This is a serious situation but as the Construction Industry contributes about 10% to GDP it is clearly of strategic importance and thus the reasons for this must be addressed. But if one adds to this, the objective of Accelerating Change, that the UK Industry should be 'world class in delivering its products and services' then the need to address construction management education becomes urgent and imperative.
Accelerating Change talks laudably of the need for client leadership and integrated teams, however it fails to identify the problem of discontinuities in the supply chain of new entrants and what the construction industry in its corporate, professional and educational forms can do to alleviate this situation. This and other contributing problems will be outlined and possible solutions identified.
Problem 1 - The Discontinuities in the Supply Chain of new entrants to the Construction Industry
In order for the UK construction industry to be an effective component of the UK economy it is essential that an appropriate supply chain of capable and motivated prospective employees be established. In former years, prior to the higher participation rates in full time further and higher education, school leavers entered industry and from there undertook evening and day release education. Notably, local government offices provided excellent training opportunities for large numbers of entrants to the industry. In many cases, the industry obtained high quality employees, not because they actively wished to pursue studies in construction, but rather because, it was an opportunity to obtain a job with security, a rising salary and possibly professional membership. Added to this was a throughput of experienced apprentices wishing to further their technical skills by pursuing part time study of an HNC. Today, with few school leavers being directly recruited by industry, they instead go to full-time education at college or university. However, the allocation of a course place is not based upon any rational basis of individual career planning or as a response to nationally articulated manpower planning needs. Rather, selection is student centred and will be influenced by a variety of factors; for example, the perceived lack of difficulty; fashion; or the social attractiveness of the course or institution; or the perceived career flexibility offered. Furthermore, contemporary study is based more on accumulating a basket of modules at the required level to provide the points for a degree. Such an approach is less suitable for built environment studies, which are usually programmatic. That is the unique built environment blend of engineering, management, legal and financial studies.
Solution
In order that the industry can respond to this discontinuity in the labour supply chain, it must cultivate a skilled labour force, by offering school leavers an attractive employment package. Such a package should offer the new recruit an induction programme and benchmarked benefits such as routes to career progression. From the moment of induction, new recruits would be introduced to a culture based on excellence, safety, teamwork and continuing client satisfaction. As part of this, the recruitment package would require trainees to attend traditional evening and day release studies of the core built environment studies described above. Companies might well undertake induction in conjunction with organisations that they might be already partnering. It would be anticipated that industry practitioners, the CITB and academics would interact in the curriculum design, teaching and assessment. Such a policy offers a number of benefits, but, notably, it would provide companies with motivated trainees. However, it would also assist with alleviating the fall in numbers of students entering courses of study in the built environment and, furthermore, if students had raised levels of motivation, the current levels of student attrition rates in higher education courses would be lessened. Finally, an attractive recruitment package would assist with the development of what Fayol ( General and Industrial Administration, London, 1949) stated was an essential to good management, 'esprit de corps'.
Problem 2 - The Current Education Structure
The need for an integrated team approach to the construction process is a recognised requirement yet it is lacking all too often at college and university. As has been noted elsewhere, education in the built environment is all too often taught by a variety of professional interest groups in culturally, intellectually and physically isolated departments. The outcome is that the graduate has a perspective of the industry based on the narrower stakeholder attitudes of the architect, engineer, builder, quantity surveyor etc. In many cases students do not meet fellow students from other disciplines and certainly they tend to encounter difficulties in sharing a common communication system and holistic vision of their industry. Furthermore, important issues, such as identification with the needs of both client and user, may be peripheral to the education experience. Thus, teamwork and appreciation of client need, rather than being developed and nurtured, are all too often thwarted during the education of the future practitioners of the built environment industry.
This provision of construction education is further aggravated by the decline in student numbers. For example, courses, departments and schools are being rationalised but not often in ways that map onto a holistic model to meet the needs of the industry. This is taking place rapidly and a major shake out of built environment education is underway. Furthermore, the cost of delivering this education is high as it specialised, vocational and often undertaken by small numbers. Notably, commercial software, considered essential to many subjects is prohibitively expensive to universities increasingly strapped for funds. Traditionally, universities could specialise in the teaching of theories and principles whilst employers could provide the vocational polish, but today this is a role for the university, even though it may be much less equipped to do this than a construction company.
