Shift the Equation: Navigating the Labor Shortage
Navigating the labor shortage is challenging, but advancements in concrete technology are helping contractors gain more control over labor and production.
Contractors are maestros of the jobsite and masters of planning for flawless execution. But if you’re a contractor, you know that even the best plans can fall victim to faulty execution if you can’t orchestrate the right balance between time, labor, and materials. If these elements fall out of line and out of your control, it’s only a matter of time until your profitability spirals out of your control as well.
The labor shortage in construction is wreaking havoc on contractors everywhere, and it is not going away any time soon. According to The National Association of Homebuilders, job openings are at record levels and will continue to pressure project execution as the demand for construction trends higher.1
A survey conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 90 percent of its members are struggling to find qualified workers, and more than 60 percent have delayed projects due to skilled labor shortages.2 Real-estate developer JLL estimates that construction labor costs increased 4.6 percent and they are expected to rise 3 to 6 percent in the year ahead, creating another challenge for construction projects.3
It’s not just hiring woes that are plaguing the industry, either. The effects of being short-staffed are obvious on budget sheets, project schedules, and the inability to deliver great service to customers.
Material and Technology: Concrete Answers to Today’s Labor Challenges
As efforts to attract more workers to the construction industry gain traction, what can you do right now to counter the threats to your bottom line? Can you control the elements of labor supply and demand? The obvious answer is no. Can you reduce labor threats by thinking about how innovation and materials can help you regain control over your resources? Many forward-thinking contractors are doing just that.
Contractors who are trying more advanced, proprietary concrete mixes are getting high early strength on pours within hours instead of days. They’re distributing slab pours and fill forms without the vibration that traditional concrete formulations require. So much depends on getting structures into service quickly and optimizing labor productivity especially when labor is not readily available.
Save Time and Reduce Costs with Self-Consolidating Concrete
The right self-consolidating concrete mix for meeting complex construction challenges can eliminate labor-intensive steps and deliver considerable time and cost savings.
The city of Anna, Texas is one of the fastest-growing communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. While increased development brings many benefits, it also comes with certain challenges—especially considering this area of North Texas is situated in “tornado alley”.
To meet the growing need for improving public safety, the city decided to build a high-performance emergency management center to serve as a safe room during disaster-response efforts. Sizelove Construction could not use conventional concrete because the structure’s atypical shape would not allow for easy product placement. The concrete contractor needed a high-strength mix that would spread effortlessly through and firmly consolidate around highly congested reinforcement in the uniquely tapered high-vertical core walls, where vibration was not an option.
The solution was Agileflow®, a highly fluid, advanced self-consolidating concrete that flows cohesively under its own weight. Topping the list of benefits attractive for the project were the product’s easy-to-place nature and its ability to accelerate pouring work as the mix flows quickly through congested rebar in formwork without vibration. Additional advantages include superior non-segregation properties for greater structural integrity and high-quality finishes on the exposed surfaces.
The Agileflow SCC mix proved to be the ideal solution for meeting the demanding construction, durability, and quality goals of the project. The product performed exceptionally well in spreading throughout the congested formwork and surpassed specified strength requirements. There also was no deconsolidation of the product in the heavily reinforced areas or honeycombing of concrete surfaces.
Due to its superb self-consolidating properties, the high-performance Agileflow concrete mix limited our labor requirements in constructing the walls where vibrating was not an option, which was a huge benefit in terms of time and cost savings.”
- Hayden Mitchell, Director of Operations, Sizelove Construction
Rapid High-Strength and Easier Workability for Increased Productivity
Can you improve vital transport links, while limiting disruption to motorists? Yes. The right mix can achieve both by delivering high strength within hours to ensure quick turnaround and heightened jobsite efficiency.
To improve mobility along U.S. Route 75, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) initiated a significant pavement-improvement project along a 12.7-mile stretch of the aging highway. Time was of the essence as the plan called for closing lanes at 7:30 p.m. to make repairs and reopening the lanes to motorists the following morning at 6 a.m.
For meeting the accelerated construction schedule and need for increased jobsite efficiency, O. Trevino Construction relied on RAPIDFORCE® to achieve a high early strength gain of 1,800 psi within six hours, to maintain excellent workability in hot Texas temperatures, and to reach an ultimate 28-day durable pavement strength of 4,000 psi. Based on the detailed approach to designing RAPIDFORCE mixes, this innovative rapid-strength concrete can be easily placed for up to two hours in any climate condition.
With the mix retaining its slump for up to two hours, the work crews could see a substantial difference in workability and consistently surpassed the six-hour strength needed to reopen the work zones to traffic. Due to the outstanding performance of the RAPIDFORCE product, the contractor completed the concrete repair work in 70 percent of the time allotted by TxDOT and quickly moved on to its next contract for upgrading U.S. Highway 75 pavement surfaces northward to the Oklahoma state line.
