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Economic stagnation, trade threats and weak project demand in multiple sectors aren’t the only worries for Canada’s builders.

Delegates attending a project managers panel discussion in Toronto recently heard that within the industry, owners and contractors face an array of mounting challenges, including higher costs, more complex projects and a talent market so tight project teams are routinely at risk of losing key members to poaching.

Project delivery adviser Brian Maksymetz told delegates the successful contractors are those who find ways to keep their teams intact, well-trained, engaged, productive and loyal to their employer of choice.

He spoke at the first Best Practices in ��������ion Symposium hosted by the Canadian ��������ion Association late last month. The event was led by Jorgen Kvist, the CCA’s director of industry practices, and the project management session was billed as From Blueprint to Reality: Project Management Mastery.

CCA president Rodrigue Gilbert commented, “In a time where the entire future is uncertain, the industry is always willing to step up. And I think bringing all these real practitioners together…bringing real-time solutions, that was the idea.”

“Engineering companies are short of people. ��������ion companies are short of people,” said Maksymetz in an interview. “When you’re in a heated market like Vancouver and Toronto, people will go across the street for a 10-per-cent wage increase.

“I focus on what are employers doing to become an employer of choice again. What’s old is new again, because we used to talk about that 30 years ago.”

Besides Maksymetz, who is collaborative delivery portfolio manager for water in Canada at Jacobs Consultancy, the project managers panel featured Robert Balicsak, national director, higher education with Colliers Project Leaders, and EllisDon construction manager Ryan Martineau.

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Team-building best practices

Maksymetz, Balicsak and Martineau offered a range of insights on team-building and collaboration:

• Balicsak described a major design-build project that was well underway when COVID-19 hit; the team faced a new set of challenges. “We pulled everybody together. And it was probably one of our most successful projects I’ve ever delivered, in a time that I’ve never been through before in my life.

���� “We still hang out with that team. We finished that project. It was a huge success. If ������you can get through a project and you can build a team, you’re going to have a successful project.”

• Martineau spoke on creating a culture of collaboration. “It’s people and planning.…It’s not just led by the top down, it’s fuelled from the bottom up.

“Collaboration is the pathway to resilience. If you collaborate well, not just internally, but externally as well…Design, build, finance, maintain, those jobs require heavy collaboration. There’s a lot of risk on the table for a lot of individual parties, but if you create from the beginning a culture of collaboration mindset, and do not deviate from that, remain steadfast, it will become a successful project.”

• Maksymetz addressed the internal benefits of collaboration. “In today’s collaborative environment, everybody’s having more fun on the jobs. They get to work with the construction contractor, they get to see how work gets built…So they’re having a higher level of job satisfaction, plus those jobs are going better, higher level engagement, higher productivity, people working together to de-risk a project and solve problems.”
• Balicsak on frank discussions: “Collaboration is not co-operation. The team’s got to be able to challenge one another. Some people think they are collaborating, but they’re merely co-operating, and that’s not helping the greater good of what we’re trying to achieve.”
• Maksymetz on staff training: “Thirty years ago, when I started my career, the training budget was $1,000 per person per year. Thirty years later, companies still have a training budget of $1,000 per person per year. The best in the industry are spending $15,000 per person per year on training. Their project results show it.”
• Martineau on dealing with conflict: “Conflict is an opportunity to build trust with someone and strengthen a relationship…You can open your mind to a different perspective on an issue.

“I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in a disagreement with someone when, in fact, we’re trying to say the same thing.

“Be curious…when you truly understand each other’s position, you can build towards a common goal.”