Recruitment, Retention, and DEI on the Horizon

A New Horizons Foundation research grant calls on SMACNA and SMART expertise in developing the future workforce.

By Jessica Kirby

Earlier this year, the New Horizons Foundation—a SMACNA-sponsored research and education arm that works to advance and grow the signatory sheet metal industry— earned a Stanley Black & Decker Global Impact Challenge grant. The grant will go towards research and contractor education surrounding recruiting and retaining the next generation of sheet metal and HVAC workers—a generation that requires an about face approach.

The grant proposal came out of the Foundation’s fourth iteration of the HVAC and Sheet Metal Industry Futures Study, which is typically published every four or five years but was delayed the last time by COVID. The 2022 Futures Study identified four areas of importance for moving the industry forward, one of which was workforce development.

“There is a lot of effort being directed toward successful workforce development, including work of our joint labormanagement committees,” says Tom Soles, executive director of the New Horizons Foundation. “We want to report on those successes and effective initiatives in other trades and industries.”

Louise Medina, Local 256 business manager, says the workforce development research could be a useful tool in helping the sheet metal industry surpass barriers that go beyond reaching underrepresented groups, such women and people of ethnic minorities. “The next generation wants work life balance and that is something the trades don’t have,” she says. “Childcare is another issue parents run into financially.”

Some of the initial outreach ideas the NHF project could pursue include creating reels and social posts that communicate the value in joining the signatory sheet metal industry.

“The planned workforce element will be series of short video takes and podcasts on select workforce development and retention practices that are working among the building trades,” Soles says.

The reels or short videos might depict the principal of a company talking about what he or she has tried in terms of onboarding, career path migration, and mentoring, or field leadership discussing the challenges of attracting field workers to leadership positions.

“Some companies are successful with attracting leadership, and some are not,” Soles says. “Some think it is simply generational, but I don’t think so. Plenty of contractors have success at developing field leaders, so we would look at those successes to understand what worked and why.”

Medina says leadership recruitment has to acknowledge the difference between Gen X and its “head-down and get the work done” mentality and the concerns of Millennials and Gen Z about quality of life being more important than pay.

“The truth is, the younger generation will determine early on what they want and what they won’t put up with and then find a career where the things they want are offered,” Medina says.

She also points to disrupting the predominantly white male demographic in leadership as well as giving new leaders the time and space to thrive in a way that reflects this generation’s values.

“We have to bring in the younger generation, give them leadership roles, and let them be the advocates and the ones organizing so more young people will see, ‘This is the environment for me’,” she says. “They are not seeing that now.”

The grant will also be used to further recruitment and retention with the development of a diversity, equity, and inclusion roadmap that features testimonials from contractors who have implemented successful DEI approaches.

“There is a lot of work to be done in how that is impacting developing the workforce, not just as a partial solution to the labor shortage but also how the practices bring people on and build a better culture within an organization,” Soles says.

Medina says the most effective social posts among SMART Locals have been produced by members on their own initiative. “It’s raw cut b-roll where the member takes control,” she says. “We see so many posts on Instagram and TikTok where young members are doing little reels throughout the day. These are the ones getting the biggest hits and best engagement.”

SMACNA and SMART recently partnered to introduce the BE4ALL initiative, which focuses on practical ways to create welcoming learning and working environments in the sheet metal industry by implementing DEI principles. The challenge with determining what DEI work can be done with this New Horizons project, Soles says, will be creating something new that complements rather than duplicates BE4ALL initiatives.

“We are looking at ways to take a larger view, see what has been done and what is happening in this area, and report on that in a way that is telling and has some real retention value. Our goal is to show some actionable steps that we as an industry can take.”

Medina, who is a staff liaison to the SMART BE4ALL committee, says the committee recently launched a campaign based on bias and belonging that brings leadership training in this area to organizations. They also launched a “Good to Know Before BE4ALL” industry survey in which participants had to look up answers to questions about BE4ALL online.

“The idea was that they would recognize that we are trying to create the right environment and that it is for them,” Medina says.

So far, 200 apprentices have completed the survey. “That means we reached 200 people who didn’t previously know about BE4ALL,” Medina says. “We asked all of them if they wanted to be BE4ALL ambassadors, and about 50 said yes. It’s a great pool for the future.”

Funnelling the messaging about the survey through JATC coordinators and instructors was key to the success since the apprentices learned about it directly from their mentors and saw that leadership valued their participation.

“We asked about ambassadorship to see if there was interest, spread the word, and identify apprentices to be part of it,” Medina says. “Now that we have acknowledged there are people willing to be ambassadors, the best way to move forward would be to give them the tools to take on that leadership role and make it their own, rather than waiting for us to tell them what to do.”

In moving the New Horizons research forward, SMACNA hopes to capture and report on SMART leading-edge initiatives at the Local level, as this is where joint initiatives tend to have the most qualitative success.

“We have tremendous relationships with SMART and the ITI, and our approach will be to present our findings, research, and recommendations and learn how those organizations can also make recommendations on presenting the research and findings in the best way possible,” Soles says.

Medina agrees that working together is the only way to move forward. “If we aren’t moving in the same direction, we won’t move at all,” she says. “A lot of the thinking in this generation includes a different mindset, and if we don’t include that, progress in our industry will die out. Sometimes we have a hard time changing, but we have to partner and keep working together to move the needle in the right direction.”▪

Jessica Kirby is editor-publisher for Point One Media, a small but sturdy family-owned trade magazine creator representing some of North America’s most accomplished construction associations. She can usually be found among piles of paper in her home office or exploring British Columbia’s incredible wilderness.