16 minute read
CCA of the Future: Message from Wm (Bill) Black, CCA President
CCA OF THE FUTURE
Wm (Bill) Black, B.Sc., CEC, LEED AP, CCA President & COO
When we were putting together the publication for last year while reflecting on a tough 2020, we were hoping that life would open up over the year to come. Little did we know that the resilience that we had celebrated from 2020 in adapting to the pandemic would be required for yet another full year of COVIDrelated restrictions and uncertainty.
Now, looking back on the ways that the last two years have affected so many aspects of society on a global scale, our industry here in Calgary and across Alberta has been able to adapt and continue to operate as an essential business throughout the entire period. This is a remarkable achievement.
Here we are another year later daring to imagine that restrictions are behind us yet again – construction folks are, if nothing else, eternal optimists! We are gradually taking tentative steps back into the life we used to take for granted and as we do, we are realizing just how much we missed. There are still challenges facing us in the return to “normal”, or whatever that is now. Consequently, this next chapter will not be as simple as merely flicking a switch back on after a major societal reset over such a long period, but we are ready for whatever it brings.
Our ability to remain operational throughout was solely due to the industry’s willingness to step up and take collective ownership of the safety protocols required. In doing so, we showed real leadership and demonstrated an unprecedented level of multistakeholder collaboration that has taught us a lesson that we must not forget – namely:
MEDICAL CORPORATE RETAIL HOSPITALITY
“CREATING DESIRABLE SPACES”
A UNITED AND ALIGNED INDUSTRY IS MUCH STRONGER THAN A FRAGMENTED ONE
This is particularly important when we consider the challenges that remain as well as whatever may come in the years ahead.
PROCUREMENT
There is no doubt that public and private procurement practices have universally designated our services as a commodity to be bid out to the lowest common denominator. In that scenario, value and quality take a back seat to cheap and fast.
Our industry is much better than this and we will not survive or raise the bar on the results of our work in the race to the bottom world that has already prevailed for far too long. Whether it is the downloading of design or the relentless downloading of risk, our industry is going to need to take stock and align against these forces or face a bleak future. Matters came to a head in the UK with the Egan Report in the late nineties and now the Australian industry is facing the realities of the same magnitude.
What makes us think we will escape a similar fate?
CCA will seek to facilitate the same collaborative capabilities experienced through COVID in seeking better ways to advocate for proper recognition of our industry, how it actually operates, and why it needs to be engaged properly.
FLOW OF MONEY
Prompt Payment legislation will come into effect later this year and, while we celebrate this as progress in an area of great challenge, this will likely not mean an end to the flow of money issues that have dogged
our industry for decades. Let’s face it – the way in which payment became a “suggestion” and nonpayment was considered an acceptable practice should never have been allowed to evolve to the degree that it did. The reality is however all parties, whether the ones who perpetrated it or those that were willing to endure instead of challenging the practice, are to blame.
Once again CCA will seek to help facilitate cross-industry effort toward reversing this practice forever by working across all stakeholder groups in the years ahead.
ESCALATION, SUPPLY CHAIN, AND LEAD TIMES
It is likely that supply chain, escalation, and lead time problems will be with us for a year or more while things across the world settle down and recover.
Diligent work needs to be done to protect our members from procurement practices that seem to think they can ignore this reality, and the same level of collaboration and advocacy referred to above will need to be put to work between industry and owner groups to find realistic solutions.
CLIMATE RESILIENCY
In case you are resisting the desire to roll your eyes …
As our city is setting out on its climate resiliency plans, following the declaration by Mayor Gondeck shortly after her inauguration, I invite you to look at this as possibly the best opportunity presented to our industry in years where we can showcase our real value and worth to society on a whole new level.
If we were to set aside the divisive nature of this subject and look at it as an industry in the light of what is happening elsewhere, the results others have realized as they have pioneered in the area, the prospect is much more significant opportunity than a threat.
Yes, climate change and the way it has been promoted along with the villainization of Alberta and our legacy energy industry is very hard to take and it is easy to see it as an attack on the Alberta way of life. The problem is that resistance to this over the last 20 years has not halted its adoption across society globally and, in fact, the energy put into resisting the issue could have been much better applied to learning how to adapt our businesses to respond and become solution experts in this new reality.
