The SiteVisit

Construction's Age Dilemma, AI vs Contractors & the Opioid Crisis - WSR#002 | EP87

• Andrew Hansen, James Faulkner, Christian Hamm • Season 4 • Episode 87

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In the Weekly Site Report, James and Christian dig into current news, topics and trends related to Construction, Culture and the Built Environment.

In this episode, we start by discussing the completion of "The Post", Amazon's incredible retrofit project of the old Canada Post building in Vancouver, highlighting the impressive feat and the impact it will have on the local economy. We then delve into the aging dilemma faced by the construction industry, where 20% of the labour force is over 55 and nearing retirement, emphasizing the need for innovative solutions and new talent recruitment. We explore how AI and ChatGPT can complement contractors' work, dispelling the notion that they threaten jobs and livelihoods. Shifting gears, we shed light on the opioid crisis, particularly in Ontario, Canada, revealing alarming statistics and its devastating consequences. We conclude by discussing the introduction of Naloxone, a lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medication, on all job sites in Ontario, effective June 1st, 2023, and its potential to save lives and create safer work environments.

EPISODE LINKS:

Amazon's "The Post" Project:
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/amazon-the-post-office-vancouver-transformation-complex
utm_source=newsletter.readsitenews.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=zoned-out
Construction's Age Dilemma:
https://www.constructiondive.com/news/construction-labor-retirement-recruiting-dei/651184/
Contractors vs. AI and ChatGPT:
https://www.constructiondive.com/news/contech-conversations-chatgpt-construction-try-ai/651068/https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cst_3QWRsaw/utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Naloxone Kits on Construction Sites: https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/naloxone-kits-on-ontario-construction-sites-mandatory-as-of-june-1?utm_source=newsletter.readsitenews.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=zoned-out

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH

FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit

James Faulkner:

Welcome to the site visit podcast leadership and perspective from construction with your hosts James Faulkner and Christian Hamm

Jesse Unke:

business as usual as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button

James Faulkner:

and you read all the books you read the email read scaling up you read good to great you know, I could go on

Sebastian Jacob:

we're at a place where we found the secret serum we found secret potion we can get the workers and we know where to get

Cam Roy:

one time I was on a jobsite for quite a while and actually added some extra concrete an poured like a broom finished patio out front of the site trailer

John Reid:

one time a guy hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Faber Connect platform on your guys's podcast

Zack Staples:

Own it, Crush it and love it, we celebrate these values every single day.

James Faulkner:

Let's get down to it

Christian Hamm:

all right. Are we good to go? Am I screaming?

James Faulkner:

You're not screaming? Okay. Came back from Bellevue yesterday.

Christian Hamm:

You were down in the United States of America.

James Faulkner:

I was. I was seeing as I'm still British. They had to fingerprint me on the way down again.

Christian Hamm:

Oh, yeah. Do you have any issues crossing you are figuring out your whole passport and all that kind of stuff?

James Faulkner:

No, I just had to legit fingerprinted. Yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. It's super lame. Ivy. I have a 10 year US visa to Oh, that's right. Yeah. Anyway, so that was a but I found Yeah, it's it's it's interesting. The US is very us. I kind of like it. Yeah, yes. It's pretty sweet. I don't know Bellevue was such a I went to this mall. This we're with the University of Washington and went to this mall. It was really an outdoor mall. Shake Shack was there and literally lemons there. Apple stores there. But it's like this utopia place. Yeah. Because it's the university like Sky's playing football, you know, other people's sort of just hanging around. Birds chirping ever and they had like a they have the cool thing is that they actually have a mall that has certain percentage of stores that are locally owned, which is cool. So they had like a florist and they had like an outdoor thing you know the way like if you go to a Home Depot, you see all the outside flowers and stuff. They had like a mini version of that not Home Depot. It's like a local company. But what a pretty cool place. Anyway, this is not construction related, giving you a band to where it was last weekend. Yeah,

Christian Hamm:

no, but it is kind of neat, though. When we're talking again, we spoke last week about you know, the way cities are designed and shaped and stuff like that. Yeah, Bellevue is a beautiful spot. Like you go down there and you're saying like you felt something different when you were there. Yeah, but that was the makeup and the design of that particular city and how it was all laid out. That gave you that feeling?

