Causes of talent loss in installation and construction enterprises and countermeasures
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Talent is the soul of modern enterprises, and talent loss is the biggest challenge faced by every company. Once a company loses its talent, it loses its vitality. Talents have become a key resource for companies to build core competitive advantages, and their importance is attracting increasing attention from business executives. Analyzing the current situation, how to enable construction companies that are involved in frequent, demanding tasks and have average salary levels to retain talent effectively has become an urgent issue, requiring the exploration of appropriate countermeasures. 1. Talent loss has become one of the biggest obstacles to the sustainable development of state-owned construction enterprises. It is not easy for these enterprises to train employees, and it is even more difficult to develop skilled professionals. Many enterprises suffer setbacks or experience instability as a result of talent loss. In recent years, the brain drain among talents in state-owned construction and installation enterprises has also become increasingly severe. This is evident in the fact that various types of talents cultivated with the financial and material resources of enterprises are leaving their jobs and moving elsewhere ； Some graduates from colleges and vocational schools are assigned to enterprises to undergo training for several years; by then they are either ready to take on jobs or have become key members of the enterprise. Yet, upon seeing the difficult working conditions, poor profits, and lack of housing in those enterprises, they leave on their own to seek work elsewhere ； Others, seeing the various flaws in corporate management, lose confidence in their jobs, study hard on their own to prepare for postgraduate exams, and leave their original employers. These phenomena are currently quite common in some state-owned construction and installation enterprises. The vast majority of these lost young people are talented individuals who are capable, determined, and innovative. They not only take away technical skills and research results, as well as customers and business opportunities, but in some cases, one person’s departure leads to the loss of a whole group of skilled professionals, causing immeasurable damage to the development of the company. Talent loss has become a serious obstacle to the survival and development of enterprises. 2 Basic characteristics and common causes of talent loss in construction and installation enterprises 2.1 The most lost talents are management professionals who possess certain knowledge of construction management and professional skills. Due to various objective factors such as the late start of project management in our country, the lack of standardization in this industry, and an underdeveloped legal framework, project management in our country is far behind that in Western developed countries. The quality of project management professionals in our country is also low; currently, there is a strange phenomenon in construction and installation companies where those who know how to do the work are unable to pass the relevant examinations, while those who can pass the exams do not know how to carry out the work. In construction and installation companies, the most lost talents are senior project management professionals who truly understand technology, possess business acumen, and are skilled in management, as well as specialized technical experts. These lost talents, having acquired certain knowledge of construction management, a network of clients, and relatively advanced construction techniques in the building industry, have a wider range of options and greater potential for development, offering them more diverse employment opportunities. 2.2 The main destinations for lost talent are companies in the same industry, or even competitors. The main destinations for talented professionals who leave construction and installation companies are other companies in the same industry, or even competitors. The main reasons for talent loss are the active recruitment by companies in the same industry or competitors, or the fact that these companies can offer more competitive salaries and broader opportunities for growth. The loss of key project management talents in construction and installation companies often leads to entire teams of employees following them to other jobs, which is very much like what we refer to as the \"domino effect\". Such a collective departure of key employees is a fatal blow to the company. For example, in a state-owned construction company, there are plumbing teams, electrical teams, and metalworking teams; when the team leader changes jobs, he takes all the members of the team with him ； Due to the departure of senior management, some key marketing and technical professionals left as well, and these talents mostly went to competing companies or rivals. 2.3 Common reasons for the loss of talent in construction and installation enterprises. An unreasonable or imperfect performance appraisal system in construction and installation companies, coupled with the inability of these companies to offer reasonable and competitive salaries, are usually the direct causes of talent loss. As the cost that a company pays to the talents it hires in order to acquire their human resources, compensation is not only the economic foundation upon which these talents can survive and develop, but it also represents the company’s assessment of the value of those talents. When employees feel that the salary offered by their company does not adequately reflect the value of their human capital, or fails to properly recognize their contributions to the company, they choose to move to organizations that offer more competitive salaries. Therefore, it can be said that the institutional flaws of state-owned construction and installation enterprises are the underlying cause of talent loss. Furthermore, with the gradual establishment of modern corporate systems, most of the barriers that used to hinder the mobility of talent have been removed. In particular, the commercialization of housing, as well as the socialization of pension and medical insurance systems, have changed those conditions that previously constrained the movement of talent. Meanwhile, the reform of the household registration system has completely eliminated the last remaining obstacle to talent mobility. During the economic transition, some people began to say that \"the world outside is wonderful.\" They were actively seeking job transfers in an effort to realize their \"white-collar dreams.