The Connected Construction Professional Series: Construction HR and Payroll Professionals

People are the backbone of every successful construction organization. Without a thriving, engaged workforce in place, contractors can struggle during both calm and turbulent times. As construction projects and work environments become larger and more complex, and labor shortages continue to complicate matters, construction human resources and payroll professionals have their hands full.

If you’re one of these unsung heroes of the construction industry, you know first hand just how important your role is. Without you, your company simply doesn’t work. But that also puts the pressure on you and your team to respond, react and report in accurate and timely cadences. If you’re still dealing with paper-based and manual workflows, then you’re likely overworked and stressed out.

Depending on size and scope, a construction company will typically cycle anywhere from hundreds to thousands of workers through its HR systems each year. From hiring and onboarding to safety, skills training and benefits, payroll, compliance reporting and so much more, construction HR departments are often buried in both work and workers. As economies and businesses cautiously emerge from Covid-19 and begin to reopen, HR teams face additional pressure to keep employees informed, safe, engaged and responsive—all in real time, while also tracking the employee information needed to keep projects moving and workforce needs satisfied.

Many times, especially with smaller construction companies, the roles of HR and payroll, might be handled by one person. If this sounds like you, you may also serve as a general office manager or administrative assistant, meaning you have other duties as well. If you’re lucky enough to work with a large enough back office team where HR and payroll duties can be spread across multiple people, it can certainly help, but then again, you’re likely a larger company, handling multiple moving-target projects, and having to meet the needs of significantly larger workforces.

Like with many other industries, many of the HR and payroll workflows were paper-based for many contractors. That is, up until early 2020 when the pandemic hit. Covid-19 led many workers to shun paper altogether, and manual processes were no match for demanding modern construction needs and new workforce dynamics spurred by the pandemic. Although construction workforces have gotten back to work, digitization of the data that keeps work moving and workers safe is now a must-do to ensure business continuity.

When it comes to the chief role of construction HR today, however, most people immediately associate that with finding talent. The construction labor shortage—dating back to the mid-2000s recession and exacerbated by the pandemic, economy and most recently, the “Great Resignation”—has remained the single biggest issue in the industry. And it puts extra pressure on construction HR folks to find, recruit and onboard qualified workers to meet their companies’ project needs.

Modern connected construction technologies are changing the game in construction—especially in the construction human resources and construction payroll arenas. Contractors that have digitized their operations and moved their data and workflows to hosted cloud environments via connected construction suites are able to tie together their people, projects and processes like never before.

So, what does that mean when it comes to your role as a construction human resources and/or construction payroll professional? It means completely changing, automating and simplifying your workflows, while meeting your most pressing needs:

1. Digitization: It’s the 21st century—why are you still rifling through mountains of physical employee paperwork, benefits materials, training docs, time cards, paper checks, envelopes and more? Digitize workflows and pull up any information you need in just seconds.

2. Expanded Recruiting Outreach: You know you need to cast a wider net and find more skilled workers and construction professionals. With digital cloud workflows and instant connections to top industry job boards, you can find talent much faster and easier than ever before. And, this is especially helpful in attracting younger, more tech-savvy professionals to your organization.

3. Simplified Onboarding: Once you find the talent, getting them hired, trained and working can be a drain—especially when doing so for dozens or even hundreds all at once when new projects come online. Make it simple with digital, automated workflows that put all of the information new hires need directly in their hands and takes the onus off of you to manually ensure every proper box is checked. 

4. Streamlined Payroll Processes: Say goodbye to paper time cards and spreadsheets and hello to streamlined time card collection applications connected to your back-office time approval and payroll processes. And, when payroll needs to be run, trust that a construction-specific, digital solution is making sure nothing falls through the cracks and your workforce is being paid quickly and accurately.

5. Employee Self-Serve HR Tools: It’s ok, you can say it—you’re tired of chasing down pay stubs or benefits forms for dozens of employees each day. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a secure, easily accessible portal where employees could go find all the pertinent information they need themselves?

6. Security: The latest security protections, user permissions and backups in place at all times to protect your company’s sensitive and essential data, and ensure the right people are seeing the right information you need them to see.

7. Time to Focus on Other Important HR Tasks: You know those other HR duties you’re supposed to be handling, like developing stronger career paths, fostering DEI programs and negotiating better benefits? Once you can set those day-to-day construction HR and payroll processes on cruise control, you’ll have a lot more time and energy to tackle these important tasks!

For everyone across the organization—and especially for construction HR and construction payroll professionals—Trimble Construction One is the connected construction suite you’ve been dreaming about!

Trimble Construction One is a connected, cloud platform that drives productivity, efficiency, and accuracy at each phase of the construction project lifecycle. Leveraging cloud data and automated workflow capabilities, Trimble Construction One ties together all facets of each project, from estimating and bidding through workforce management to project closeout and delivery, in one collaborative working environment.

With Trimble Construction One, and connected solutions like Viewpoint HR Management, you can shave hours off those cumbersome manual construction HR and payroll tasks that have been bogging you down each day. Become your workforce’s hero instead of its roadblock.

Watch what a true connected construction environment could deliver for your organization: