Survey Yields Interesting Insights

Results will help WeBuildAlaska tailor its message to boost outreach

By Amy Newman

he construction industry is integral to Alaska’s industrial, commercial, residential, and infrastructure development. But like other Alaska industries, it is short on workers, particularly Alaskans.

To help fill those openings, the Associated General Contractors, or AGC, of Alaska collaborated with the Construction Industry Progress Fund, or CIPF, to create WeBuildAlaska. The workforce development campaign is designed to educate potential employees from Alaska—“Obviously, we want Alaskan candidates to fill those roles,” says AGC Training and Workforce Development Director Ruby Oatman—or the Lower 48 about the benefits of a career in the construction industry and encourage them to join.

In January, WeBuildAlaska hired Wheelhouse 20/20, a digital marketing firm, to help with its efforts. Wheelhouse 20/20’s first task was surveying current, potential, and former workers to ascertain attitudes and perceptions about the industry.

Wheelhouse worked with WeBuildAlaska to identify current industry workers for phone interviews. It also created an online survey it promoted to people between the ages of 18 and 50 in Alaska and key states in the Lower 48, says Linzie Reynolds, director of strategy for Wheelhouse 20/20.

Through a systematic process—each of the 365 survey respondents and twenty phone interviewees self-selected to participate—the survey yielded information that WeBuildAlaska is using to drive its approach to all messaging, creative and outreach efforts.

Unsurprisingly, compensation was a key attraction to the industry, with roughly 65 percent of respondents ranking it as extremely important or very important. But non-compensatory factors also ranked high, with nearly 50 percent of respondents citing job location, co-workers, and schedule flexibility as extremely important or very important considerations. Flexible scheduling was especially important in the 18-to-25-year-old age range, WeBuildAlaska’s target demographic.

“It’s vital that an employer cares about their workers more than just how productive they are,” one interviewee told Reynolds, who conducted the interviews.

These non-compensatory factors are things Oatman says will help WeBuildAlaska differentiate Alaska from other states, like Oregon and California, where industry wages are similar.

“Through the survey, we were able to see that we can maybe market to other things that Alaska is unique in, like the Alaska beauty and scenery and wildlife, and the lifestyle of being able to work for the summer and travel for the winter,” she says. “These are things we can focus on instead of just salary.”

Career growth was another important factor, particularly among mid-career workers, with 65 percent of respondents ranking it as extremely important or very important. But many respondents reported they did not know what career paths exist, how to get started, or even that many programs provide paid training. One industry worker told Reynolds, “I wish I knew how many apprenticeships [were] available and paid right out of school.”

Ninety percent of current and former workers said they were introduced to the industry by a friend or family member who worked in construction.

“In a lot of industries, you know what the job path is, you know the titles that you need to hit,” Reynolds says. “In this industry, there isn’t as much of a road map. It’s hard to aspire to something if we don’t know it exists.”

WeBuildAlaska plans to focus on that lack of awareness in its outreach; increasing familiarity with the construction industry is also leading WeBuildAlaska to work closely with the Anchorage School District’s new Academies of Anchorage, which will launch its Freshman Academy course in the fall. Academies of Anchorage is an effort to transition the high school experience by teaching through the lens of career-building opportunities with the hope of increasing high school graduation rates, increasing academic achievement, and better preparing students for industry certifications and college programs.

“The more classrooms I go to, the more it becomes apparent that the construction classes currently in the schools focus on very specific skilled trades, mostly carpentry or welding,” Oatman says. “We’re working to partner with schools to create more comprehensive construction courses.”

They’re also working to highlight just how varied and long-term a career in the industry can be.

“That’s something we really focus on when we go in to do outreach, showing all the different fields that you can go into in the construction industry,” Oatman says. “Not just the manual work, but there are human resources, accounting, safety’s a big one. There’s so much upward mobility. You can start off as a laborer and you can work hard and eventually own your own business or become the CEO of a successful construction business. Additionally, construction skills are transferable. You can go anywhere in the world and get a job—but we would prefer they stay in Alaska.”