With ESG and other approaches featuring more, whether with financial institutions, investors, or citizens, there is now literally a scorecard of how we compare across the world. The fact that our oil and gas ESG scores are the highest in the world seems to have conveniently eluded our critics – it is time to turn this around.
The large oil and gas producers have already created their own alliance towards net zero while large Calgary home builders are adopting solar and heat pump technologies into all their new homes. This is a business response to where their customers and target markets are headed, and our response should be no different.
It is no different for a city that needs to compete on a global stage for companies
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and for talent. Yes, we need amenities such as LRT and entertainment districts but, whether we like it or not, the people and the businesses that are evaluating different destinations, most of which already have declared climate emergencies and have taken steps in their journey, will be looking for us to have done likewise.
We need to lead in this area and not just be a “me too”. There are cities that are 20 years ahead of us who did not have an innovative energy industry at their core as we do. Our expertise combined with their knowledge should we choose to learn from other pioneering cities could have us caught up in five years.
The City of Calgary has stated that our current built environment is 65 per cent of Calgary’s carbon footprint. That is 20 per cent higher than many other cities and means that, if this is the case, then our industry will be 65 per cent of the solution under a climate strategy moving forward.
Personally, I like these odds and, as a business development guy, I love these prospects as they present a clear fast track out of the commoditization trap that we referred to earlier and ultimately the positioning of our industry as solution providers, leaders, and partners in the future of Calgary – not low bidders so desperate for work that we will take it at any cost.
It is time to prove the naysayers wrong Calgary and step up to be world leaders in the transition economy that will rely on the same work ethic, innovation, and resilience that built the energy industry and the city that we all love and are fiercely proud of.
CCA has engaged with the Climate Group and others within the city for the last few years to participate on behalf of our members, and we continue to seek a significant role in this strategic future on behalf of our industry.
IMPROVED ECONOMIC PROSPECTS
The tentative optimism that began in the last half of 2020 is continuing and there are definite signs that the construction economy is improving despite some of the prevailing challenges. I do believe however that we may not be entering another up cycle such as those we have seen in the past and, as they are always followed by another doom cycle, perhaps we should be glad of that fact.
What we are approaching is likely “transition building” as we respond to a new chapter in our city marked by a more diverse economy, downtown revitalization, climate resiliency, a possible inland port, and many other opportunities for our industry to participate in a real meaningful recovery as we build the Calgary of the future.
I truly believe that if we are willing to truly embrace these realities just as we did over the last two years, we will indeed make Calgary the best city in Canada to be in the construction industry!
CCA OF THE FUTURE
CCA has invested over the last three years in what the Association of the future needs to look like and we have focussed our team on the services and support that our members need most as business owners and industry professionals.
YOUR INDUSTRY VOICE
We are the first local construction association in Alberta, and one of only a few across Canada to have invested in a Director of Government Relations to take industry advocacy to the next level (see later). This is rewriting the way in which we engage in municipal, and ultimately, provincial matters and will be a fundamental aspect in the CCA of the future.
When I stepped into this role, I found it incredibly frustrating to witness the relative ease with which officials seemed to ignore our industry on key issues. I also began to see just how many decisions being made at all levels were happening without our voice at the table. By the time we saw the results, the bid documents were in our hands and the time for real impact had long since passed.
Nobody likes being ignored or shut out of key decisions that affect them directly and, when you represent the second largest industry in the country and 10 per cent + of GDP, that quickly becomes totally unacceptable.
As we sought to better understand this dynamic, it became clear that we were largely seen as a service industry and consequently we ourselves were largely interfacing with municipal and even provincial bodies only through a procurement lens. To this end, we have maintained a very successful City of Calgary Liaison Committee for many years, and it has worked well with the administration on key issues on behalf of members. What we needed was an ability to participate in policy and to do so we needed to become a trusted advisor.