James Faulkner:

Yeah, no, it's pretty it's pretty pretty cool. I mean, Seattle I think Greater Seattle is 4 million people Yeah, big city. Yeah. And then what are we here three now right three and change? Yeah, go to Vancouver. The I have to say you know I have a Tesla anyway. So when I'm using the the autopilot or not autopilot just the navigation? Yeah. And I've got the you know, the the narrator's telling me where to go. But when you're doing 100 and change 120 Most of the time, and this Seattle highway system coming in and out at all on off ramps and stuff. I don't know how many I missed. Even with the warnings, it's triggered somebody telling me where to go? I missed them.

Christian Hamm:

It's tricky underneath the city, because the highway goes i Five goes right underneath the city itself.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, so that was that was kind of brutal. But what I did notice, though, is coming in and out of the city, and then you get across the border, then you go through the tunnel, you go get to Oak Street, and that's the 99 Like what Americans must experience when they're trying to go to Whistler.

Christian Hamm:

Well, the crazy thing is isn't I've read just stories about development and how Vancouver took shape. There was once upon a time a plan to build the highway right through downtown Vancouver. Interesting. Yeah. And that's kind of the Georgia viaduct thing is that they were going to do that before bypassing it over second narrows or maybe that already existed. I can't remember the exact chronology chronology of the whole thing. But yeah, the plan at one point in time, or it was least floated around to put the highway through the city because it is interesting when you come to Vancouver like you say, you have to drive 20 to 30 minutes once you get off the major highway in Vancouver to actually get to the downtown core, which anyone listening that doesn't live in the area or lives in the state would be like that's ridiculous.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, it is. And it is a little and then navigation tells you it's a you know, highway 99 Yeah, the scene on and on it says as you're driving through siddhappa layout for stoplight. Yeah, past parked cars. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's just crazy town. Right. And then you have to get through then the Lions Gate Bridge to go to Whistler. I mean, well, anyway,

Christian Hamm:

it's a lot. It's a lot. And you know what? We had last week we started We didn't really talk about it, but we kind of dubbed it the weekly site report, because it's kind of like covering trends and things in construction, the built world and the weekly Cybersmart. The weekly site report, that's pretty good. And I said most Tuesdays Tuesdays so that, you know, we're gonna keep trying every Tuesday. We'll see, we'll keep this going. But last week was good. We covered a lot of things. We chatted about robotics on the job site. Now that was fun, which was a lot of fun. Talk a little bit about the 15 Minute city, go check that out, we'll probably do a breakout on something like that, because there's so many different sides to the story in the debate. But then we also pitch to which was our first guest, Adam corneal from and builders. Awesome. Yeah, full episodes up. There's clips in shorts going out, as well. And that was a fantastic conversation. And then we have again, this week, another great guest, actually, back on that construction lawyer. topic we had Josh levy on from Document crunch shout out that episodes really poppin off as well. Inbounds from that. These guys coming on this afternoon, are on the next episode. They are going to be going through all things. Construction Law, contractors, prompt payments, all that kind of stuff. That's gonna be interesting. It will be really good. But

James Faulkner:

what do you think of your posture?

Christian Hamm:

Oh, on the My posture has never been good.

James Faulkner:

I don't know. I'm, I'm wondering if I need to. Let's see. Let's see if I go back here. This could be treacherous. Let's see.

Christian Hamm:

I ordered impulsively a little bit. I don't do this often at all. But I did this weekend. I saw one of those neck stretching thing. Foam things. Oh, yeah. You like for people sitting at desks?

James Faulkner:

I slouch a lot though, that's the problem.

