Global Survey
Columbia University’s Global Leaders in Construction Management (GLCM) team, led by Dr. Ibrahim Odeh commissioned an online survey aimed towards people from all different backgrounds, cultures, locations and ages to be able to analyze & conclude trends within the construction industry. 3,304 responses were received globally from the period of October 6, 2017 - February 7, 2018.
The respondents were separated by continent, gender, and work experience (in years) allowing us to diversify our results as much as possible. Major findings were discovered in recruitment & employment strategies such as company size (# of employees), company type (start-up/established) and company region (international/national). Also, the team found gender differences such as inequality and directing responsibilities between males and females and even differences among new future technologies and how they will play a role on the construction industry.
For example, “New Technology” specifically is considered as being a vital factor for the future construction industry regardless of the generation, residency, and gender. Throughout the survey, more than 70% of the respondents recognize the importance of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), drone, virtual reality (VR) for the construction industry. Along with this, respondents feel that engineers will be able to collaborate with these new technologies and work with them, avoiding the loss of job opportunities when compared with other general workers. These tendencies can also be seen in the question regarding the future dominating type of company in construction (start-up/established). Surprisingly, about half of the respondents view the start-up as being the leading companies down the road in the construction industry. For the respondents that didn’t choose start-ups, about 25% answered that companies from other industries will be the dominating position. This tells us that for the current big construction companies that dominate the industry, a change in their working practice is required to survive in the future.
Finally, the GLCM team developed several conclusions based on the study and below are few examples of the outcome:
Team
Nick Adamo
Arjun Chokshi
Takefumi Watanuki
