What Generation Z Brings to Construction
As the industry continues to evolve, tech-savvy younger workers are key to its future success, writes consultant and Gen Zer Fulton Cure.
October 10, 2024
Fulton Cure is a consultant at Well Built Construction Consulting, a Baltimore-based firm that delivers strategic consulting, facilitation services and peer roundtables for construction executives. Opinions are the author’s own.
Members of Generation Z like me grew up in a world of convenience. We never had to learn how to read a map. We’ve never had to put quarters into our phones to make a call. We created email accounts when we were in elementary school and got cell phones before we could drive. We’re comfortable with technology because we grew up with it.
On the contrary, many of our more experienced co-workers began their adulthood and careers with little to no reliance on technology. They learned to do their jobs the old-fashioned way. Pen and paper, picking up the phone and calling people, swinging a hammer.
There’s a huge gap between the technologically centered lifestyle Gen Zers grew up with, and the hammer-and-nail daily grind of a construction site. Similarly, there’s a gap between the way a Gen Zer will approach a career in construction and how someone from an earlier generation might.
The construction industry has come a long way in incorporating more technology on jobsites. For example, it’s common to see foremen and GCs walking around with digital plans on their iPads or sending out punch lists from their phone via construction management software.
This is comfortable to a Gen Zer. We know how to use an iPad and can figure out project management software easily. I’ve had older coworkers share with me that they still tend to write out punch lists and make copies of those handwritten lists to hand out to subcontractors. I’ll leave it up to your imagination about some of the issues that would come from that method.
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