In with the new

The CIOB is booting out its board of trustees.

Don’t worry, there hasn’t been a scandal. This is the culmination of two years of consultation and development to bring the governance of the institute in line with its status as a charity and The Charities Act 2006.

The CIOB is now callingfor potential trustees to put themselves forward, and every corporate member (MCIOB and FCIOB) will have the chance to vote for the candidates who they think will do the best job.

The current governance structure dates back to when the CIOB was a membership organisation, although its Royal Charter means it has charitable status. The current 40+ trustees are made up from branch chairs, chairs of standing boards and committees, the presidential chain, honorary treasurer and sometimes co-opted individuals.

From June 2008, only the fourstrong presidential chain will remain from the existing board of trustees. They will be joined by 12 new trustees, all of whom must be members or fellows who have pre-qualified with the necessary skills and experience.

So what does it take to be a trustee? The CIOB quizzed members to find out what they thought were important attributes in a trustee and used this to compile a list of 12 competencies (see box below).

Five will be assessed using the application form and seven during a phone interview, which will be carried out by a professional recruitment firm.

This selection process will whittle the entries down to 24 shortlisted candidates and you’ll be able to read all about them on the CIOB website before voting, between 1 and 28 March, for the eight you think are best suited for the job. A skills audit will then reveal which competencies are missing among the group selected, and the last four trustees will be selected from the remaining people on the shortlist to plug the skills gaps.

But where will the voice of the ordinary member be heard, I hear you cry. Well, there will also be a forum made up of active members from the regional branches. This consultative body will be able to air its views on various subjects to the board of trustees and inform its decisions.

With the rigorous selection process, four trustee meetings a year, a further four meetings for chairing boards or committees (since most trustees will be asked to do this) and no pay, one wonders if there will be many takers for these voluntary roles.

But there are benefits, which include learning opportunities and a chance to network with the brightest and best of the institute’s membership. Not to mention the opportunity to influence the CIOB’s direction.

For those interested in taking up this challenge, you need to get moving as the closing date for applications is noon on 18 January.

For those that aren’t, it’s important that you vote, since one of the reasons for the reform was to make the whole process more democratic. So look out for your ballot papers and get ready to do your bit in March.

Ask any chief executive what their biggest concerns are and you usually hear that recruiting and keeping talented managers keeps them awake at night. Typically this is accompanied by a good old moan about the exorbitant cost associated with using head hunters and recruitment consultants.

Whether it is due to a scarcity of decent project managers or simply the high business cost of losing good people, biting shortages of white-collar skills are jeopardising the growth plans of many more firms than is commonly recognised.

For too long we’ve relied on firms like Laing to develop top managers

Not everybody wants to hear it, but the industry has only itself to blame for this mess. For too long a large number of firms have relied on the likes of Taylor Woodrow and Laing to develop and nurture the industry’s top-flight managers. Recent changes to the structure at many of these bigger firms have left glaring gaps. So gambling on stumping up whatever it costs to get the right people in is no longer a viable alternative to developing skills in-house.

The plain fact is that all construction companies should play a part in training tomorrow’s managers, not because it is necessarily the right thing to do, but because it makes business sense.

Yet there is still a commonly held notion that training people is a waste of effort because it allows them to leave. This is a false belief.

Organisations that care and make the effort to develop people will not only boast engaged and motivated workforces, but also benefit from gaining a reputation for being a good company to work for.

What should be clear to everybody by now is that the quality of people you employ determines your competitive advantage. That is why staff engagement must be taken much more seriously if any business is to flourish.

Nowadays most firms can point to reasonably successful recruitment strategies – they would be out of business if they couldn’t. Yet many fail to recognise there is a difference between what is needed to attract good people and what is necessary to retain them.

It’s not just about training. Moving forward, the big challenge facing the industry’s business leaders lies with how to achieve greater flexibility. On this subject, much is made of the need to empower employees and broaden their skills through life-long learning. Much less is said about employees’ desire for flexible working patterns and benefits.

This may sound like heresy to those who proudly espouse the work hard, work long culture, but companies seeking to attract the best staff will need to recognise that people are looking for different things from their employers at different stages in their career.

How many contractors can say they embrace this principle in the employment packages they offer?

It is blithely accepted that seniority attracts better benefits, usually in the shape of bigger cars, but the real retention crisis lies firmly with the 25-35-year-old age group. They have benefited from substantial investment and are moving into their most productive years, yet statistically they are most likely to leave. Shouldn’t they be better targeted before they decide the time has come to go?

Interestingly this is also the group that takes it for granted that rewards should directly reflect on their performance. According to one report, those who receive performance related bonuses are half as likely to be looking to leave, are happier in their work, feel less under pressure and are more content with their managers.

While most people working in the industry expect to work long and hard hours, there is a limit before wellbeing and poor work-life balance become reasons to leave. Already work-life balance ranks as the second most important attraction to staying with a company after base pay.

In response, a few far-sighted contractors are starting to experiment with flexible benefits. The system allows staff to use their salaries flexibly, to buy or sell from their pension scheme commitments, medical cover, gym membership, holiday entitlement, subsidised meals and even childcare allowance.

It is hardly a new concept outside construction and is commonly employed by companies in the media sector to attract and retain the 25-35 age group.

As general workforce attitudes change, industry leaders must face up to the fact that demand for flexible skills will be matched by demands from staff for a range of flexible benefits and working patterns. Those who choose not to respond will have many more sleepless nights to look forward to.