All In
for a Brighter Future
The Future Belongs to Those Who Prepare for It Today* Technology, business practices, and the economic climate are constantly changing. This is why the joint SMACNA-SMART Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force publishes Partners in Progress—we are here to prepare you to “own” your future. We want you to see where the industry is headed and the types of training and certification necessary to keep signatory sheet metal ahead of the competition. In this issue, we offer an eye on the future with insight from the most recent HVAC and Sheet Metal Industry Futures Study. Some scenarios have played out the way the study envisioned, and others are diverging. Staying on top of the tangents will help both SMART and SMACNA bill more hours and win more work. One area where momentum is building is the green sector. SMACNA and SMART have always been ahead in terms of performing environmentally efficient construction work, working with the United States Green Building Council from the early days. Now more and more building owners and managers are becoming focused on achieving LEED certification. Is your business certified to work on these projects? What about individuals in your Local? And what does LEED certification mean these days, anyway? The standards don’t remain stagnant, and you cannot either. Another area where the status quo isn’t good enough is safety. Creating a safety culture within our organizations means each of us—and our friends, brothers, sisters, and co-workers—have the opportunity to do more than bring home a paycheck; we can all return home to our families each day. Safety requirements can’t be cookie cutter for each organization, which is why labor and management both need to buy in and work together for the betterment of all. This need to work together is why Partners in Progress is always talking about the importance of fostering communication and trust. When we develop meaningful and productive relationships, we can approach the future with more confidence and be assured that the signatory sheet metal industry—and the bottom line for SMART and SMACNA members—will look brighter. That is the concept behind the upcoming Partners in Progress Conference. We will be demonstrating how it is necessary for both management and labor to be All In when it comes to fostering relationships; developing best practices; recruiting and training an effective workforce; and recovering, maintaining, and expanding marketshare. Partners and Progress is not just about thinking and reading and talking; it is also about doing— taking the knowledge, skills, and abilities that we have available to us and putting them to work in our local areas.
To get the most out of Partners in Progress, visit pinp.org. The website will help you keep up-to-date with available programs and tools and find useful resources available to SMART locals, SMACNA contractors and chapters, labor-management cooperation trusts and committees, training centers, and individual members of SMACNA and SMART. Registration is required for full access. It is free but limited to members. You can also find us on Facebook as “sheetmetalpartners”, on Twitter as “smpartners”, and on Instagram as “smpartners”. We encourage you to share via social media or directly to editor@pinpmagazine. org your successes and areas where you would like assistance. *Malcolm X
MARK YOUR CALENDAR Our next Partners in Progress Conference will be Feb. 25-26, 2020, at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. This meeting will provide an opportunity for both labor and management to be All In as we position ourselves for success in the signatory sheet metal industry. We’ll share success stories and lessons learned from the efforts we are undertaking now to bolster market share and hours, find out the characteristics of high performing areas, build roadmaps to better relationships, and more. There will be financial incentives for local areas that meet a minimum number of labor-management cooperation goals. Use #pinp2020 and #Allin2020 when you post about planning to attend, partnership best practices, and success stories. Watch these pages for additional information during the coming months. Partners in Progress » January 2019 » 3
