New technologies are promising to change how we view the construction industry.

Along with conceptual models like BIM that help with design, other new tools are focusing on the digital enhancement of physical construction services to provide better information from the field.

Some of this process involves fleet management and some involve safety, but a lot of it touches on the core operation of human resources and human capital management.

Construction sectors in the U.S. and Canada are facing a labor shortage,” Greg Norris of B2W Software told HR Daily Wire on May 9. “Contractors with modern software are finding they have a competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining employees, because those employees want to work with the best available tools to manage estimating and operations.”

Norris said younger workers and applicants have higher technological expectations than yesterday’s crews.

“They have grown up with computers and are surrounded by technology in their everyday lives, so they don’t expect to work with outdated, paper-based processes on the job,” Norris said.

Also, he said, the inherently competitive nature of many construction workers leads them to want to work with the best tools.

Increasingly, those tools include software solutions for managing operational workflows like scheduling and dispatching, field operations and equipment maintenance,” Norris said. “Software technology – and especially unified platforms that drive collaboration across construction workflows – can help to fill that gap by making contractors more productive and more efficient. … There is also a tremendous amount of critical operational data available to construction organizations. Software and mobile technologies are allowing them to capture more of it in real time and leverage it to make better, data-driven decisions.”

Norris also spoke about a series of webinars from Dodge Data & Analytics, in partnership with B2W Software, that are projecting some of the ideas that will be helpful in enhancing construction processes in the years to come.

“The first webinar in this series will explore the trends in software and mobile technologies that allow contractors to record what happens on site accurately and imme­diately, analyze that performance data in comparison with the bid, and empower field teams with the intelligence they need to adjust operations daily,” he said.