an additional 3.5 million homes are needed.

In October, CMHC followed up that report with another that considered exactly how those homes were going to get built, given the construction industry’s welldocumented shortage of skilled workers.

Using the housing supply targets outlined in the June report, the follow-up report, titled Labour Capacity Constraints and Supply Across Large Provinces in Canada, examined the skilled labour capacity in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, to deliver on this level of needed housing supply.

The report found that even under best-

A June report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation suggested Canada needs to build 3.5 million more homes by 2030 to achieve affordability.

case scenarios, housing starts will fall well below the 2030 affordable supply targets in three of those provinces. It concludes that only Alberta will be able to achieve its affordable housing supply target by 2030.

"We didn't think the challenges were this acute. We thought that there was more capacity in order to achieve these goals," said report author Dana Senagama. "These provinces are going to have problems, but how much they will have... is what was more surprising."

The October report found that Ontario, Quebec and B.C. will have to double the number of starts that they can produce to help reach CMHC's national affordability target of 3.5 million more homes built by 2030. And that’s a best-case scenario. Alberta, on the other hand, shouldn't have

even under maximum capacity conditions, because it has fewer supply and price pressures and steady population growth.

Labour shortages will be worst in Ontario, where the population is largest and price pressures are highest, the report says.

CMHC’s best-case scenario projects housing starts with ‘maximum’ labour capacity and compares these projections to the affordability supply targets set out in the June report and CMHC baseline starts forecasts.

The scenario is based on the highest percentage of people in the population who work in residential construction and the lowest number of residential construction workers per housing unit under construction in the past 25 years. Obviously, if construction workers are

stretching to meet demand and new staff don't join their ranks, backlogs can form. The report suggests that not only will the industry need an ‘all-hands-ondeck’ approach to increasing the supply of housing to meet demand, but it will also need to draw on innovative ideas and approaches to bolster the housing

stock. One of these approaches suggests converting existing structures – particularly existing commercial structures – into residential units. CMHC says this method has proved successful through the conversions of hotels, motels, and office space through the Rapid Housing Initiative.

CMHC also suggests increasing the

construction of multi-unit housing, as it provides less logistical constraints of moving labour materials and equipment among structures than single-detached homes, as well as creating more incentives to develop a new generation of skilled construction workers, and developing more targeted immigration programs to encourage skilled foreign workers to bridge the labour shortage.

"Labour is able to get more things done within the same building, so it's easier to move equipment and cranes as opposed to in those big, low-rise subdivisions, where it appears that more workers are needed to move between one house to another," said Senagama. "That suggests to us that there's more capacity in building up, but the problem with high-density construction is where do we find that right product mix that's suitable for home homeowners or homebuyers?"

WOMEN:

FEATURE CONSTRUCTION’S GREAT UNTAPPED RESOURCE

Construction can do more – and must do more – to bring women into the skilled trades.

By Hilory Steffen

With a shortage of workers already upon us, and likely to worsen, one glaringly obvious solution to close this gap is to recruit more women into the industry. Consider that women make up 50% of the population, but only 4% of today’s construction trades workforce.

Gender norms and discrimination

During the Second World War, women played a pivotal role by filling gaps in the economy and supply chain that were vacated by men at war. They became farmers, loggers, ironworkers – and more. And they did so seamlessly.

Eighty years later, this lesson seems to have been forgotten. Why don’t we see more women in the trades? The answer to that question, in part, lies in socially conditioned gender norms.

By the time they reach age four or five, children are firmly entrenched in their learned culturally appropriate gender roles. This belief system is largely sustained during our lifetimes – and often goes unchallenged.

Given the average age of a trades worker in Canada is 59, and given that most (96%) are men, it’s no surprise that the cultural and societal beliefs of these people dominate the construction industry.

The typical opinion was that men needed to be strong and dominant in the workplace to provide for their families while women took care of the home and children, and were often viewed as more mentally and physically fragile.

Of course, this isn’t true of everyone, but it’s not uncommon.

WHY DON’T WE SEE MORE WOMEN IN THE TRADES? THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION, IN PART, LIES IN SOCIALLY CONDITIONED GENDER NORMS.

Men and women are different

It’s true that men and women are different. They possess physiological and intellectual differences based on sex. But let’s also be clear for a moment: that’s a good thing.

Women are generally better multitaskers than men. They excel in detailed work. They also tend to be well equipped to deal with difficult customers and may even be seen as more trustworthy when selling products to other women, many of whom make key household decisions on issues such as home maintenance and renovation.

So while men can flex their muscles and lift heavy weights, women can lift in other ways: in customer management, multitasking and detail-oriented tasks. This collaborative approach that leverages both sexes’ best attributes creates a more efficient, professional and elevated workplace that, in turn, allows you to take on more customers and grow your business.