Christian Hamm:

But weekly site report, we got a bunch of really cool things to talk about this week. It seems like every week there's other recurring things, themes that pop up with new developments in them. We always talk about content related things last week was investment this week. In in the context side of things. Ai chat, GBT contractors. Yeah, and actually some cool clips that will play up here. How people shouldn't really fear too much. It's more of a complimentary thing that's going to help contractors and construction men and women in the nuances of their jobs that aren't like a factory that can just be automated everyday and no changing environment.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, totally. And the Instagram guy was good, too. Yeah, totally.

Christian Hamm:

And then we're going to talk about a little bit more of the aging issue in construction, which is a really talented and knowledgeable generation. retiring. Yeah. Which is quite exciting. Cool. Okay. What do you got here? Dave Dave's got some things on the screen here. Actually, this one came up because it might be talked about a little bit more in our next episode is Amazon when they went out and did their HQ to sort of pitch that I think ended up in Virginia or somewhere on the east coast. But Vancouver was originally in the running, I believe, for having their HQ two and this is kind of officially unofficially, one of them. The post, which is a heritage project here as the old Canada Post building in downtown Vancouver. Pretty fantastic spot. beautiful building, they maintain the entire facade through construction of that. That was PCL that was working on that project. And they are just wrapping up the post project for Amazon here in Vancouver. Very cool.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, there was something in this article that I was reading earlier. This part here below the office levels, the post, as that's the building's name right under the post. The post will also introduce a single the single largest net gain in commercial retail and restaurant space in downtown Vancouver Peninsula. So does that mean underneath? So the international village Mall? That's international village? Where's that? Tinseltown

Christian Hamm:

international village? I don't I don't know. Tinseltown's Tinseltown still? Yeah. Still around. Right. It was called

James Faulkner:

Tinseltown because of the movie a movie theater that was there. But yeah, I think I think that's international village. Yep. Oh, that

Christian Hamm:

makes sense. Yes, yes. Yeah. So

James Faulkner:

what does that mean that we're talking like? Is there gonna be restaurants under there?

Christian Hamm:

I guess kind of like Pacific centers all underground. True. Similar to that, you know, on top of this building, too. I saw some pictures. They have a full Park in basketball court on the roof on there. And it's quite beautiful.

James Faulkner:

It's interesting. I mean, that I've that's been such a crazy project to watch.

Christian Hamm:

It's been and that's kind of why we brought it up as it has been a focal point of you don't see it in the skyline because it's not a tall building. And although they build 15 storey tall stories on top of the old Canada Post building, it's but it's just been such an ongoing project when you retrofit a massive building like that.

James Faulkner:

Yeah. And you have to keep it for Yeah, what's the heritage thing

Christian Hamm:

thing and actually, that kind of goes into the deconstruction piece of it as they kept a lot of the will really just the facade of the building. And they stripped out all the guts and they went into the ground, they actually lifted the building up. And then started to reconstruct everything all the way through it just keeping the facade. It's really crazy. We'll include links to this, but check out the post project. It's wrapping up here. It's three to five years ongoing. It's been wild.

James Faulkner:

There's a bit of irony here. Yeah, that Amazon has. Just because of their product and their service, they have enabled an entire new generation of getting your packages that is not canadapost true. How did there's a bit of like, now like, let's take your building.

Christian Hamm:

And weird. That is pretty funny. little subtle little jab? Yes. Like,

James Faulkner:

there you go. Old school post. Oh, what about the the other thing was, there is a tunnel underneath. Did you read that? Tunnel didn't get okay. What does it connect? It connects the post office down to the waterfront. And it's 700 meters long. Oh,

Christian Hamm:

no way. Yeah, this is not good. Again. It's it's it's it's almost a kilometer away from the Aqua kilometer 2.6 of a mile away from the waterfront. Dave, I

James Faulkner:

think it's up a little bit. So there's the photos. Yeah,

Christian Hamm:

this is cool. So that existing facade there. That is exactly what it is. That was the original canadapost building. And they built right on top of it commercial office and all throughout the core of the building.

