The Dirt on the New vs. Old School: Building Bridges on the Jobsite

Cost-Savings

• Reduced turnover and onboarding costs: Better alignment between generations means fewer young workers leaving early, saving recruiting, training, and lost-productivity costs.

• Improved productivity: Less time lost to misunderstandings, crew friction, or re-work stemming from generational communication issues means more machine/crew hours producing rather than resolving conflict.

• Lower safety-incident risk: Miscommunication between generations can lead to unsafe assumptions, gaps in experience, or unchecked field behaviours. Improving communication and buy-in reduces risk (and its cost).

• Reduced leadership time spent on supervision/repair: If generational issues cause crew mis-alignment, leadership spends more time managing behaviours rather than driving production; reducing this frees leadership to focus on higher-value tasks.

• Better bids and margin management: When your workforce is cohesive, reliable, low-turnover and safer, you reduce risk premium in estimating, you avoid cost escalations from crew change-outs or disruptions — protecting margin.

• Improved safety and reputation, lower insurance cost: A more engaged and stable workforce often correlates with fewer incidents over time, which can influence your EMR (experience modification rate) and insurance premiums — indirect cost savings.

• Maintained schedules and reduced delays: Crew turnover or low buy-in from younger workers can lead to stoppages or delays; reducing those helps keep on schedule, avoiding delay penalties and idle equipment cost.