Recruiting, Retaining, and Promoting for Construction Careers at Transportation Agencies

Construction is a labor intensive industry, meaning that employees are the most valuable resource to construction firms and organizations. Yet, challenges exist in today’s workforce in terms of recruiting and retaining quality employees as well as attracting individuals from minority and underrepresented groups. Currently, the aging workforce of the United States along with the acknowledgment that newer generations of potential transportation workers have many different ideals, beliefs, and expectations than previous generations, reveals that recruitment and retention issues should be a primary concern for public transportation organizations such as state departments of transportation (DOTs). Gone are the days that individuals are hired by one firm and that person works their entire career at that firm. Smart, ambitious, and highly motivated employees are difficult to find and even more difficult to keep, especially when considering individuals for technician positions such as DOT engineers, engineering technicians, maintenance personnel, and information technology professionals. These difficulties are not just a construction industry problem, but a more widespread issue for industries that require career technical education fields. Qualified personnel has to be compensated well and require work that develops their skills and matches their personal interests. Since engineering and technical employees require challenging and rewarding work, strategic hiring and retention plans must be employed to successfully recruit and retain each of these types of workers. Therefore, to manage the dynamics of meeting today and tomorrow’s construction and maintenance demands with an ever shrinking and changing workforce, state DOTs need robust workforce management strategies and guidance that can effectively attract, train, and retain engineers, technicians, and workers needed to construct and maintain the U.S. highway infrastructure well into the 21st century. The strategies developed can then be used by state DOTs to gain and sustain valuable human resources from current as well as future generations of workers, including minority and underrepresented individuals within transportation agency careers.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • 17PPLSU07

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $204501
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747106

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET)

  Louisiana State University
  Baton Rouge, LA  United States  70803
• Project Managers:

  Hassan, Marwa

• Performing Organizations:

  Louisiana State University

  3660G Patrick F. Taylor Hall
  Civil and Environmental Engineering
  Baton Rouge, LA  United States  70803

  University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

  Department of Civil Engineering
  Albuquerque, NM  United States  87131-0001

  Prairie View A&M University

  Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
  P.O. Box 519
  Prairie View, TX  United States  77446

  Louisiana Transportation Research Center

  4101 Gourrier Avenue
  Baton Rouge, LA  United States  70808
• Principal Investigators:

  Harper, Christofer

  Bogus, Susan

  Kommalapati, Raghava

  Choe, Doeun

• Start Date: 20170508
• Expected Completion Date: 20181108
• Actual Completion Date: 20181108
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Education and training; Human resources management; Organizational factors; Personnel management; Personnel retention; Selection and appointment; State departments of transportation; Transportation careers
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Construction; Education and Training; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01635017
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747106
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: May 21 2017 11:32AM