James Faulkner:

So there's a new one that really, really cool. Yeah, so underneath that, it go, there's a tunnel. Let's just and they had to fill it in. That would have any great place for our homeless population. Oh, dude, that's a little bit much. A treatment center or injection safe injection sites? Yeah. I mean, here it is right here. Okay. So there's a 730 meter long tunnel between the building and the Waterfront Station that was filled in.

Christian Hamm:

I didn't even know that existed.

James Faulkner:

Crazy, right?

Christian Hamm:

That's wild. That's, that's very cool, though. I would think that a lot of old buildings have all sorts of fun things like this that get uncovered and dealt with when they finish them off.

James Faulkner:

But that's long. Like, I wonder what this tunnel is like? I mean, we'll be talking about a little bit because it's saying is it was previously a convenient conveyance system for transporting mail packages and wonder

Christian Hamm:

Well, yeah, I guess if that was legitimately like the Canada Post building, Canada Post kind of being like us post, right. If that was a core feature, then to the water in where our port is in the Port of Vancouver. Yeah, that is nearly a kilometer away. If that's that's what they were doing literally moving mail underground. That's kind of wild because you're talking like this is a city, like dense city built all around that project?

James Faulkner:

Yeah, that's wild. I don't even know it existed.

Christian Hamm:

No. Okay. Very cool. Okay. Well, one of the things that we've talked about a lot in with past guests, and never really had a chance to kind of break out on is the oh, you know what, before he jumped, he's popping up something here. This was really funny, or not really funny, just kind of random. But, and he's popped it up now. So you can tell but which country in the world had the largest number of skyscrapers? Now what I couldn't figure out was what did they constitute? 492 490 feet? Anything above 492 feet? Yeah. Which is basically a 50 story. Right? Okay. And in Vancouver, we really only have a few of those. There's not like 10 Our aim. Okay, maybe? Yeah, we have

James Faulkner:

the Wall Centre was the original it was 50 That's right. So I think we built another at least 10

Christian Hamm:

We have view corridor restrictions that limit the height but they're pushing pushing on those now is Canada's 106 Yeah, we're number eight on the list over over 50 stories, right right,

James Faulkner:

essentially. Oh 48 Oh, god you're so good. Dave look at that look at the Zoom Wow.

Christian Hamm:

But to no surprise obviously you know China's got a lot of high rise, dense populations big cities kind of all over the all over the country. And and then United States in the UAE right after that. Oh, it says it right there. 400. Sheesh. Oh, no. 427 more

James Faulkner:

than that. No, no, no, I researched what it was. Okay, yeah.

Christian Hamm:

Okay. Well, that's, that's what constitutes, yeah. Okay.

James Faulkner:

It's 492 or 482 feets gives me

Christian Hamm:

that and that was just based on a 50 story building, including,

James Faulkner:

I don't know, it just said. It said a certain amount of meters. And it said how many feet

Christian Hamm:

interesting. Totally random. Just saw this pop up on Twitter and thought it'd be fun to pop in there. We could have thrown that out more as a bit of a quiz. Can you guess who has the most skyscrapers but there you go. Wow. But it is cool. To see our city here take shape and surrounding areas that don't have the quarter view limits or the quarter limits and height restrictions that are actually building up quite extensively all around us.

James Faulkner:

Yeah.

Christian Hamm:

But to that point of construction and building all All these incredible engineering feats. We have we discussed it before the population loop and we talked about a little bit up in, in Whistler with, with Dave. And Don, Dave and Don. Oh, yeah. Dave And Don. Yeah, that was the regulation chat. But it's just about the aging demographic, right. And the percentage of people that are retiring, I was actually quite surprised when I was reading through one of these articles here, just about the generation of such knowledge rich. contingent of the construction labor market only been one in five, I thought it would have been more more. But one, if I was still 20% of the labor, or the construction worker population that is just going to be

James Faulkner:

20%. With

Christian Hamm:

pretty quickly

James Faulkner:

80% of the knowledge.

Christian Hamm:

Yeah, that's the thing. So okay, there. So when you wait it like that? Yeah. And that's going like the next zero to five years? Done? Yeah, like, very quickly.

James Faulkner:

Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's that that corpus of resource and experience is just so hard to harness, right. Like, once it's gone, it's gone. Yeah. You know, unless you unless you, you know, tell stories or whatever. But usually, it's it's the fact that it's a resource to say, hey, how do we do this? Like, it's about the when stuffs going off the rails? Yep. Is when you call in experience?

Christian Hamm:

Well, we kind of, we talked about a little bit with the shaping of cities in that North America being as young as it is, it lacks just a certain ability to to make cultural leads wise decisions. Yeah, that kind of applies, I guess, if you're on a construction project, or any sort of project where you might require the wisdom of someone who's got those years of experience, you kind of lean on him, right? Yeah, you depend on them as you're navigating problems? And what do we do now? to garner that knowledge? How are they going to leave it behind? How do we educate or build up a workforce now that can continue to do that, I'd like to think that the rest of you know, from my age, or generations down, that we would be able to tackle this and be okay, but it is just a significant number, like sheer number that's just gone.

James Faulkner:

There must be like, if I was some of the construction associations, you know, we can talk to Jordan, about this. But ICBA anyway, specifically here in BC, but would be is to have this a program to have, like advisors, like they're retired, yes, yet. I mean, a lot of people retire and they're like, Yeah, I'm kind of bored. Maybe they want to keep their, you know, a couple of toes in construction, it'd be a really interesting thing to have that experience at the fingertips if they needed to from a consultative partner. So that could be something that they could do, you know,

Christian Hamm:

do you need like, because this isn't just, it's specific to construction in our conversation, but a retiring generation applies to all industry, although you probably have younger working tech working, retail stuff, whatever, right? Construction probably is a little bit unique in the sense that you have a wide spread of generations working for you. So maybe that isn't actually it, maybe it is kind of isolated to just construction that you would actually need to have something set up like that, where you'd say, hey, you know, what, we need some sort of association, or commission or something like that, or we continue to maybe this is just ridiculous that you've been throwing it out there. Yeah. Can we not just figure this out?

James Faulkner:

Yeah. Should be. Yeah, I know. Yeah. But, I mean, I think that the biggest impact is the fact that they're the workforce numbers are lower. Yeah, that's that's the big impact. That is the impact. Yeah, it's not so much the knowledge is the totally thought that 20% are going to be bolting. 100%. So getting to get a fill up the top of the funnel layer with people.

Christian Hamm:

So had some conversations on the weekend. And this is another part of it that we always talk about is how do you get more people interested in construction, you know, you're getting into, they've always, you know, had your technical schools kind of getting in to younger age groups, you know, in different places in the world and Europe, they start to engage a lot younger in your grade school years of what you're going to do career wise, and you can start looking at trades, etc. So we talked a lot about that as obviously filling up the bottom end of that of that pipeline with people and I was with a group of people on the weekend. And I was actually kind of surprised. They like very quickly. They didn't shoot down the idea of of a university education, but they definitely were a big proponent of No, our kids are probably going to get to work pretty quick and very likely trades work. And they're not a trades family. Mm hmm. Yes.

James Faulkner:

Wow.