Tailor your opportunities to match

There are a few key groups to think about when looking to hire women. The first group is underemployed women. These women often do not know there are alternative careers available to them. They turn to jobs they view as stable (i.e., conventional), but which often pay poorly: retail, service, and front-line banking sectors. These are hardworking people with grit.

The second group is mothers looking to re-enter the workforce. They are driven and often well educated, but face barriers to re-entry, namely the gap in their resumes and skill sets. These women want to succeed and often have entrepreneurial spirits.

The third group is slightly less traditional. These are women who have recently been released from incarceration. Many of these women are non-violent offenders who have used their time to rehabilitate and are eager to pursue careers. They have perseverance and commitment.

To attract and retain this talent pool, you may have to revisit some of your current organizational structure and policies. Women are seeking stable, well-paying, and rewarding careers with advancement opportunities. They’re also expecting equal pay for equal work, greater flexibility in scheduling allowing them to meet family obligations, and the chance to be welcomed and mentored in a safe, inviting, and respectful space.

Change – for the better

Will the process of changing these structures look and feel different? Absolutely. And it should!

There are tremendous opportunities ahead of you and change is where the magic truly lies, and quantum leaps happen.

Hilory Steffen is Conestoga College's Career Development Professor, a former Women in Skilled Trades Liaison Officer, and a GVCA consultant.

TREND TO WATCH:

THE TOP PROJECTS of 2023

Our annual look at the top projects for the year ahead is here. We’re drawing on intelligence from our Crystal Ball Report to bring you the best and biggest to come!

University of Windsor Residence Hall West – addition and renovations, Windsor

The project scope of work includes a new addition of approximately 3,654 square feet to the north end of the building to provide a welcoming client entrance, reception area and accessible consultation rooms. Also planned are renovations to the common building area of approximately 5,150 square feet, renovations to the ninth and tenth floors of the building, and renovations to the building service rooms.

With the building constructed in 1967, several base building systems are approaching the end of their useful life. It is anticipated that within the project scope of work the plumbing, selected mechanical and electrical systems will require replacement or updating. Several improvements to the building envelope may include replacement of the punch windows and curtain wall systems, brick repairs (as required), insulation and drywall furring on the interior of the building.

Whitby Sports Complex,

The Town of Whitby is designing a new sports complex to help meet the community’s immediate and future recreational needs. The complex proposes a hub of recreational programming and parkland situated southwest of Highway 12 and the 407. The project draws inspiration from the nearby Heber Down Conservation Area and Whitby's network of trails and parks. As such, it is conceived as a journey through the landscape, inviting the public to its network of interior trails, gathering spaces and recreational amenities.

The town identified the following amenities to be included in the project program: a twin-pad arena with 85’ by 190’ ice pads, an aquatic centre with a 10-lane, 25-metre lap pool, separate leisure pool and second floor viewing areas, a double gymnasium that can be subdivided that would include a three lane indoor walking track, flexible community rooms, a multipurpose sports field, basketball, tennis and pickleball courts,

Community Hub on Charles House of Friendship, Kitchener

The House of Friendship (HOF) intends to construct a nine-storey mixed-use building on its existing property on Charles Street East in Kitchener. The building will be constructed of cast-in-place concrete and consist of a one-level parking garage below grade, three floors of administrative office and tenant amenity space, and six residential floors containing seventy-two tenant units.

The building is being designed to meet a Passive House environmental standard and includes both a geothermal heating/cooling system and a rooftop solar panel array.

The HOF has retained WalterFedy as the design consultant and plans/specifications for the project are currently at the construction document stage. A Class B estimate completed by Hanscomb at the completion of Design Development in May of this year estimates the construction value of the project at $33.7 million.

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Subject to CMHC funding approval, the project will commence

Whitby Sports Complex

– Whitby, ON

Whitby Sports Complex – Whitby, ON

in the spring of 2023 with the intent to complete in the fall of 2024.

Elora Community Centre renovation, Elora

The Elora Community Centre was built in the mid 1970’s and is well beyond its life expectancy.

Planned renovations include modifying the building to meet accessibility standards. The existing number of changerooms will be reduced to provide enlarged changerooms including a gender neutral changeroom and referee’s room. The viewing area will also be expanded to provide a customer service counter, an accessible viewing area with additional ice viewing windows, and gathering spaces for players and spectators.

Upgrades to various mechanical/electrical systems and flooring/ceiling systems are required as part of the renovations. The centre is also one of two emergency shelter locations for the township, therefore the community hall and changerooms are to be wired and be able to operate on a natural gas generator.

RDH Architects Inc. is completing the final design and tender documents for the renovation project and their team will provide project administration for the construction project on behalf of the township.

