The year is flying by and, in the UK, none of us are complaining about that. For us, that means the weather is finally starting to brighten up and, if we are lucky, we’ll get two weeks of summer and sunshine to enjoy!
You know we Brits love to talk about the weather – even more than we enjoy debating Brexit – and I even got chance to chat about it on national TV the other day! This job does have its perks and, in all seriousness, there’s no doubt that productivity in our industry rises during the summer months.
Our team – like yours I am sure – are very professional and are trained to tackle any conditions thrown at them, but it makes a real difference to the levels of work we can achieve when the weather is fine.
Of course, the sun wasn’t very far away during the CSDA Convention in Puerto Rico in March. It was a terrific event, which highlighted many of the issues facing our industry (as well as many other topics on business) – one of which was around health and safety, which I will tackle in another column in the future because I feel it is worth dedicating quite a bit of time and discussion over.
I hosted a panel event on women in the industry which produced some really good debate and, actually, proved that the industry is very open to having more females come through in a range of roles – which is very encouraging and is vital if we are to sustain our great specialist sector.
What’s interesting is still the lack of people – not just women – coming into concrete sawing and diamond drilling generally.
Donald Trump won his US presidential election on a ticket of American jobs for American people but I know from speaking to the association in the US at Puerto Rico that they just can’t get workers to fulfill the roles that are required.
It was a topic that came up not only with Americans but with European and others from around the world too. There’s no question that we have the same issue in the UK – finding good people remains a challenge and selling this as a career to young people (when their parents often want them to go to university and find an office job) is not always easy.
In the UK, we recently held an Open Doors initiative through Build UK where 209 sites welcomed more than 5,000 visitors to give people – especially youngsters – an insight into what happens on a construction site and the myriad of opportunities there are available.
Perhaps, at times, we in the industry take for granted the level of skill required and the many different jobs that are on offer and it was great to be able to see the interest from the public in this event.
It’s a new initiative and can only help in selling our industry to our future potential workforce.
Through Build UK, we are also bringing together a plan of action to engage with schools and to present construction to them in a completely new way – this will begin in September, in line with the new school year in the UK.
As well as the CSDA Convention, we also enjoyed the BeBoSa exhibition in Germany where new records were set for attendance as more than 2,200 visitors took in the event.
It was a very relaxed atmosphere and there was some very interesting new technology on show, which was enjoyed by visitors from all over the world.
I know plans are now already afoot for the next event in 2020 – one year after Bauma – and I know that there are firm commitments in place from some of the major manufacturers to be there.
And that brings me right back to where I started (the weather) and the very exciting news that next year’s CSDA Convention will return to Hawaii in 2018. Even though this year’s event saw an improvement on visitor numbers, Hawaii is always very popular and the organizer is already forecasting record numbers.
So if the UK doesn’t get the summer we’re all hoping for over here, at least I’ll be able to dust off my best pair of shorts and head for Hawaii in 2018 – now if that doesn’t attract people into the industry, what will?!
Finally, I must urge you to book on to the IACDS 2017 Annual Convention which takes place in Vienna between May 18 and May 20. It’s going to be a new-look event with lots of different, great topics on the agenda.
I am really looking forward to it and can’t wait to see you there!
To register, log onto https://www.iacds.org/convention/iacds2017/registration