Christian Hamm:

Like a skilled artisan or skilled trade or something like that it's just about, are we losing? The essence of construction work is? Is it as physical work? Yeah, it can be. And other jobs, of course have physical components to them, but a lot don't either. And typically going through university, you're not going to step into a job that has physical components of work. Alright. That was actually, I was surprised to hear that. I thought it was really cool. I feel, I mean, similarly with my own my own family, I guess I would be like, hey, you know, I totally want my my kids, if they want to jump in and get working and make some money and build great skills and the trades, I'd be all for that support that 100%.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, that's interesting. You had a parent group say that. Because I think on a number of podcasts, we've we've been, the ideas come around, they have to try and change the sort of brand of construction from the, from the parents point of view of what they want there. I mean, every parent wants their kid to do something more than what they did, of course, whatever that is. So and if someone has been in construction, it's been very hard and difficult, because it's been the last 30 years of doing that, then maybe they're like, Well, you know, maybe you could have an easier life. And then there's others who are actually starting to realize what is culturally going on here, that we're creating a lot of soft people and are taking a stand and saying no, no. This is a great place for you to understand who you are, get a good work ethic. And, you know, there's so many opportunities. I mean, construction is going to continue on forever. I don't care if you're building on Mars, you're still building.

Christian Hamm:

You're still building.

James Faulkner:

Right?

Christian Hamm:

Absolutely. Well, that's a good point to get to even the the next thing that we were chatting about. And this is one that we've we've touched on a little bit. AI and construction. Yeah. But also, this relates to, again, the the skilled worker and new tools for a new generation of worker, but also those that are still that have been in industry for decades. The use of tools, is it going to replace contractors, construction workers, robotics, all that goes? I mean, we touched on it a little bit last week. But when it comes to tools like Chat GPT, and here we go. pulling this up here, but going through the premise of this one here and throwing it out, is that it's really more complimentary. Yeah, it is, right than it is anything in terms of replacing anyone because the nature of construction, especially with specialty contracting, and everything else, on a job site, the conditions are different every day, the job is different almost every time. There's too many nuances to have some sort of redundancy, and that can be replaced by a newer technology like this.

James Faulkner:

Yeah. Yeah. The it's interesting reading this, that. Yeah, so people didn't, I think the thought of AI in construction is there's this sudden fear of all people are gonna lose their jobs. And, and it was the certain type of manual labor job that sort of was seemingly on the chopping block. But that's not the case. It's the data jobs in the office that are going to be I don't think that it's going to lose, it's going to make people lose jobs, I think that the job definitions are going to significantly change totally. So it's not you're not going to be sitting for hours making reports, reports will be quick. So now it's a matter of being the engineer of being able to use AI to get the best things.

Christian Hamm:

Right. And we because we are big fans of the all in podcast, chat about it. They talk about it almost on a weekly basis. Because yeah, there are a lot of concerns is our jobs going to be lost. But really, again, they're more facilitators or prompters of technology like this. Right? So like you said, is it it's gonna be quicker to pull reports, it's going to be quicker to gather gathered data. Does it tighten up, you know, having to hire a bunch more people in the office, potentially. But you can definitely empower your existing staff and those that can utilize the software to the maximum ability to do some pretty incredible things be a lot more productive.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, it's gonna change a lot of things. I think we you know, we see that I mean, we have our own at SiteMax, we have our own AI stuff that we're working on right now, which is pretty exciting. But yeah, it just makes all software more powerful.

Christian Hamm:

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. What was once the data that's just completely lost in a in a set that you have to go in for Find ways to query and or go dig through is now just the prompt. You know, am I right? Am I calling up what it is? That's relevant to my, my intention in the first place? Yeah. And that's really powerful. There is a cool clip here. The CEO of CompanyCam put a cool little video clip here together, these are his thoughts on AI. And the contractor, Dave's just pulling it up or putting them on the spot here. Dave's, awesome. He's done such a good job, queuing everything up here, these last few weeks of bringing in video and adding different elements to the podcast, which has been pretty well received. No, I don't think that's the right one. So anyway, doesn't matter.

James Faulkner:

The net result of I think, what was in the video was the fact that I think there was a correlation to, you know, Tesla and robot building cars. Yes. So the assembly line, you can have robots doing stuff? Because yeah, because it's just repetitive tasks. And it goes over and over and over again. But the terrain of a construction site is constantly changing. And, you know, being able to predict where things are things get moved around all the time, it's very difficult. So the technology has to be way, way smarter, for sure has to become human, like in order to navigate changes.

