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I'm your host, Alyssa Burley, and I'm joined by Casey Craig, account executive with Range Mesa. Casey specializes in providing risk management for painting, plaster, and drywall contractors. So today we're diving into a critical issue facing the construction industry. Preparing for the next generation of construction leaders.
Casey, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Alyssa. Of course, we're happy to have you. Now, the workforce is aging and leadership gaps are widening and attracting new and younger employees has become one of the top challenges for business owners.
Now, you recently wrote an article highlighting the long-term impacts of an aging workforce and what companies can do now to build stronger, future-ready leadership teams. And you also mentioned that the aging workforce is creating both leadership gaps and increased insurance costs for contractors. So how can construction companies proactively address their aging workforce and build strong, future-ready leadership teams? Yeah, this is a pretty complex question.
I mean, obviously, if you have older workers, you're going to have a little more issues with claims because they're just doing it for a lot longer. The problem I'm seeing, though, is probably stemming from hiring practices. When you're getting into this, you've got people that have been hiring the same way for the last 20 years with Craigslist ads, word of mouth, and typically, that's going to get you employees that need work. They're probably not working because they're not valued employees somewhere else at the time.
So you're going to have this problem of just churning through bad employees. What we're looking for is how do we get new, young, good employees that are looking for a career to come on? We're probably going to need to change how we're looking at hiring. A lot of you now, they've got social media and you're seeing a huge push for these marketing presence in social media like on Instagram and TikTok, and it's just trying to get some knowledge out to them that they're not seeing anywhere else.
Right now, kids are being pushed that construction is more of a fallback. You know, if I can't get into college, I guess I'll just go into construction. We need to kind of get them to see this as a viable career where they can work their way up through the company, and that's going to take some time. Now, in your article, you highlighted outreach efforts like the Future Construction Leaders Foundation here in San Diego.
And I don't know if you're aware of this, but before I started with Rancho Mesa, I actually worked for a nonprofit whose mission was to educate the public about construction aggregates and talk about the different careers that are available in this industry. For example, I would go into a fourth grade classroom to talk about the science behind concrete, the history of concrete, and get kids excited about building, whether it's roads or buildings, really teaching kids that there's other avenues, other careers besides, you know, sitting in an office like many of us do. And there are many organizations across the country that are designed to do that. So I think if you're a construction company and you're looking to do some outreach, it would be really good to find a local organization that you can support that's already reaching out to children in schools, providing community programs, doing all those things, because sometimes it might be hard for just one company to try to put together programs.
But also think about how you can support those organizations with funding, but then also opening up your location or your job site, maybe offering to do a job walk for high school students so that they can actually see what you're doing on a daily basis, bring them into the office, talk about estimating, talk about, you know, reviewing plans and all kinds of things. I think that younger people just don't realize all of the jobs that are available in this industry and we have to do a better job of exposing them to it. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I don't want this to sound like we shouldn't go to college if we're getting into construction because there's a path to being great in construction where you need college education as well.
So I think the hard part is when we're kids, you're brought up in a world where your parents did something, you fall in line with that. So I did a little research and 60% of kids came out of high school in 2010, they went to college. 60% of kids in 2025, they're going to college. It's not really changing who's going to college and I think it has a lot to do with you fall in line with what your parents did.
I mean, perfect suit. My dad played pro ball. I grew up thinking pro ball was the only path, you know, so that was why I set my goals towards. If somebody went to Harvard, their kid wants to go to Harvard.
So it is that hard part of having to break the stigma, having to put something in front of them that can be a viable option. It's got to happen when they're younger. It has to be something that isn't happening once. You can't just go to the classroom once and be like, we've changed their mind.
It has to be something we can follow up on. So it is a big push. I think these foundations are great and I think it's because they are present yearly. You know, they're out there all the time.
We need to have more of that type of thing happening inside of schools and having more kids that aren't construction kids getting into these events. So in your article, you pointed out that construction often offers debt-free career paths and strong earning potential. So how can contractors better communicate those advantages to the next generation entering the workforce? Yeah, this is a pretty complex question too.
I think it's pretty important to your options. I mean, if you're going to college right away, which expedites your path down in the house, everything that the kids are looking for, you can get to all that a lot quicker. Yeah, and I don't see a problem with starting a career, learning the trade and then if you do want to go into project management or leadership or something like that, then, you know, go back to school, earn that degree, earn that, you know, learn those skills. But you've started your career.
You're not having to wait another four years before you get started. Yeah, a lot of these larger construction companies will pay you to do that. If you're going through the company and they see this path for you, they will pay you to go to school to get the degree you need to be in that position. So I think we've got it a little backwards right now if school solves everything as opposed to what am I going to school for?
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, this is a topic that I don't think that we have the answer for, but we do have some good suggestions on what we can do to just get young people interested in the industry. So Casey, if listeners have questions about this or maybe their risk management for their construction company, what's the best way to get in touch with you? You can call me at 619-438-6900 or you can email me at ccraig at ranchomesa.com.
All right, well, Casey, thanks for joining me in Studio One. Thanks for having me. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by Studio One. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe.
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