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Nonresidential construction continues to drive hiring across the industry, adding more than 113,000 jobs over the past year according to the Associated General Contractors of America. As more workers arrive on active jobsites, safety leaders face a familiar challenge: helping every new hire become productive, informed, and connected from day one. In this month's Industry Insights, we spoke with construction leaders about how they're navigating workforce growth, onboarding, and communication as projects continue to expand.
Key Points
- Nonresidential construction added more than 113,000 jobs over the past year.
- As more workers join active jobsites, consistent onboarding and communication become increasingly important.
- Industry leaders are strengthening onboarding and communication to help new workers become productive and informed from day one.
- Strong communication helps new workers become productive faster while supporting a safer jobsite.
Nonresidential Construction Continues to Drive Hiring
According to the Associated General Contractors of America, nonresidential construction added more than 113,000 jobs over the past year, reflecting continued demand for workers across commercial, industrial, infrastructure, and other nonresidential projects. Construction wages also continue to rise faster than the broader labor market, highlighting the ongoing demand for skilled workers.
For contractors, these numbers represent opportunity.
But they also create a challenge.
Every new hire needs to understand the jobsite, know where to find information, and receive the same critical updates as everyone else already on the project.
As projects continue to grow and more workers join active jobsites, onboarding isn't just an HR responsibility. It's a jobsite communication challenge.
Hiring Is Only the Beginning
Finding workers is only the first step.
Once they're on site, crews need to quickly understand:
- Clear safety requirements
- Emergency procedures
- Daily communication expectations
- Schedule updates
- Changes to access points or work areas
- Who to contact when questions arise
On projects where new workers are arriving regularly, consistency becomes increasingly important.
What We're Hearing From Industry Leaders
Hiring workers is only the first step. As more people enter the construction industry, contractors are also adapting how they onboard, train, and communicate with their workforce.
James Shay, CEO of American Contractors Insurance Group (ACIG), a construction-industry insurer, says many contractors are strengthening their hiring process before workers ever step onto the jobsite.
"One of our members on a very large jobsite has built out a robust onboarding orientation process for every new hire. For their self perform teams, they take it a step further with a skills assessment. They have stations set up where each candidate has to attempt the skill, so they can confirm the person really has what the job requires before bringing them onto the team."
Tricia Kagerer, Executive Vice President at Jordan Foster Construction, has seen another significant shift in the workforce.
"Ten years ago, many people entered construction because they had a family connection or history in the industry. Today, we're seeing people give construction a try with no background whatsoever."
Many of these new workers arrive without fully understanding the physical demands of construction, working outdoors in changing weather conditions, or what to expect on a jobsite. As a result, contractors are placing greater emphasis on setting expectations early and creating a stronger onboarding experience.
"We have completely redone our orientation and onboarding, and we're looking for better ways to continuously reach our people.”
Tricia also sees one encouraging trend. While technology adoption was once a challenge, today's workforce expects digital tools, making it easier for contractors to communicate with workers throughout the life of a project.
Looking ahead, she believes the contractors that will attract and retain the best people will offer more than competitive wages.
"Reputation, pay, hours, benefits, culture, and career path longevity will be the companies that win."
Looking Ahead
The industry's growth is encouraging.
As projects grow and workforces expand, contractors who invest in clear communication, consistent onboarding, and connected teams will be better positioned to keep workers safe and productive from their very first day on site.
How MindForge Helps
How MindForge Helps Growing To Keep Every New Worker Connected
As your workforce grows, so does the challenge of ensuring every new worker receives the right information from day one and continues to receive it throughout the project's life.
MindForge helps simplify both onboarding and ongoing communication, giving project teams the tools to keep everyone informed, documented, and connected.
“The feedback that we've gotten from our teams in the field has been tremendous. When you talk about the ability to communicate full spectrum across the entire job site, not just from foreman or site supervisors, but the entire team.”
-John Shea, Safety Engineer - Pepper Construction of Ohio
“I think there's a really good gap that was bridged with a platform like Mindforge because everyone's getting the same information. The orientation itself is much more seamless, quick, easy, understandable. Right? So it makes it easier for people's attention to stay on point and for them to receive the information that they need.”
