Successful multi-national workforce integration program to improve construction site performance

Abstract

Hispanics are a large and growing part of the United States workforce. Hispanic workers in the US construction industry comprise nearly 20% of the workforce and are projected to increase significantly over the next several decades. Construction companies in the United States will be challenged in melding Hispanic and American cultures on project job sites. Using an integration/differentiation/ambiguity framework of cultural analysis, this research focuses on the development of an introductory training program designed to fit the needs of the US construction industry. The purpose of the study is to identify aspects of construction which should either pursue cultural integration or preserve cultural differentiation as well as assess how much ambiguity can be anticipated in the cultural training programs. This is accomplished through a review of the literature as well as through a survey of contractor attitudes and needs related the use of Hispanic workers in their construction operations. This paper focuses on describing the research and development of various courses for improving communication between the American supervisor and the Hispanic laborer. Results from this study confirm that higher order industry values such as safety should be integrated across cultural groups, while specialized technical training can be effectively targeted to a specific cultural subgroup (differentiation). A certain degree of ambiguity in cultural identify and individualization of needs should be expected as boundaries between cultural subgroups blur over time.