The quality of the RAPIDFORCE concrete from batch to batch was excellent and kept our work crews very productive.”
- Javier Ramirez, Project Supervisor, O. Trevino Construction
Meet Fast-Track Schedules, Reduce Labor Requirements with Advanced Concrete Materials
Construction is a demanding business, made more challenging by worker shortages, rising costs, and increasing calls to fast-track projects. To meet these challenges, savvy contractors are relying on innovative concrete solutions to eliminate labor-intensive steps and accelerate turnaround times.
One of the greatest challenges for contractor G&C Concrete was finding the ideal solutions to improve productivity and accelerate placement of two floors of the high-rise each week. It needed concrete that would flow easily and self-consolidate around congested rebar in the walls and tapered columns, as well achieve rapid strength gain to remove the formwork of the floor slabs in a short amount of time.
Two innovative concrete products—Agileflow® and RAPIDFORCE®—proved to be the ideal solutions for meeting the demanding performance, speed of construction, and quality goals of the project.
The high-strength Agileflow self-consolidating concrete was developed to achieve the ideal flowability needed for speeding up pouring work on the heavily reinforced columns and walls without vibration. The mix also addressed the need for producing high-quality surfaces on each floor’s twenty-four perimeter columns to minimize labor-intensive finishing steps.
The contractor also relied on customized RAPIDFORCE high early-strength concrete for all sixty floors of the building. Designed with a blended cement containing silica fume and fly ash, these high-performance mixes consistently hit a rapid strength gain of 3,500 psi in only 24 hours for meeting the accelerated construction goals of each floor’s 11,500-square-foot slab.
One of the greatest challenges for contractor G&C Concrete was finding the ideal solutions to improve productivity and accelerate placement of two floors of the high-rise each week. It needed concrete that would flow easily and self-consolidate around congested rebar in the walls and tapered columns, as well achieve rapid strength gain to remove the formwork of the floor slabs in a short amount of time.
Two innovative concrete products—Agileflow® and RAPIDFORCE®—proved to be the ideal solutions for meeting the demanding performance, speed of construction, and quality goals of the project.
The high-strength Agileflow self-consolidating concrete was developed to achieve the ideal flowability needed for speeding up pouring work on the heavily reinforced columns and walls without vibration. The mix also addressed the need for producing high-quality surfaces on each floor’s twenty-four perimeter columns to minimize labor-intensive finishing steps.
The contractor also relied on customized RAPIDFORCE high early-strength concrete for all sixty floors of the building. Designed with a blended cement containing silica fume and fly ash, these high-performance mixes consistently hit a rapid strength gain of 3,500 psi in only 24 hours for meeting the accelerated construction goals of each floor’s 11,500-square-foot slab.
Soaring 742 feet in the heart of Boston, the 60-story One Dalton Street tower—New England’s tallest residential building—is a stunning addition to the city’s skyline. This architectural landmark’s soft triangular form relied on 70,000 cubic yards of concrete to build under a fast-track timeline.
With Agileflow’s superb performance, there was no need for vibration in the heavy-rebar applications and the column surfaces were nice and smooth, which provided huge benefits in labor and time savings. RAPIDFORCE also performed up to speed in hitting specified high early-strengths and allowing us to strip out the floor slab forms early.”
- Mike Curtis, President, G&C Concrete
Looking Ahead
According to the Associated General Contractors of America, the labor situation in the construction industry is perilous, and it is only getting worse. Older workers are retiring, not only reducing the labor force in terms of number but also in terms of expertise. Less-experienced workers will be aggressively recruited into higher-level, more advanced tasks, further increasing the need for entry-level staff. While K-12 education shifts to meet this growing need, contractors need to fill the gaps today.
One way to solve a labor shortage is to become more efficient in other areas of your project, and innovations in construction materials are doing just that. To reduce the risk of delivering projects behind schedule or over budget, take a look at the research and development being produced by Holcim. RAPIDFORCE and Agileflow are just two concrete solutions that are allowing construction teams to be more efficient and optimize resources in new and exciting ways.
The concrete solutions developed by Holcim are rigorously tested by some of the world’s most prominent experts, and its network of laboratories create consistent, reliable formulas that help design and construction professionals build better.
Learn more about One Dalton Street
1. “Construction Job Openings Surge to Record High.” National Association of Home Builders, December 8, 2021.
2. “2021 Workforce Survey.” Associated General Contractors of America, September 2, 2021. “Material and Labor Availability Constrain Recovery.” Second-Half 2021 Construction Outlook. JLL, October 4, 2021.
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