\" It must be said that the current brain drain among state-owned construction and installation enterprises is not accidental. 3 Several strategies for construction and installation companies to address talent loss For companies, there is no actual shortage of talent; it is rather the lack of a favorable environment for nurturing, utilizing, and retaining talent that leads to its underutilization, loss, and even waste. At present, the factors causing talent loss in some enterprises, especially state-owned construction firms, are mostly human-related, including systems, mechanisms, policies, and mental attitudes, as well as factors inherent to the enterprises themselves. A truly idealistic and ambitious person does not pursue mere financial income; rather, they seek to realize their own social value. There is a saying nowadays that the advantage of foreign companies lies in \"high salaries\", while the advantage of state-owned enterprises lies in \"opportunities for growth\". This has a certain degree of scientific validity and practicality. One of the main reasons why many people consider working in state-owned enterprises is their appreciation for the unique \"space\" advantages offered by such enterprises. The greatest advantage of state-owned enterprises is that they provide young talents with ample opportunities for development; it is possible for capable young professionals to take charge of a project, a department, or a team in a relatively short period of time. Employees feel like they are the owners of the company. Moreover, state-owned enterprises operate in a standardized and honest manner, taking great responsibility towards society, which helps them gain societal recognition. Employees tend to remain in such companies for longer periods, and factors such as the corporate culture and brand reputation are also advantages of state-owned enterprises. Therefore, we must make efforts in this advantageous “space” aspect. The author believes that the focus should be on four aspects: 3.1 Establishing a set of early-warning mechanisms and crisis-management systems for talent loss. This early warning mechanism requires companies to establish dedicated channels for communicating with their employees, in order to understand their aspirations and needs. Companies should regularly conduct surveys and analyses of their employees’ work conditions in order to understand the level of satisfaction among talent with the corporate environment, and to identify and resolve issues related to the utilization of talent in a timely manner. Generally speaking, it is advisable to establish a dedicated position in the human resources department, with a specific person responsible for conducting investigations into the company’s talent situation. The so-called crisis management mechanism mainly refers to the talent reserve mechanism and the emergency response mechanism for the loss of key talents. Companies should strengthen talent reserves on a regular basis to create a hierarchical and tiered structure of talents. When key employees leave, it is possible to quickly find suitable replacements, thereby minimizing disruption and losses. When key employees leave or a group of them switch jobs, companies need to be able to respond immediately, swiftly stabilizing the morale and emotions of the remaining staff, and handling explanations and public relations tasks with suppliers, customers, the media, and other parties. 3.2 Improve management and incentive mechanisms centered on performance evaluation and compensation and benefits systems. Correctly assess the value of talent and evaluate their contribution to the company; based on this, establish compensation packages that are competitive in the industry and motivating for employees. It is necessary to establish a reasonable gap in salaries and ensure that there is room for salary increases. “\"Eating from the same pot, with no difference between good and poor performance\" is an important factor that hinders the enthusiasm of talents, and it is also the main reason why they consider leaving. By implementing preferential policies, every effort is made to do practical things and provide assistance for outstanding talents, helping them overcome difficulties. Moral encouragement should be linked to tangible benefits, breaking away from the convention of favoring those with longer tenure; in matters such as professional title promotions and rank adjustments, the extent of contributions and the spirit of motivation should be taken into account. In particular, those who have made significant contributions to the company deserve to be highly rewarded ； Those who cause significant losses to enterprises must be severely punished. It’s about contribution, not diplomas ； Effectiveness matters more than seniority ； Clear rewards and punishments help outstanding talents stand out. An “buffet-style” benefits system could be tried out: the company lists a range of benefits, and employees choose the ones they need most based on their eligibility level and preferences, before submitting an application. Use stocks, options, and other means to reward key talents who make outstanding contributions to the company, thereby ensuring that such individuals have the opportunity to advance within the company based on their abilities and contributions. 3.3 Foster a harmonious corporate culture and create a positive working environment that helps retain employees. To retain talent, construction and installation companies should also focus on addressing their own organizational shortcomings and enhancing their overall capabilities, thereby creating a favorable environment that helps to keep employees committed to the company. Inspire people with a passionate drive for success, focus on integrating individual careers with the development of the company, create a competitive environment where everyone strives to outdo one another, and enable talents to see the company as a platform for creating and realizing their own value, allowing their individual abilities to be fully utilized. By carrying out the “experienced mentors guiding juniors” initiative, a technical officer with practical experience is assigned as their on-the-job mentor to provide hands-on guidance and support. The leaders of the project department should try to assign them to larger and more important projects, so that they have a platform and opportunities to gain experience and showcase their talents. Gradually, more responsibilities should be entrusted to them, and they should be encouraged to take on independent tasks, thereby feeling pressured and motivated, being able to apply what they have learned, and developing a stronger sense of commitment and responsibility. At the same time, it is necessary to retain people with a ‘home’ atmosphere. Based on the principle of \"compassionate leadership and strict management,\" it is important to maintain frequent communication and treat everyone equally, integrating a sense of \"family\" into corporate management in order to create a warm, harmonious, understanding, and supportive atmosphere of a \"big family.