Barbara DeLollis and Bill Ainsworth at the Harvard Business School report the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners has added a new layer of training for its Members: Teaching soft skills such as communication, emotional intelligence and collaboration.

The goal is to improve workplace culture at construction sites throughout the United States and Canada.

Union Leaders believe this will increase productivity and retention rates and help convince businesses that hiring or retaining Union Carpenters is cost-effective.

They report:

Many employers seek to improve workplace culture to enhance morale, retention and productivity.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBC) is also taking on that task, with some additional challenges.

The union wants to better workplace culture at construction sites across the United States and Canada that range from outdoor locations that can be scorching in the Summer and freezing in the Winter, to narrow catwalks high atop bridges or skyscrapers, and cramped spaces inside boilers.

The UBC faces the extra difficulty of improving the environment for jobs requiring physical exertion, long hours, and short deadlines in a field where, not long ago, bullying, discrimination, and hazing were often tolerated.

The process starts inside UBC’s one-million square-foot International Training Center, located on 27 acres outside Las Vegas.

Each year, 14,000 Union Members, most of them Rank-and-File, cycle through the Training Center, some of them traveling on their first airplane flight.

The bill for the Union: About $1 million a week.

Training at the center does not focus on technical competencies.

Those are taught mostly at 250 Training Centers throughout the United States and Canada.

The emphasis at the Las Vegas Center is on teaching skills that help boost morale, create new leaders and improve personal relationships.

These are soft skills, including emotional intelligence, communication, leadership, self-awareness and self-management.

UBC’s efforts to build a better workplace culture are part of President Douglas McCarron’s overall goal of improving the quality of life for the Union’s 500,000 Members, according to Randy Eppard, Executive Director of the UBC’s Department of Education and Training.

“What President McCarron wanted was a culture that our Members enjoyed, where they could do well and grow - and that required a professional working environment,” Eppard said. “So that was a tall order, because that meant we were going to change the industry, not just the Carpenters - all those job sites were going to be places where our Members not just wanted to be but felt like they belonged.”

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: Union sets ambitious goal: Transforming job site culture | Institute for Business in Global Society

Photo Courtesy Of The UBC’s Website.