Explore the Agenda
Workshop A: Building Sustainable Talent Pipelines for Construction’s Future Workforce
8:30 am Registration & Networking
9:00 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
9:10 am Discover: Recruiting Gen Z Starts with Understanding Gen Z: How Build California Is Reimagining Construction Workforce Development
- Challenging traditional workforce attraction strategies by researching how Gen Z explores careers, identifying the factors that influence career decisions, and reshaping industry outreach to align with the expectations of the next generation
- Moving beyond awareness campaigns by engaging more than 58,000 students through social media, school partnerships, career exploration, jobsite experiences, and one-to-one career coaching that guides young people from curiosity to career readiness
- Helping employers build stronger talent pipelines by addressing misconceptions about construction careers, preparing candidates for industry expectations, and connecting workforce-ready talent with training opportunities, apprenticeships, and industry employers
9:30 am Discover: Construction’s Talent Shortage Starts in High School: How ACE Mentor Program Is Building the Industry’s Future Workforce
- Challenging outdated perceptions of construction careers by engaging more than 15,000 students annually through hands-on mentoring, project-based learning, and direct exposure to careers across trades, engineering, architecture, and construction management
- Connecting students directly with industry professionals, employers, internships, externships, and education pathways, creating a scalable talent pipeline that converts early awareness into long-term workforce participation
- Strengthening workforce diversity and future talent availability by engaging a student population that is 70% students of color and 40% women, helping employers build relationships with future hires years before recruitment begins
9:50 am Develop: How Are Construction Organizations Reaching Future Talent Before Recruitment Begins?
Join both speakers for an interactive audience-led Q&A designed to unpack the strategies, challenges, and lessons behind their approaches to Gen Z engagement, career awareness, mentoring, and early workforce pathways. Ask your questions, compare perspectives, and gain deeper insight into what it takes to successfully drive change in this area.
10:10 am Action: What Would It Take to Apply These Workforce Pipeline Lessons Within Your Organization?
Work alongside your peers to reflect on the ideas shared throughout this section and build a practical action plan for improving early awareness, career exposure, and workforce entry.
Discuss potential barriers, exchange experiences, and identify the first steps needed to drive meaningful progress.
10:30 am Networking Break
11:00 am Discover: Construction’s Labor Crisis Starts Long Before Hiring: How JE Dunn Built a Workforce Pipeline from Classroom to Career
- Challenging traditional workforce planning by engaging more than 56,000 students and 4,900 educators, creating construction career awareness years before talent enters the labor market
- Replacing fragmented local outreach with a nationally aligned workforce strategy that enables 26 offices to scale career exposure, community impact, and talent engagement consistently
- Connecting K-12 awareness directly to workforce development programs that have achieved 86% retention across 128 graduates, creating a measurable pathway into skilled trades careers
11:20 am Develop: How Can Construction Employers Convert Awareness Into Workforce Entry?
Join the speaker for an audience-led Q&A designed to explore how early awareness, education partnerships, workforce readiness, and development programs can translate into measurable hiring and retention outcomes.
11:30 am Action: What Practical Steps Can You Take to Strengthen Your Future Talent Pipeline?
Work alongside your peers to reflect on the ideas shared throughout this section and build a practical action plan for improving early talent engagement, workforce development partnerships, and long-term pipeline conversion.
11:50 am Interactive Consultancy Roundtable: Where Is Your Future Workforce Pipeline Breaking Down?
In this interactive session, each group will identify their most pressing workforce pipeline challenge, whether it is Gen Z engagement, career awareness, school partnerships, or converting early interest into employment. Then, you’ll swap challenges with another group and collaborate to develop practical, experience-driven recommendations. Finally, all groups will reconvene to share insights, compare solutions, and leave with actionable ideas to strengthen future talent strategies across construction.
12:30 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks & End of Workshop A
Workshop B: Applying AI to Improve Workforce Planning, Productivity & Decision Making
1:00 pm Registration & Networking
1:30 pm Chair’s Opening Remarks
1:40 pm Discover: Reactive Workforce Planning Is Costing Construction Talent: How Barton Malow Is Using AI to Forecast Workforce Needs Earlier
- Moving beyond fragmented staffing decisions by connecting workforce planning, project forecasting, and HR systems into a single talent planning ecosystem that provides greater visibility into workforce supply and future project demand
- Leveraging AI-enabled forecasting and predictive planning tools to anticipate workforce needs based on backlog, revenue projections, and project pipelines, helping leaders make talent decisions before shortages impact delivery
- Improving workforce deployment and organizational agility through centralized data, more efficient staffing decisions, and stronger alignment between recruiting, workforce planning, and business strategy
2:00 pm Discover: Building the HR Operating System for Growth: How Christman Is Driving Digital Adoption at Scale Through Workforce- Centric Change Management
- Replacing manual processes and outdated systems with a modern HR platform, creating the digital foundation needed to support business growth, improve efficiency, and automate high-volume HR activities
- Bringing leaders, office employees, and field-based skilled trades workers on the transformation journey by overcoming resistance to change, driving technology adoption, and ensuring new systems work for the realities of a construction workforce
- Applying practical change management strategies to shift behaviors, modernize ways of working, and move from informal, people-dependent processes to scalable, data-driven workforce operations
2:20 pm Develop: How Are Construction Organizations Turning AI Interest Into Practical Workforce Impact?
Join both speakers for an interactive audience-led Q&A designed to unpack the strategies, challenges, and lessons behind their approaches to AI-enabled workforce planning, employee support, and HR efficiency. Ask your questions, compare perspectives, and gain deeper insight into what it takes to successfully drive change in this area.
2:40 pm Action: What Would It Take to Apply These AI Lessons Within Your Organization?
3:00 pm Networking Break
3:30 pm Interactive Workshop: AI Doesn’t Need to Be Expensive: How Polk Mechanical Is Building Practical AI Solutions for HR
- Challenging the rush to buy AI tools by developing an in-house understanding of how AI works, enabling smarter decisions around when to build, when to buy, and how to avoid unnecessary technology spend
- Improving employee experience through practical AI applications including multilingual HR knowledge assistants and on-demand training support that help employees access critical information instantly, regardless of language or location
- Equipping HR leaders to identify high-value use cases, understand the real cost of AI adoption, and build scalable solutions that align technology investment with workforce and business priorities
4:10 pm Interactive Consultancy Roundtable: Where Could AI Create the Greatest Workforce Value in Your Business?
In this interactive session, each group will identify their most pressing AI challenge, whether it is workforce planning, employee support, HR productivity, or technology investment. Then, you’ll swap challenges with another group and collaborate to develop practical, experience-driven recommendations. Finally, all groups will reconvene to share insights, compare solutions, and leave with actionable ideas to strengthen AI adoption across construction HR.