Aug 6, 2023

HR Challenges for Construction Industry

The construction industry must handle a lot of logistics. The responsibilities can quickly pile up regarding regulations, prices, importing, and other demands.

Staffing and people management is one significant contributor to these responsibilities. While every industry faces some level of labour reckoning, HR departments in the construction industry encounter unique challenges. For instance, specific laws and regulations apply that make managing construction workers more involved than other areas of the workforce. However, dedicated HR software can help you reduce these frictions.

In this post, we'll discuss some of the biggest HR challenges the construction industry faces and showcase opportunities to solve them with the help of reliable HR software.

Employee Retention

Like many other industries, the construction industry faces employee turnover issues. However, for construction companies, where time may be more important than any other industry, frequent employee turnover can impact the capability to complete and accept new projects.

Employee retention is one of the most significant issues HR departments face in the construction industry. HR is responsible for bringing employees in, getting them situated, and ensuring they feel motivated in their roles. If employee turnover is too high, then there is a failure in the HR pipeline.

There are many different reasons that an employee may leave a business. While it is possible that the situation could be entirely out of HR's control, the employee is often disillusioned with their work experience. Work-life balance, management style, burnout, and feeling valued in their role are key reasons employees have recently begun to leave their workplaces, especially after the pandemic forced many people to reconsider their priorities in life.

With the help of HR software, it is possible to mitigate these risks and provide a healthy experience in your workplace, offering a greater chance at employee retention.

How Moonworkers Can Help

The Moonworkers platform offers much potential to make your business more employee-friendly. When it comes to accommodating employee schedules and making them feel heard, for instance, Moonworkers offers Rota planner software for easy scheduling that is accessible to all employees. Set schedules far in advance, and if employees need accommodations for changes, they can request them through the platform, and you can also approve them there.

Another big part of employee retention is rewarding your workers for their effort. With the benefits available through the Moonworkers platform, your employees can get access to endless discounts, and you can reward them directly.

Paid Time Off

Concerning accommodating schedules, paid time off has become an increasingly important topic for workers in the construction industry. We mentioned it briefly, but the work-life balance has become even more significant for workers these past few years. While it is vital to work plenty of downtime for employees into their schedules, it is also essential to offer the chance for employees to take more extended leaves and not have to worry about finances.

Paid time off can be difficult for some businesses to manage, however. When it comes to rules for paid time off and specific work contracts, planning your shifts to accommodate the worker's absence, and even calculating paid time off into your payments sheet, the particulars can quickly add up.

That is, of course, if you complete it by hand or without software assistance. However, with the help of HR management tools, this is a much simpler task.

How Moonworkers Can Help

Moonworkers Rota planner comes integrated with payroll. So when schedule changes are made and things like paid time off are stipulated, you don't have to manually work back and forth to make changes and calculate their effects. Instead, the integrated software solutions will automatically calculate the payment owed to employees, even factoring in the requirements for specific government regulations.

In addition to payments, the Moonworkers platform will also help manage your scheduling. This way, when a worker requests time off, you can easily observe what shifts need to be covered and who is available, and you can even allow workers who are free to offer up their services for an open shift.

Run payroll, pay your employees' salaries in one click

Timesheets approved? Nice! Thanks to our full integration with Stripe, you can choose to pay contractors through Moonworkers and save even more time.

Labour Laws and Regulations

Contractors and subcontractors are subject to specific regulations when working in the UK. One of the most significant is the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), and handling the logistics associated with this set of rules can cause much frustration for HR departments.

The stipulated rules are simple to follow per se, but ensuring that all sections are accounted for, payments are sent correctly, and every relevant party is communicated with can be difficult.

Fortunately, this is another situation where HR software can prove itself useful. Even the UK government suggests using software solutions to assist in managing your CIS responsibilities with trusted vendors.

The CIS is important to consider when choosing subcontractors and paying them, and you'll also be responsible for making deductions and sending returns to the HRMC. But, again, HR software can help you keep track of and even automate these functions.

How Moonworkers Can Help

Recently, Moonworkers achieved compliance with the CIS, and the platform can now accommodate many of the responsibilities associated with the scheme.

For instance, contractors need to verify subcontractors under the CIS. With the help of Moonworkers Talent Directory, you can find verified subcontractors to employ for your construction projects. Once hired, payroll and Rota planning tools make it incredibly simple to manage your staff and ensure they are paid on time and for the correct amount.

Finally, the CIS 300, the monthly return you need to send to the HMRC, can be quickly completed and sent to the HMRC through the Moonworkers platform. If your HR department wants to streamline your operations and ensure that regulations like the CIS are followed thoroughly, then relying on a service like Moonworkers is an excellent option for peace of mind.

Training

Training and knowledge sharing might be the biggest challenge facing the construction industry and HR. This is because many roles in the construction industry are highly specialised. This means you need competent workers who can manage the various tasks they may be assigned in any project.

This concerns HR for a few different reasons. HR is responsible for identifying potential skilled workers. However, it is also essential that the infrastructure is in place for workers to have the training and tools they need to work efficiently on the job.

Onboarding can be a big part of this initiative. For example, you can identify the best employees and successfully implement them into your business so that they understand their responsibilities and how to rectify any issues. In that case, you can avoid the problems that may arise with less skilled employees.

So, how does HR software help with this? Well, first, let's talk about onboarding.

How Moonworkers Can Help

Managing a construction site can be an exhausting task. You need everyone to understand their roles and how to follow the proper procedures. If anyone needs to be put in the right place, time delays, improper procedures, and other issues may arise.

With the Moonworkers platform, you can offer your employees automated onboarding workflows that ensure that all workers are on the same page. You can differentiate roles and make sure that everyone understands the boundaries of their position, but offering a standardised company procedure is a great way to ensure that your workers appreciate their position and can perform their best.

Also, to make training even easier, you can identify the employees that are already incredibly skilled and knowledgeable and ready to fit right into your business. With the Moonworkers Talent Directory, you can identify possible subcontractors that you feel could fit in your business. As we mentioned before, these contractors could also already be verified under the CIS, making your search even more straightforward.

Moonworkers offers comprehensive solutions to your HR challenges

As workers' needs change and the business landscape expands every year, every industry will face new issues and must learn how to overcome them. Right now, HR departments have to deal with many employment concerns as workforce dynamics are beginning to change. However, if your business still relies on old methods of HR management, then you could be overwhelmed by these changes.

By deploying HR software solutions, you can offer your HR department powerful tools to assist them in their duties. Concerns like payroll, scheduling, and even finding workers are much simpler when you can interact with a platform that automates many simple tasks that would typically be associated with these responsibilities.

Moonworkers is constantly looking for new ways to serve small and medium businesses in achieving HR efficiency. With our recent product improvements offering increased support for the construction industry, now is the perfect time for your construction business to request a demo and see how we can fit into your business to serve your best interests.