I recently had a chance to sit down with Bassem Hamdy, a Vice President at CMiC. CMiC provides enterprise-class software to the construction and AEC industries.

We discussed what value the right software systems can bring to organizations struggling with labor shortages. Labor issues have become a hot-button issue as 75% of contractors are dealing with shortages and the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act has put illegal immigration in the spotlight.

Don Fornes: Clearly the biggest problem firms are having right now is acquiring qualified workers in the first place. What role can software play in addressing that challenge?

Bassem Hamdy: What software can do, and should do, is enable employers to screen workers before they are hired by validating insurance and work status. The last thing that any contractor wants is a worker on-site that has lapsed insurance – one misstep and an accident later, the company is in serious financial and legal trouble. Having up-to-date accessible information about an employee's insurance status would prevent this from happening.

With any project, hiring the right people with the right skill set is the most important challenge and with a labor shortage, it becomes a crucial factor to stay ahead of the competition. Project managers and foremen need to know if the person they are going to hire for the job has the required skills and training, and if they will be reliable. If that worker is not going to show up or has never done this type of work, than that information needs to be known before the hiring decision is made. That information needs to be accessed from the field and available to everyone in the interview chain. After an employee has been hired and has entered the system, the software should be able to generate and track performance reports. These will come in handy for any future projects, so key decision-makers can make better informed hiring choices.

DF: What about better management of existing workforce or new qualified workers a firm brings on? Can a firm address the shortage through better management?

BH: If a firm's software isn't managing the firm's workers, than that software needs to be re-evaluated. The firm's system needs to provide detailed employee profiles that can be accessed across the enterprise so project managers and executives can match employees to a particular job that best matches the employee's qualifications. This eases labor management by making sure that the right person is on the right job, which adds not only to projects being performed more efficiently but also to overall employee satisfaction.

The software should provide controls that allows for the easy identification of phony and duplicate social security / social insurance numbers, so firms can comply with federal and state regulations. With illegal immigration a hot-button topic of late, firms need to be aware that government agencies have increased their vigilance. Drug test results should be able to be monitored as well.

DF: Surely enterprise systems can't help workers dig, pour or build faster, but what new capabilities can make them more efficient?

BH: Traditional solutions for the construction industry, such as spreadsheets and non-integrated systems, can take up to four weeks to produce productivity reports. As anyone who knows the industry will tell you, that's simply too long. Project managers need to have that information as soon as it's available, and using a software solution that is integrated between departments and works on one database provide this visibility and timeliness.

This also applies to project managers. Some are better than others, and what we have seen in the industry is that there is a lack of standardization for project managers. Using an integrated, enterprise-wide project management solution though, an organization can baseline the success of project managers by standardizing the tools that they use.

DF: One large barrier to adoption is the amount of data entry that users have to do. What advances in user interface design or integration technologies are reducing data entry tasks?

BH: One great leap forward in user interface is web-based devices. A lot of actions happen quickly on the job site and every moment spent on mulling over decisions costs money. Using a web-based device, such as the ubiquitous Blackberry, project managers can enter information while standing on the job site and if the system is integrated and allows for enterprise-wide visibility, executives back in the office, which is sometimes hundreds of miles away, can process the information and make a decision. Most web-based devices are easy to use and take up no more time or energy as writing on a piece of paper.

DF: In a competitive labor market, employee satisfaction is critical. What capabilities are available to improve satisfaction?

BH: Companies that have technology that is easy to use or that is unreliable find themselves confronted with unhappy employees. Most traditional approaches to technology in construction lead to employee dissatisfaction, stemming from the multiple data entry, the unreliability of the data and the time-consuming processes. If anyone has participated in the project forecasting process using spreadsheets and standalone systems, where data is entered and then entered again and then checked, then they know how time-consuming, and not to mention frustrating, this process can be. Having employees that work on activities that they want to work on improves employee morale and makes them more easy to manage.

DF: When it comes to mobile technologies, do you see them as a productivity tool that helps managers be in more than one place at a time, or just a distraction?

BH: I definitely see them as a tool that increases productivity and any organization that is not utilizing them is placing itself at a disadvantage. Managers should always try to employ the best tools at hand to do the best job. In the AEC industry, managers and executives are often required to be in more than place at a time and responsible for making numerous decisions on different projects, and the technology is available to have managers at least virtually in multiple places at the same time. As with any other industry, information is the blood that keeps the construction firm pumping and having that information flow across departments, rather than walled up in a single area, improves productivity.