Throughout 2020, we interfaced with authorities around the Pandemic Planning Document and site safety as we sought business continuity through COVID. During this period our role shifted. As we then supported prompt payment engagement over recent years, we could clearly see the need for industry expertise in guiding authorities and the impact our work along with the work that ACA was having. However, despite some progress in these areas, our concerns as to the trajectory of the Green Line seemed to fall on deaf ears, both provincially and municipally.
With municipal elections looming in late 2021, it was clear that with a new mayor and almost new council there was an opportunity to build new relationships from the outset and develop the ability to support the city with an industry voice as it related to policy and not just procurement.
With our new Director coming from a chief of staff position at the city starting in November, exactly two weeks after that same election, we began to work on this portfolio in a manner that is changing our role toward our goal.
Ultimately, we want to support our city and represent our industry, but most of all we want to be a meaningful part of shaping the next chapter in the history of Calgary.
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EFFECTIVENESS
As was the case with pretty much all organizations during the pandemic, our activities and our rhythm was significantly
disrupted however this allowed us to really take a detailed look at our priorities, our cost structure, and where we could really impact the membership.
One thing we did not do was stop. We had already made significant changes to the way we operated, and these allowed us to adapt and continue under the new reality without significant impact on the bottom line.
As a result, we have stabilized financially while also investing in much needed upgrades to our building, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, in order to add more tenants and make it a real resource for our members. There will be more to follow as we look to realize our dream of a new Member Centre later in 2022.
BUSINESS HUB
Contrary to our legacy reputation as an Association of larger companies, over 80 per cent of our members are medium to small businesses, most with 10 or less people in the office. With this in mind, we introduced the Business Hub in 2019. Now that we are past the disruption of COVID and the need to focus on that challenge, this service will be growing and expanding to include more of the key knowledge and resources that business owners need in order to better conduct construction business in 2022 and beyond.
Now that we can get back at it, the Business Hub will be expanding our partnerships to continue to include key areas such as HR as well as adding IT, marketing/social media, strategy, legal, and many others.
We will also be piloting a stream purely for owners and senior leadership in order to facilitate the types of information and knowledge that they require. One aspect that we have been asked to consider is the establishment of peertopeer groups and we hope to develop that over the balance of 2022.
There will be a new Legal Hub of contract knowledge introduced under the Business Hub thanks to the partnership of a number of key Calgary law firms. This will be comprised of both printed materials and education sessions designed to assist you in helping your teams better understand the key aspects of construction contracts, from estimating all the way to closeout and collections.
EVENTS
Of course, we are starting our inperson events calendar again and have enjoyed seeing everyone face to face after such a long absence. In addition to our more familiar events, we are also continuing with some of the things that we learned during COVID.
The sense of community that we felt as smaller groups gathered online made us realize that we had been missing something for years – namely the fact that with 80 per cent of our members are mid or smallsized businesses, they were not always able to attend our traditional large allday events that took them away from their business for too long.
As a result, we have taken CCA Connect from virtual to the real world and have continued our late afternoon/early evening events such as “Meet the GC” and “Con
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nect” with great success. We look to have these monthly events throughout the year, and they are now a key element in building the community that is the foundation of the CCA of the future.
As always we want your feedback on what brings you the most value so, please feel free to reach out.
EDUCATION
Education classes that went 100 per cent virtual during COVID will find their way back to the classroom and, while hybrid will likely remain in part, we are also looking forward to inclass learning returning throughout 2022.
Education is also the subject of further growth and expansion, and we are working to consider new or refreshed curriculum to include, among others: • Sales and Business Development • Business Acumen • Leadership • Personal Development • Social Media and Marketing
Whether new and/or enhanced programs, all will have a particular eye to the construction industry and the skills needed for the future.
Going back to what I said at the outset, yes, we dare to dream that this year we can return to our lives on all levels. We also know that if circumstances require it, we can adapt if necessary.
What will never change is the deep sense of privilege we hold in serving our members and such a noble industry, and this will always inspire our continued commitment to your success and a thriving Calgary for all.
We thank you all for your support, commitment, and work ethic as the greatest industry in Alberta and the entire CCA team wishes all our members a very welldeserved successful 2022.
We especially look forward to sharing a bright future as partners with you. n