\" After all, a harmonious working environment is the foundation and guarantee for talents to perform effectively, as well as an important condition for attracting and retaining them. 3.4 Sustain people with a distinctive humanistic philosophy. Establish learning-oriented and entrepreneurial organizations, retain talent through an excellent corporate culture, and foster and shape employees’ qualities of diligence, self-discipline, and cooperation through a team spirit characterized by cohesion, creativity, adaptability, and sustainable development, so that the company’s cultural values become an integration of the employees’ humanistic qualities. Companies must develop their own genuine and excellent corporate culture. For talent, loyalty to a company can no longer be measured solely by material factors such as salary and benefits. The comfort of the working environment, the degree of harmony in teamwork, and the scope for performing one’s job are increasingly becoming factors to be considered. Corporate culture is formed by the integration and refinement of a company’s various valuable resources; it represents the company’s cultural essence and overall quality, and constitutes an important part of the brand’s identity. Corporate culture reflects a company’s business philosophy, corporate spirit, brand strategy, corporate image, as well as the values, codes of conduct, ethical standards, and service mindset of its employees. The role of corporate culture in enhancing employee satisfaction and loyalty cannot be ignored. Whether a company has a good corporate culture suitable for it, and whether that culture truly plays its role, reflects to some extent the company’s influence and cohesion. Without the influence of corporate culture, there can be no talk of a company’s appeal, let alone employee cohesion and loyalty. 4. Emphasize the combination of moral integrity and professional competence, and foster in corporate employees good character. No matter how high one’s knowledge level or abilities may be, without sound moral principles and professional ethics as a foundation, such individuals cannot become key pillars of the enterprise. What the Chinese despise most is being disloyal and working for someone else while benefiting from their resources. At any time, character is more important than ability; good character can also bring economic benefits. In today’s society that values integrity and harmony, the importance of character is particularly evident. Imagine in a company, there’s someone who constantly tries to undermine the company from within – can such a person be trusted? In a group, if someone acts one way in front of others but another way behind their back, can you trust such a person? ……Think about how important character is! Imagine a person who is extremely capable but has moral issues – isn’t it true that the greater their abilities, the greater the negative effects? Microsoft’s president said, “I rank character as the most important quality among all the traits of a person, ahead of intelligence, innovation, emotional intelligence, and so on. I believe that if a person has problems with their character, they are not worth considering for employment by any company.” ” The requirements regarding a person’s character in a construction company are aimed at building high-quality projects, which ultimately serves the interests of the company itself. Because the company hands its keys to every employee, it can trust them completely, allowing employees to fully utilize their talents. However, employees with poor character can cause great harm to a company, so such people must never be hired. To develop and grow a company, it is necessary to cultivate talents who truly know how to be human and possess good character. Only those with good character are full of love. They are very supportive of their leaders and show great respect for owners and partners; as a result, they inevitably enjoy good public relations. A team organized by such people will be incredibly powerful. Only those with good character have abundant energy. They rarely worry, feel depressed, anxious, preoccupied, or busy striving for power, fame, or wealth, and thus maintain abundant energy. It goes without saying that one needs energy to succeed in one’s career. Only those with good character have a clear mind. They view issues in a calm, objective, and fair manner, and calmness, objectivity, and fairness are prerequisites for the exercise of wisdom and sound judgment. If everyone can view issues calmly, objectively, and fairly, many problems within a company can be resolved properly. Only those with good character are fearless. They dare to endure hardship, dare to overcome obstacles, dare to innovate, and dare to admit mistakes. Business development is inseparable from these brave talents. Good character can bring unity, energy, wisdom, and courage to a company; it can endow it with vitality and dynamism, as well as providing a continuous source of momentum for sustainable development.
Enterprise leaders have long been aware of this problem, but it is difficult to implement effective solutions. The key factor is that salary is the most direct, obvious, and attractive tangible element, whereas the so-called “opportunities” are intangible factors that require time to be obtained, experienced, and put into practice. Life is short, and people only have a few years to actually work; so how many are willing to wait for such opportunities to arise? Additionally, people tend to get bored easily, and over time they naturally think about leaving their current jobs. In today’s environment, those who have worked in state-owned enterprises for a long time will surely want to leave as soon as possible. But will they return after a few years? That depends on whether those organizations can be attractive enough. Over several decades, state-owned enterprises have accumulated both good things and bad ones; the problem is that the good aspects were not nurtured, while the bad aspects continued to spread, causing harm. The era of state ownership is behind us, and the loss of talent has forced them to take decisive action. Some organizations have now become competitive, but they still haven’t shaken off their old habits. There is no strong entity or mechanism to bring order to the construction industry; without proper regulation, there can be no healthy working conditions, and construction companies operate in a chaotic manner.
