Alberta’s building sector hires occupations of varying levels, types, skill requirements, and work settings to design, construct, manage and retrofit high-performing commercial and institutional buildings and multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs). However, energy-efficient building sector employers in the province face heightened labour costs, competition from other sectors and provinces, an aging workforce and skill gaps.
While the fundamental skills to complete high-performing buildings are essentially the same as those in the construction industry, different expectations, process changes and culture shifts create additional challenges. Many building sector companies are also small employers, with comparatively tight profit margins and few staffing resources, making it more challenging to invest resources into attraction, retention and workforce development.
Building sector employers were surveyed through May and June 2022 to understand their energy efficiency talent issues, staffing plans and practices.
Reported HR issues include:
• Labour and skill shortages
• Worker turnover and productivity declines
• Managing labour costs and worker expectations
• Education and training gaps
• Competition from other sectors
• Challenges of building a multi-disciplinary team
• Retirements and loss of knowledge
• Regional differences in talent availability
This toolkit is designed to help employers build their talent attraction and development capacity in offices, sites and plants. It includes resources and tips to ensure recruitment and on-the-job management practices are modernized or retrofitted to meet the needs of today’s labour market, improve retention and future-proof these practices.
Additional tools and resources are provided at the end of each section and in the appendices.
For a preview of our toolkit content, please download this one-pager.
We’d love to hear your feedback, email hr@eco.ca to share your thoughts and suggestions!
The Province of Alberta is working in partnership with the Government of Canada to provide
employment support programs and services.
