As leaders in the construction industry, what should be on our radar as we march into 2025 with a new Administration at the helm, interest rate adjustments by the Fed and local and statewide policy changes? Changes to housing policy, office to residential conversion incentives and other areas relevant to our industry need heavy consideration now.
Recently, I attended three construction industry conferences including the Women in Construction Conference in Sacramento, the Association of General Contractors (AGC) California Construct Conference in Palm Springs and a third in San Francisco at Moscone Center examining the key issues facing San Francisco’s future.
The AGC conference was well attended and included a diverse set of industry leaders including AGC of California, organizational leaders in Education (LAUSD, Cal State Long Beach, Fresno USD), Rail (Caltrain, Metrolink, LA Metro), and Aviation (Fresno, Ontario, Oakland, LAX, Burbank, Palm Springs Airports) as well as representatives from Sacramento’s Regional Builders Exchange and the Construction Industry Education Foundation among others. The Sacramento WIC Conference included 1,200 leaders and stakeholders in the industry, most of them women. And the San Francisco Conference, put on by the Presidio Bay Foundation hosted a panel of influential thought leaders from construction, development and government.
My four key takeaways from these insightful discussions at 2024 construction industry conferences include the following:
#1: Make Way for the “New Economy” (But Be Wary of its Impacts)
In the construction industry, we are at a pivotal juncture. Like many other industries, the “old” economy, driven by offline/in person spending and transactions has been superseded by the “new” economy of virtual spending and transactions. From the sales funnel to purchasing materials, from financial transactions to client communications, much of what happens in business today is conducted now via a phone, a laptop or a virtual network. But just like with social media, there are costs to this new way of connecting, building relationships and networking. The industry players who pioneer new ways to offset these lost personal connections with their stakeholders (vendors, customers, partners) will clearly win out over those who don’t go that extra mile.
#2: Mentoring Makes the Difference
There are over 1.2 million women working in construction in the United States, compared to nearly 10 million men. Women in construction are more likely to work in front office or administrative positions; men continue to dominate the numbers on the construction jobsite, maintenance, transportation, and production roles. But there are positive trends emerging when it comes to the impact women are making in the industry. One stat of interest at the WIC conference was that the prevalence of women on executive teams has risen from 14% in 2018 to 20% in 2023. And in the first quarter of 2024, the median annual wage for women in construction is $54,352, higher than the median wage for women across all occupations ($47,235).
This is why Women in Construction as well as AGC and other industry groups are such important networks for those of us women in leadership roles in this industry. A key theme at the WIC conference was the importance of mentoring for women in construction. More mentoring, earlier mentoring (moving mentees to mentors faster) and consistent, institutionalized mentoring is vital. There is an impressive cohort of STEM graduates, for example, ready to work who we need to tee up with mentoring support right now. These types of focused efforts can move the needle over time. At Priority Architectural Graphics, being a women-led organization, we couldn’t take mentoring more seriously. Each of us can play a role in making this happen across the industry.
#3: All Players Should be Regularly Reevaluating Their Tech Stacks
There continues to be a plethora of technology platforms and solutions within the construction industry which are leveraged in areas from proposal solicitation and contracting to project design, development and management. In signage, we are now using shared subsystems across the construction ecosystem. From PlanGrid to Wayfindit, many of us are exploring our own proprietary internal systems to streamline operations and reduce friction in the signage design/fabrication and delivery pipeline for clients. It’s clear from the conference vibe that we’re going to see consolidation on the tech solution front. As we all know, while technologies will continue to emerge and evolve, they can’t all be winners ultimately. Because of this, we need to keep a close eye on which investments to make, and when. This mandates that we reexamine our tech stack and strategy on at least an annual basis. Even more importantly, we need to do this in line with our A-list customer requirements and capabilities. By encouraging our clients to help drive the technology “conversation” and partnering with them around to leverage specific functionality and feature benefits, we will learn important keys to building those relationships while driving better business results and value for both of us.
#4: Artificial intelligence will change the landscape we operate in both short term and longer term.
Most companies have already gone digital. However, for any players lagging behind in digital transformation and data-driven business processes, they will fall behind those who can easily take advantage of AI’s benefits. Many companies will be left out on the curb. At Priority, we have been building our client, product and project databases for over 4 years and we leverage these insights every day.
Internally, AI has the power to immediately improve productivity levels by increasing automation and efficiencies particularly with respect to repetitive workflows within companies. Think maintenance requirements, stakeholder communications/reporting/analytics and project change updates. “Outsourcing” mundane tasks to technology allows key hires to be redeployed to higher level areas of focus, increasing value across the enterprise. Think designers and project managers.
Even product release planning is benefiting from AI. In signage, we have already seen the impact of AI in digital signage where ads can now be delivered which better meet actual real-time view audiences increasing personalization, relevancy and user engagement for advertisers.
But AI will not be “plug and play”. Leaders will need to continue to create safeguards protecting ethical/unethical and appropriate/inappropriate uses and company policies and procedures as new use cases emerge.
One of the great things about being now in the post-pandemic 2024-2025? Attending these meccas for industry leaders. Hard to carve out the time. Worth every minute.