The author’s article is really good; it hits the mark exactly. In a market economy with globalization, the rational flow of economic resources is normal. The trend among state-owned enterprises is to reduce the scale of state capital by withdrawing from certain industries; by 2010, the number of such enterprises was reduced from 140 to 80–100. Central state-owned enterprises place great emphasis on talent, and they also have adequate support in terms of funding, technology, and patents. The idea that private enterprises should take over while the state withdraws is incorrect! ~I would say it’s all developing at a 50-50 rate! ~To be honest, domestic companies still lack much successful experience in competing with foreign firms. The next 30 years will be the time when they truly show their strength. If our companies cannot support themselves and keep suffering losses in the market, relying on subsidies to make up for those losses, there is no way forward. Do you think foreign companies will give us plenty of time to learn, grow stronger, and then compete with them? No, they would prefer that you never learn how to do it and that you remain merely their consumer market. If that were the case, then in 20 years the threat would indeed be permanent! ~
The flow of talent is normal; otherwise, how can people know your value? It is only in this way that an individual’s value can be demonstrated, and wages can be increased as well. Haha
Agree with the fifth floor. Nowadays, most companies treat new employees like landlords treat serfs – not to mention the low salaries, there’s no talk of housing, insurance, or benefits either. Most new employees stay there just to gain work experience; once they have enough experience, their former company still treats them as serfs. How is it possible for them not to leave? Also: In most companies, it’s the case that \"a stranger can do the job better.\" When people change roles, they often become more productive; whereas trees die when moved. A person with sufficient work experience who switches roles a couple of times can see their value increase several fold. It’s unreasonable not to take such opportunities once one has enough experience
Construction companies are different from other industries and have their own characteristics. Talent strategies should take the following aspects into account: First, it is necessary to establish a sound employment mechanism that allows talented individuals to utilize their strengths and have opportunities to showcase their abilities. In many companies in China, relationships play a key role, and it is difficult for people without connections to find a place where they can contribute; even if one has high skills, they can only serve others； Second is to establish good liquidity; of course, liquidity is relative. If there is no flow of talent within a company, it will become dull and stagnant, lacking new ideas and thus hindering its development ； Third is to improve benefits; construction companies face much harder working conditions compared to many other industries, as they are often away from home, so it is necessary to raise their benefits ； Fourth, address the issue of staff leave to resolve individual concerns.
Objectively speaking, this is inseparable from the temporary nature of the project. In the final stages of a project, inexperienced leaders often focus most of their efforts on project completion, failing to consider what will happen to the project team members, which leads to anxiety and everyone heading their own way. :)
This is indeed a very practical problem; all state-owned construction companies face it, but so far I haven’t seen any particularly good solutions. State-owned enterprises are inefficient, and their leaders are usually self-interested; as a result, their performance is not very good. They do not make significant efforts to improve the conditions for their employees, so at present this problem is difficult to resolve.
It seems the people upstairs all have deep feelings on this! ~Introduce yourselves! ~Let’s get to know each other! ~I am from Shanghai Huisheng
Hehe, it’s mainly because there are so many people – the construction team is large in size
Companies don’t care about their employees; those in positions of authority act like tyrants, focused only on advancing their own careers and gaining wealth, without caring about the well-being of their colleagues on the front lines. If leaders don’t take responsibility and fail to consider the company’s development as well as the training of its staff, then it’s only natural that employees will leave. Everyone wants to lead a better life, and it’s quite realistic to expect to earn a few thousand more dollars by leaving the company. So why not do so? Moreover, employee turnover is something completely normal – without constant influxes and outflows, a company cannot remain vibrant and efficient. Companies must identify the problems within themselves, especially their leaders. Those who don’t value company assets and fail to manage them properly are essentially committing crimes! Then there are those employees who aren’t able to leave their companies – what is their level of productivity? People in this industry certainly know this; no need to say more... The saying \"Where there’s a will, there’s a way\" is absolutely true.
It can be said to be a common issue among state-owned enterprises, one related to mechanisms – first and foremost, the employment mechanism, and then the distribution mechanism. When a person feels that they cannot fully utilize their strengths or believes that their value is not commensurate with their current position, considering a job change becomes inevitable.
The flow of talent is good for the entire industry. Only mobile talent can find the best positions and be assigned to where they are most needed
At the core of these problems is, in fact, the mindset of the leaders among us; many projects end up being won at low prices with accelerated schedules, and I believe this is the root cause! !