Solution
A holistic built environment education process, monitored by the industry, for entrants to the industry has to be designed. In essence, all first degree and college diploma students would undertake core studies in user needs of the built environment and the construction process. Such courses would highlight the user needs of cost, time, quality, sustainability and procurement; the technical and engineering issues involved in design and construction of the built environment; and the skills, creativity and teamwork involved in the construction process to meet performance requirements. It would be anticipated that emphasis would be placed on the role of IT and Co-ordinated Project Information, with the acquisition of transferable skills being at the forefront. In order to facilitate benchmarks, these programmes should be assessed nationally; that is, the education sector would prepare candidates for first level Built Environment core studies, assessed and validated by a body such as the CITB in conjunction with the professional institutions. The graduates of these programmes could then enter specialist diploma and MSc programmes in the traditional disciplines including construction management, but still undertaken in a holistic team approach. In these programmes there would be horizontal and vertical integration between disciplines and continuous feedback with the industry via CPD programmes and bodies such as the CITB. The education providers should become a bench marked constituent of the supply chain.
Problem 3 - The Professions and a lack of integration
The Industry has powerful rigidly demarcated knowledge based professional bodies, but there are no holistic bodies or generic bodies such as the Institute of Management. Thus it may be contended that these distinguished professional bodies may impede evolution and adaptation in the industry.
Solution
The increasing financial pressures which these bodies are undergoing will force rationalisation, though one 'Institution of the Built Environment', encompassing builders, architects, quantity surveyors, engineers and facility managers is not so much a vision as a pipe dream. Nevertheless, membership of professional bodies in the Industry should be based on a common holistic core of Built Environment education. Recruitment to the Industry could benefit from concerted and united promotion of the industry by the major employers and the professional bodies.
Problem 4 - The Industry and its image
The Construction Industry in the UK currently has a major image problem. This is with clients, the Government, the general public and clearly school leavers. The very scale and range of our industry, in terms of products, services, clients, providers, risks, locations and climate, may render a positive brand image difficult to achieve. However, as there are always clients seeking a lower cost construction route, new entrepreneurs will continue to enter the market by taking a cavalier attitude towards risk and best practice. In a way, this is healthy as a number will succeed by providing a successful service, but inevitably the majority will not succeed, and by so doing contribute to the perception of a cowboy industry.
Associated with this low brand image are perceptions that the Industry has high labour turnover and dirty, poor and unsafe working conditions. Furthermore, the adoption of new management thinking, innovative work practices and investment in research and training, are important features of successful corporations but are not associated with the Construction Industry. Finally, the Industry is perceived as a white, male, intellectually undemanding sector in which low pay, mediocrity and skullduggery, predominate.
Solution
Investment in education and training coupled with a serious attempt to improve sites would assist, but an exciting television series, which could portray as a backdrop to the drama of the story line, the creativity of the construction process, would help to counteract the cowboy image. And a serious and concerted move to tidy up the appearance, of both the workforce and the site works, would go a long way to remove perceptions of the cowboy image, and hence create more positive awareness of the Industry amongst school leavers. Nevertheless, a group of clients and construction process partners could, due to the scale of their efficiency of their operations, contribute towards a re-branding of sections of the Industry. This is possible in areas such as PFI and PPP.
Problem 5 – The Industry and its City image
In addition to a low public image the UK construction industry has a poor image in the City. Those UK construction companies that have a stock exchange listing have a low PER and a market capitalisation, and thus are not included in the FTSE 100, the premier league for companies. This is due to volatility and quality of earnings; low quality assets; complex accounts, concealing long term contract risks and liabilities; poor marketing and corporate branding. Some commentators, such as Lord McAlpine, recommend de-listing for contractors. This might be a corporate solution, but it is not the model for the UK Construction Industry, which seeks a national and international brand. To my mind this is the fundamental problem with regard to the Construction Industry, but it is also the one for which solutions are far from evident. In particular, this must deter the high aspiration student from enrolling onto Construction Management or related courses.
This to my mind is the greatest problem facing the industry and other than increased rationalisation with concomitant efficient organisation structures, designed to raise profitability, no significant solution is discernable.
The death pangs of the Construction Management degree, although painful to the University providers, are much more serious than just the demise of a degree of a degree might suggest. They are in fact symptomatic of structural problems in the companies, professions and the education systems, that comprise the construction process. The scale of the problem is that there must be a determined and immediate response to the discontinuities in the construction industry labour supply chain. When one considers the contribution of the industry in terms of GDP the scale and urgency of the problem becomes substantial. Unfortunately although some solutions have been mooted, no overall organisational mechanism seems in place with the drive and the vision to direct the Construction Industry towards widespread adaptation in response to these structural problems.
Source
Construction Manager
Postscript
Robert Ferguson Gibson
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