Engineering Facility expansion, University of Guelph, Guelph

The University of Guelph intends to introduce three new engineering majors in the months and years ahead. These planned changes will result in a substantial increase in the breadth and magnitude of engineering research, programs, and student enrollment on campus. The envisioned expansion will

build upon engineering’s rich history while enhancing groundbreaking interdisciplinary engineering education and research. With a preliminary construction budget of $150 million, and plans to build as much as 250,000 square feet of space in a building of up to six storeys, the project represents the largest capital investment undertaken in a single project at the university in almost a generation. An investment of this magnitude provides the university with the unique opportunity to create, through the built form, an iconic landmark facility that will become a defining element of the University of Guelph and Engineering at Guelph for decades to come.

Parkhill Drive Building renovations, Milton

The building at 8160 Parkhill Drive, which is owned by Conestoga College, will require an extensive interior renovation, roof replacement, new air handling units, new and

Community Hub on Charles House of Friendship – Kitchener, ON

enlarged parking lots, and coordination of the installation of a new portable classroom building, including installation of foundations and services.

The building is a two-storey commercial office building of 21,642 square feet, and sits on four acres of land within an industrial park. Conestoga will renovate the building for use as a transitional academic building until a new facility can be constructed in the Milton Education Village. The intent is to have eleven 40+ seat classrooms on the property with necessary student support spaces.

The intent is for the renovation work to be completed by September 1, 2023, and the construction budget for the renovations to the building and site is $5 million.

Teeswater Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion, Teeswater

Work on the Teeswater Wastewater Treatment Plant project includes construction of a new flow-balancing facility and pumping station, construction of new treatment process tanks, including tankage, blowers, aeration, pumps, piping, and instrumentation, construction of new two-stage aerobic digester, including tankage, blowers, aeration, pumps, piping, and instrumentation, construction of a new above-ground sludge storage tank with recirculation/mixing system and truck loading facility, construction of a new control building to house blowers, power supply and distribution equipment, and workshop, as well as modifications to the existing plant, interconnections between the existing and new plants, and plant start-up and commissioning.

Construction is expected to take 12 to 16 months.

Conestoga Skilled Trades Campus, Cambridge

Conestoga has recently developed its Skilled Trades Campus Phase 1 building and site improvements located at 25 Reuter Drive, Cambridge.

This project calls for construction of the Skilled Trades Campus Phase 2 building for trades and apprenticeship, and further work to develop the site amenities and infrastructures to create a cohesive campus.

The Phase 2 building will span approximately 250,000 square feet, and will create additional trade and apprenticeship training facilities including technical workshops, classrooms, and computer labs for approximately 1,000 full-time students and 2,000 apprentices.

The new campus building will be planned and constructed in a manner that prioritizes and supports the principles of sustainability: low or no carbon energy systems, a conservation-first approach to energy efficiency and conservation, water conservation, landscape architecture and improving biodiversity, and sustainable transportation. An open-loop geothermal system could also be used to heat and cool the space. Also, it is desired to include roof mount photovoltaic solar panels for hydro generation as well as exploration of rain water harvesting and other building and site sustainability initiatives.

Conestoga’s vision for the campus is to grow to be a nationally recognized trades training campus. Over several decades the site may develop up to approximately one million square feet of facilities (including the Phase 1 & 2 buildings) serving a population of up to 4,000 full-time post-secondary students and 1,000 full-time equivalent apprenticeship students.

Conestoga Skilled Trades Campus – Cambridge, ON

CONSTRUCTION’S LABOUR FORCE CHALLENGES REQUIRE NEW SOLUTIONS

From a labour-force perspective, these are complicated times for the construction sector.

By Klayton Gonçalves, Senior Economist, BuildForce Canada

On the one hand, demand for construction activity has never been greater. Data issued by Statistics Canada for the first nine months of 2022 show that building permit values are about 12% higher this year than they were at the same period last year.

The total value of construction investment in the third quarter of this year also increased – by 1.0% – to mark the fourth quarter in a row in which that figure has risen. Investment has been

particularly strong in the non-residential sector, where values grew by 2.1% to $16.1 billion.

Across Ontario, permit values for the first nine months of the year are about 4% higher than they were during the same period last year. In the central region, construction is benefitting not only from government stimulus spending programs, but also net in-migration from the Greater Toronto Area. Permit values, as a result, are up 12% in Kitchener-

Cambridge-Waterloo year over year, and up 31% in Guelph.

On the other hand, labour markets remain constrained. At the beginning of October, construction’s national unemployment rate sat at a near-record low of 3.2%. Growth in employment continues to outpace growth in the labour force, leaving construction employers with a combined 83,000 vacant positions to fill.

