7 reasons you could be losing BIM talent

When talent is scarce, a good recruitment strategy is vital. Equally important, however, is your approach to retention. Holding onto good people in a tough market will give you a competitive advantage and save you time and money by reducing the need to make new hires. According to research from Oxford Economics and Unum, the average cost of employee turnover for staff earning over £25,000 is around £30,614. For specialist roles, such as BIM, this is likely to be even higher.

High performing staff will also boost your productivity massively, another very good reason to work hard to keep them. A study by McKinsey showed that the productivity gap between average performers and high performers was significant, and increased the more complex the job became. For very high complexity, high performers were 800% more productive. BIM is certainly at the more complex end of the job spectrum, so it’s clearly worth putting in the effort to retain your top people, especially when it is so difficult to find new talent at the moment.

In demand

Digital skills are in demand across different industries such as gaming and finance, which may offer more appealing working conditions. It’s important to review your employment package on a regular basis to make sure it is still competitive – both within construction and more widely – and prevent other industries from tempting people away.

Here are seven strategies that could help you avoid losing great staff:

1. Have a vision

While many retention strategies work across all industries, there are some specific considerations for digital construction. Digital vision is one of them. Mike Johnson of recruitment specialist Johnson BIM, says: “Digital vision is very important. How committed is the business to digital construction? Do you have a digital vision statement?”  If your BIM staff feel that the company is not invested in the digital aspect of construction, they may be more likely to move somewhere that is.

2. Provide leadership

Similarly, digital leadership plays a role in keeping staff. If BIM talent can look up to an individual who is playing an active and leading role in digital construction, they will have greater confidence in the business’s digital commitment and capabilities. “If you don’t have a digital leader, look at who could become one,” advises Mike. “If you do have one in place, are they really pushing that role? For example, are they contributing to any influential digital construction communities?”

3. Map out progression

Structured career progression gives BIM talent a clearer vision of their future at a company. This can be particularly important in relatively new industries such as BIM. “If your business is able to map out an employee’s career, and give them the support and training they need to reach these milestones, they will have a good reason to stay loyal to you,” says Mike. And if you don’t, there’s a good chance that will be the reason they start looking elsewhere. The Work Institute’s 2020 Employee Retention Report found that for the 10th year running, career development was the top reason why employees left their jobs.

4. Offer benefits

There’s no getting away from it – no one is doing their job purely for fun. An attractive set of benefits can encourage staff to stay with your business. But don’t just rely on standard employee packages to give you the edge. Talk to your staff and find out what they would value. Are people taking up certain perks? If not, look at whether there is something else you could offer instead. Or could you provide a more bespoke option, allowing employees to choose from a range of perks and create their own package?

5. Support health and wellbeing

The role of the workplace in supporting mental and physical wellbeing has been growing over the years, and after the stresses and strains of the pandemic, has reached a new level of significance. If staff are stressed, burnt out or in poor health, they are not going to be happy or productive. And if they are not happy, they may decide that a new job is the answer.

It’s also a particularly pertinent issue within the construction industry. While BIM roles are different to traditional construction jobs, as an industry it is characterised by long hours, long commutes and high pressure to complete projects on time and to budget.

Remote or flexible working patterns can help staff to balance their work and home life more effectively. Communication is also vital – if staff feel they can talk to someone and be supported through a health issue, this can lead to reduced absence and improved retention in the long run.

6. Keep challenging

While career progression tackles one aspect of job satisfaction, there is also the day-to-day enjoyment of work. Are your BIM staff feeling challenged and stimulated by what they are working on? Is software up to date so they can work efficiently? Are there opportunities for training or innovating? As digital construction is so project-based, BIM professionals are often very comfortable changing jobs once they feel they have gone as far as they can with a particular scheme. To help keep them, you need to keep them engaged.

7. And finally . . . Say thank you!

For all the talk of benefit packages and career progression, sometimes a heartfelt thank you is what’s required. People like it when their effort is noticed and appreciated in any aspect of life. Yes, you are paying staff to do a job, but that doesn’t mean thanks can be dispensed with.  Showing appreciation is a very simple and cost-effective way of motivating staff and making them feel valued, both of which help to build loyalty, job satisfaction and – importantly for retention – happiness. In fact, according to the Employee Retention Report from Tiny Pulse, an employee engagement software company, staff who are happier are less likely to leave their organisations, even when offered a 10 percent raise in salary elsewhere.

When you do need to hire

These tactics may help you retain your best people, but in our increasingly mobile talent market, there will always be BIM roles to fill. To advertise your next role on the specialist BIM Job Board, click here.

If you’re in the digital construction world and you’re already doing these things well, you’ll probably qualify as a DBE.careers Good Digital Employer. Register for more details and to join the scheme.