Christian Hamm:

But I think that it was refreshing to hear it. And we are kind of starting to see that. Yes, that is the case that it's definitely not going to be something that is as scary as we probably thought it was. But to just think about what people can do in a day. He's mentioned that site Max, we're looking at doing certain things with AI. I know, that's always like, Oh, just say those words are just like a buzzword, you know, just throwing it on there. But when you actually think about someone that's on a job site, right, that's still gotta build still got to do the task they got to do, right. But then they had to this is like the introduction of software into construction, then they had to start using an application, right? Then they figure out how to use an application and input all this data, and they go, okay, great. So then they're throwing all this data in. Oh, we got really good at throwing all the data in. Yeah, right. Boom, box checked, and it's like, okay, great. Well, now you've done great data capture. Yep. What next? We still need to be able to do something with this. Yeah. And then, you know, okay, we'll find out more seamless ways to report. It's like, okay, great. Now, we have endless clean reports. But it's like, there's still tons of data. And then we got to find the trends of like, how will we get actually improve on this? It's not like a budget where the numbers come in. And you can actually see over under whatever, you can see your spending trends, and you can go, we're gonna make adjustments for the next one. This is like actually looking at what is someone doing day in and day out on a job site where they can actually improve? Day after day?

James Faulkner:

Yeah. Yeah, that I think it's gonna be kind of fun. I think when robotics and AI come together, I think people actually, people. So I don't think it's going to be replacing people, it's going to make the construction industry more interesting. Yeah. Because it's going to be less physical. Because you know, those, the amount of strength that you can get out of a robot, even if a human is using that robot. It just gets more and more. I would think all of the things that, okay. I think that in the next number of years, when you have the, I don't think there'll be so much hard work anymore. Eventually, all the hard work the that is the stuff that's inefficient, is when humans have to do something difficult to do, like, physically difficult to do nearly where it gets hard. Yeah, they do. Exactly. And they can't keep going all the time. So when the hard works, turns into, I don't wanna call it smart work. So it's kind of lame, but when the hard work is not so hard anymore, and you're still constructing, and you're getting people who understand how to use all this stuff. It gets pretty I think, Oh, for sure. exciting, Yeah, I think I think I think we have this transformation coming from the digital and robotic age into construction. I think we'll, we talked about that, you know, a few minutes ago is, you know, I think parents might be like, yeah, that's an amazing industry to be in. Well, it might change it, because you're not getting your hands dirty.

Christian Hamm:

Yeah. And that goes to the whole. Maybe construction has attracted a certain type of person. We've said it before. Maybe they didn't know what they were going to do. But they knew that they could at least go and move something from one place to another. Yeah, you know, but now with so many different elements coming into what gets done in a construction business, not just in an office, but on a job site. You open the door to a whole bunch of different talent workers, right, that can come in that can Sure, maybe the more technical before was just the IT guy. Yeah, you know, you had the IT guy that could manage your on prem server. Yeah, you know, not, there's anything wrong with that at all, because it still needs to be done. Now, things go to the cloud, you still need some technical person. But if you go to the point now, where you will, then we had a lot of equipment, you know, what we needed mechanics, we needed maintenance, guys, then they have bigger companies would have their own maintenance people, right. So to try to do that in house? Well, if you start to have, you know, different pieces that also make you efficient, that are software or robotics, then you have the people that need to be able to use them, maneuver them, all that kind of stuff. And then the sky's the limit in terms of everything else that kind of comes into technology and construction.

James Faulkner:

But learning how to do all that stuff will provide the opportunity for trade schools to have programs around that. And once you start getting, it will be tickets, it'll be, you know, some kind of a, you know, training certificate, you know that you've done the diploma, that you know how to do this stuff. That in itself will legitimize all of this more? Yep. Well, I shouldn't say legitimize it, but make it more formal. Like it's not just a fallback job. No, no, because I wouldn't be it'd be very technical.