Ontario data follow a similar narrative. Again, since October 2021, employment growth (+41,900) outpaced labour force growth (+40,700) and brought the provincial industry’s unemployment rate to just 2.7%.

Ontario’s construction employers, meanwhile, were looking to fill more than 30,000 jobs.

None of this is surprising. In our 2022–2027 Construction and Maintenance Looking Forward report for Ontario, BuildForce Canada projected that labour markets would remain constrained for a number of years. On the strength of a long list of current and proposed projects, including several major transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area, investment in the non-residential construction sector is projected to increase by 11% through 2024, and reach a peak in 2026.

Looking more closely at Central Ontario, our model suggests that construction employment will rise by 2% – or just over 2,400 workers – by 2027.

For contractors the challenge will be in balancing these labour-market supply and demand pressures. Contractors know: it’s harder than ever to find good people these days.

Retirements loom large, while replacements recede

Unfortunately, the industry’s recruiting challenge will likely worsen before it improves.

By 2027, Ontario’s construction sector could need to add as many as 15,500 workers to keep up with projected

demand. The retirement of a further 56,300 workers (or about 13% of the 2021 workforce) means that the sector will need to add nearly 72,000 workers over the next five years just to sustain projected levels of activity.

Normally, the industry would alleviate most of its hiring requirements by recruiting new entrants under the age of 30 from the local population. Based on historical trends, and not counting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on apprenticeship registration and completion rates in 2020 and 2021, the industry should add as many as 53,000 new entrants during this period. This leaves Ontario’s construction sector with a recruitment gap of about 19,000 workers that will need to be closed by recruiting from outside traditional supply sources.

Demography is complicating this challenge, however. Canada’s workforce is aging. In 2001, the percentage of people in the core-aged working group (i.e., ages 25 to 49) stood at about 39%; by 2021, that figure had dropped by five percentage points. Over the same period, the share of workers aged 50 to 64 years increased from 16% to 20%, while the cohort of the population aged 14 years or younger (i.e., those poised to enter the construction workforce in the next 10 to 15 years) declined from 19% in 2001 to 16% in 2021.

Ontario’s demographic profile follows a similar pattern. The size of the core-aged cohort is shrinking (from 39% to 34% since 2001), while the size of the retirement-age cohort is growing (from 16% to 20%), and the size of the generation most likely to replace these people in the workforce is contracting (from 19% to 15%).

The very real and very troubling picture painted by these figures is not only that the workforce is aging, but it is aging at a rate faster than can be sustained by current demographics. For construction in particular, this means that the industry must adopt new thinking to address an already complicated labour-force challenge.

New solutions needed

BuildForce Canada has consistently advised of the need for the construction sector to broaden its recruiting strategy to attract more workers from three consistently under-represented groups: women, Indigenous Peoples, and newcomers to Canada.

This last group in particular has been a reliable source of new, well-trained labour additions. Even as recently as during the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009, Canada was able to access immigrants and temporary foreign workers from the United States as

Structures for Success

United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany to supplement our domestic labour force and keep pace with construction demands.

This option could be restricted in 2023, however. Construction in the United States, for example, is as busy, if not more so, than here in Canada. It too is pulling available workers from outside the country to compensate for labour shortages. In Europe, unlike during the Great Recession, market conditions have held up creating less of a push on construction workers to consider employment abroad. Consequently, Canadian construction firms have become far more challenged in accessing foreign skilled trade workers as a supplement to the domestic workforce from these nations than they were during previous periods of aboveaverage domestic labour force demand.

What, then, is the way forward?

Flexibility will have to be the answer. The industry must continue to diversify. Domestically, it must continue to promote the recruitment of workers from outside traditional channels. At the same time, it must also look to enhance its recruitment of newcomers, refugees, and prospective immigrants to Canada.

A strategy that targets both elements could yield strong gains. The federal government through the Canadian Apprenticeship Service is increasing employer supports for the training of first-year apprentices, with supports doubling for the training of individuals from groups historically under-represented in the Canadian construction industry.

Meanwhile, in early November, the Government of Canada released its immigration levels plan for the next two

years, with a plain focus on attracting workers to key sectors of the economy – the skilled trades included. That plan sees the federal government aiming to bring in as many as 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, a further 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.

The industry must continue to press for reforms such as these, and to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to ensure that construction continues to recruit its share of immigrants to Canada, which due to the country’s demographics, will make up a larger share of the overall workforce in the years to come.

Construction’s unprecedented labourforce challenge is not insurmountable, but it absolutely requires new thinking, persistence, and an increased focus on recruitment and retention by employers across the country.

FOR ALL YOUR ALUMINUM and GLAZING NEEDS

David Lasker Photography