-Tanishani Melendez, Senior Safety Coordinator - Skanska
Build a Comprehensive Orientation
No two orgnanziations or jobsites are exactly alike, and your orientation shouldn't be either.
With MindForge, you can create a digital orientation tailored to your unique safety requirements, site logistics, emergency procedures, and expectations. Upload videos, PDFs, and other resources so every worker receives the same information before they begin work.
Whether your orientation is ten minutes or an hour, every worker starts with a consistent experience.
Enhance Your In-Person Orientation
Every organization/project has a different onboarding process.
MindForge helps teams tee up their in-person orientation by covering general information before workers arrive on site. That allows safety professionals to spend their face-to-face time answering questions, discussing job-site-specific hazards, reinforcing key expectations, and making the orientation more engaging.
The result is a more efficient onboarding process that reduces time spent on repetitive information while improving the quality of in-person conversations.
“Before, we'd sit through an orientation in a conference room for hour and a half, two hours to get through an orientation slide, make sure no one falls asleep”
-Steven Mendoza, Senior Superintendent - Skanska
Track Orientation Completion Without the Paperwork
Keeping track of orientation records shouldn't require overflowing file cabinets or stacks of paper forms.
MindForge automatically tracks who has completed orientation within the app, giving administrators a clear digital record that's easy to search whenever it's needed.
Instead of digging through folders, your records are organized and accessible in one place.
“Before Mindforge, it was pretty hard trying to track efficiently all the orientations that were done on the job site.”
-John Shea, Safety Engineer - Pepper Construction of Ohio
Keep Communication Going After Day One
Orientation is only the beginning.
Once workers are on site, MindForge helps keep everyone informed with jobsite alerts and urgent alerts delivered directly to their phones. This is especially valuable for new workers, helping them stay aware of changing jobsite conditions, safety updates, schedule changes, and other important information as they become familiar with the project.
Urgent alerts use a distinct notification sound so workers immediately recognize that something important requires their attention, whether it's an emergency, evacuation, weather event, or another critical update. They are designed to supplement air horns and other established jobsite communication strategies, providing another reliable way to quickly reach workers with critical information.
By keeping newer workers connected to real time communication from day one, MindForge helps reinforce awareness and supports a safer, more informed workforce.
“If you tell one foreman or one superintendent and they have a hundred and fifty people on this job site, for them to notify a hundred and fifty of their own workers is a long time to get to everybody. That took forever.”
-Trenton LeBlanc, General Superintendent - Skanska
Know Who Received the Message
Sending a message is only part of the process.
MindForge allows administrators to see who has viewed alerts and important communications, providing greater visibility into workforce communication.
Instead of wondering whether information reached the field, project teams can quickly identify who has received the message and follow up if needed.
Support English and Spanish-speaking workers
Clear communication starts with making sure workers understand the information they're receiving.
The construction industry has long recognized that approximately 30% of the workforce is Spanish-speaking. MindForge's own data shows that 27% of users access the app in Spanish based on their device language settings.
MindForge delivers orientations, alerts, and other communications in English or Spanish based on each worker's language preference, helping reduce communication barriers and ensuring critical information reaches more of the workforce in the language they understand.
“Having the Spanish feature available has made a huge impact. And I can speak for myself, Spanish being my first language, it's also very important that we communicate in that preferred language to workers.”
-Gabriel Nido, Regional Safety Manager, Weitz Company
Grow Your Workforce Without Growing Administrative Work
Hiring more workers doesn't have to mean creating more paperwork or more communication challenges.
By combining digital orientations, documented completion records, direct jobsite communication, urgent alerts, and message visibility into one platform, MindForge helps project teams onboard workers more efficiently and keep new hires informed from their first day on site.
As work progresses, teams can send alerts about changing jobsite conditions, active work areas, weather impacts, access changes, and other site-specific hazards directly to every worker's phone. This ongoing communication helps reinforce safety expectations beyond orientation, keeping new hires aware of what is happening around them and helping them navigate an unfamiliar jobsite with greater confidence.
As your workforce grows, your communication can grow with it.