Celebrating One Year of the Mobile Workforce Podcast

The Mobile Workforce Podcast is a year old! To celebrate this momentous occasion, the podcast is did something special! Instead of Mike Merrill hosting, he sat in the hot seat and was interviewed on highlights from the podcast over the past year.

In this special episode, Frank Di Lorenzo Jr., the client relationship manager at Preferred Strategies,  was our guest host. Frank asked Mike about the top takeaways from guests in his first year of hosting the Mobile Workforce Podcast and important themes that were covered, including company culture, the labor gap and the next generation of technologies.

Key Takeaways

1. Company culture needs to have diverse goals. It is important for contractors to purposefully develop their culture in today’s market to attract and retain top talent. That company culture needs to be multifaceted, promoting safety, diversity, and technology. This means that leadership must believe in all three and promote them from the top continually.
2. The labor gap can be defeated. The labor gap is still a problem in the construction industry, so stakeholders need to be active participants in finding a solution. . The good news is that there are organizations like the Lime Foundation, founded by Letitia Hanke, that are attracting young people to the industry. Contractors can help their recruiting efforts by promoting the technology they use and engaging with job fairs at high schools and colleges.
3. Technology growth in construction is just getting started. Mike’s experience is that nearly 60% of construction companies are still on paper or spreadsheets to collect time and labor and production, and some of their project management initiatives. Even still we have reached the tipping point with construction technology where it is too productive for any contractor to ignore. Anyone that doesn’t adapt will find themselves struggling for work and eventually will have to close their doors.