Multi Skilling: A Pathway to Fortify the Canadian Construction Workforce

By 2033, there will be more than 410,00 openings for skilled trades positions in Canada's construction sector. The industry has been justifiably preoccupied with finding ways to address this serious shortfall. 

Failure to fix this problem has real-world consequences, including loss of investment as proponents choose other jurisdictions where workers are in more reliable supply. 

Addressing the Workforce Gap

Some industry stakeholders have focused on international workers as part of the solution, whether on a temporary basis or via newcomers. However, Canadians have an obligation and opportunity to address the problem by concentrating our efforts to our own backyard. Efforts thus far have entailed reducing barriers to the trades for women and for Indigenous Peoples. In a prior blog post, I wrote about attracting more youth to the trades, whether by enhancing the image of trades (parity of esteem), or via a committed return to vocational high schools. 

While some success has been achieved in these areas, the construction sector has allowed itself to be limited by a serious structural flaw. 

An Invisible Barrier 

Our provincial apprenticeship systems have, for decades, provided excellent training for apprentices who go on to earn Journeyperson and Red Seal status and become gainfully employed in the trade they are rightfully proud of mastering. 

Typically, earning a Journeyperson certificate in a construction trade takes about four years. Along the way, apprentices must balance a cycle of in-class education and on-the-job training. Understandably, once a student passes their final exam and receives their certificate, they are keen to put their skills to work and fully launch their new career and occupation. 

However, two seemingly invisible barriers have created unfortunate limitations over the course of a construction trades career- and as a result, on the productivity of the entire sector. 

1. Technical trades institutions are generally (and somewhat understandably) geared to guide their students along a single trade pathway.
2. Traditional building trades unions (BTUs) presume their members will belong for life to a single craft union. The BTU system works to funnel people into an artificially narrow occupational path

These two factors have contributed to a mentality that skilled tradespeople are locked into one skilled trade for the duration of their career. 

This serious flaw has consequential implications for Canada’s skilled trade shortage, maximization of the existing workforce, job-site productivity, hand-offs between trades on the job site, and enhanced career pathways. 

• If a person wishes to perform any portion of work of another trade, provincial regulations and/or craft union jurisdictional guardrails can prohibit such activity (for example, a certified carpenter is not permitted to help a certified electrician pull cable)
• The silo approach separating trades can create practical issues when handing off work between one trade and the next (trade jurisdictions may restrict flexibility in overlapping scopes of work)
• On BTU job sites, endless jurisdictional rules are set in place, and often subject to disputes which enforce rigid guardrails between trades
• The system embeds a mindset that once in a trade, a person should not be inclined consider seeking a second (or third) trades certificate 
• An industry hungry for more workers is constrained by a skills-training ecosystem which does not facilitate flexibility in the design of the work 

It is appropriate to acknowledge that there are legitimate safety and performance reasons as to why there are delineations between certain trades and restrictions on scopes of work within a trade. 

However, while acknowledging this, what has been largely left unexplored and untried is an approach generally referred to as "multi-skilling". Multi-skilling is a modern, innovative approach which allows for the possibility of micro-credentiallng, skill blending, and dual ticketing. 

Micro-Credentialing

A Journeyperson may have good reason and opportunity to upskill or retrain in areas that complement education and training already accomplished. Micro-credentialing offers a pathway to incrementally expanding one's skill set without having to fully return to school for another complete certificate. 

Skill Blending 

There are several skilled trades which often go hand-in-hand on a job site. 

By way of example, consider the scaffolding and insulating trades. Scaffolders erect the platforms needed for insulators to install thermal and acoustic insulation. Skill blending recognizes the simple logic in facilitating education and training that enables tradespersons to perform adjacent scopes of work – in this case, scaffolders and insulators trained in complementary skill sets. 

Another example relies on the fact that, during various years of apprenticeship, students in adjacent trades pathways learn common subject material. For example, there are a total of 25 to 30 modules containing distinct technical knowledge relating to various mechanical trades. These might include the millwright, welder, pipefitter, fabricator, and boilermaker trades. No single trade would cover all of these modules, but many would share common modules. As a result, where boilermakers are in short supply, it would make sense for a portion of that body of work to be performed by a pipefitter or millwright who has received the same relevant training.

Innovations in adult learning theory are being applied in fascinating ways in the construction sector. Workers with an existing trades ticket can challenge the Red Seal exam of another trade by receiving educational and tutoring supports which enable them to bypass apprenticeship levels and modules which are already familiar to them and in their occupational repertoire.

Dual Ticketing 

As noted above, most Journeypersons, upon completion of their four-year educational process, are eager to commence their career. At a later point in their careers, some may become interested in learning another trade - however, the prospect of returning to school as a first-year apprentice may be financially off-putting for a seasoned adult tradesperson.

Recent developments in adult educational theory and practice (andragogy) provide a more streamlined approach. Adult learners, with appropriate support, can aspire to challenging a second Red Seal ticket in a fraction of the time it would take compared to the traditional multi-year pathway. 

Implications of Multi Skilling 

The construction sector has been appropriately keen to grow its workforce to meet the needs of an expanding industry. While we focus on reducing barriers to entry into the sector, we should also dedicate substantial effort to increasing capacity from within.

Micro-credentialing, skill blending, and dual ticketing leverage an existing workforce already populated with skilled tradespersons eager to expand their skill sets. Doing so can create better work opportunities and greater career satisfaction for workers, strengthen mentorship opportunities, improve productivity across the sector, facilitate innovation in the design of work and work crews, support a more flexible and nimble workforce for employers, and increase the likelihood of investment.