Christian Hamm:

People would go, they kind of already have, at a younger age, their mind not made up. But at least that idea in their head. That was always funny. Like when I went to do a degree, I did a business undergrad, right? And it's you have, if you do accounting, you knew you were going to be an articling student for one of the big four or go work for the family firm. Yeah, if you were finance, you knew you'd go work for that financial planning company. Again, these aren't bad things, but it's just you have more of your route planned, right. But if you did something else, like general management, it's like, what are you doing again? Is that a family business? Or you basically starting from scratch again, once you're gone? Yeah. But if you know, and it's very evident that something has such a broad base of applications for again, back to the talent worker, right, that maybe has an education or doesn't and has an interest here and interest there will construction is going to offer a pretty broad swath of again, I say this stupid word.

James Faulkner:

It's why is that like sloth sloth. swats slow, like as long as a swath is like, what

Christian Hamm:

is this? What is it word isn't isn't like a broad array. It gets an array like this, what people are gonna be able to be way more intentional about I want to work in construction, and be like, Oh, you're gonna go on the site? No, I want to be x in marketing, or boom, I'm a robotics engineer. Whoa, my technician over here. Anyway. we digress. Exhaust this thing to death here. But I'm sure we'll talk about it more as this stuff obviously continues to be more interviews relevant. Okay. The last thing that we want to talk about this is I know, James, this is a bit of, a well, I mean, it kind of hits us both right. In terms of effective you live in the city. You see a lot of things happening again, you know, when he mentioned with certain ways that cities are set up they allow for or they you know, it's always you always want to care about how you go about the conversation when we're dealing with issues of drugs and homelessness and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But this affects, and we talked about it with Chris Gardner. They do a great job at ICBA of dealing with mental health, but also the opioid crisis that hit Vancouver, still is a very big issue, but it's hitting all of North America now. And it's obviously a big talking point in political campaigns. And just in the news, yeah, right. But really does a root get uncovered? Well, here we go. Construction is going right after it. Right. I've got friends who are firefighters, and they talk about this stuff all the time that they have to revive people when they go because it's so prevalent among a lot of the population that they are dealing with an influx of narcotics and dangerous narcotics and really potent substances in the opioid crisis. But here in Ontario, they have said on June 1, that they are going to be mandating a construction site to have this particular drug that is used in the I believe resuscitation of from overdoses.

James Faulkner:

Yeah. So this is the part that so so it says here that 2500 People in Ontario died from one sector, opioid related causes between March 2020 and January 2021.

Christian Hamm:

Nine months.

James Faulkner:

Yeah, it is. And though once I do, and, yeah, so 30% worked in the construction industry, like worked in it. So, like, let's just try and like, put this into some buckets for a second just so we can get the idea of what's going on here. So is of that 30 percent. Okay, so 30% of 2500 Wow. That's, that's it sounds like what? 750 people? Yeah. Yeah. 800 Yeah. 850 people so 850 people have pain medication. took too many by accident, bought pain medication black market had some bad stuff in it. And then that's a big one, right? Oh, yeah. And then recreational, had some bad stuff. And so those three things.

Christian Hamm:

So a lot of accidental overdoses. Again, we're talking more to the general specifics of the the crisis. That is very real. No matter where you stand on everything, it is very real. It's hit our it's hit home for us pretty hard. And we've seen it again, construction worker. And there's a staggering number. And that construction, again, we talked about it throughout the throughout the last three years. Throughout COVID and everything like that construction was really quick to jump on issues that were really affecting people. And they dealt with it from a compliance standpoint, they got people back to work, they made projects move forward, they did a really good job. Well, they're hitting it head on here. Maybe Ontario is onto something here. Once upon a time there was, you know, people would suffer heart attacks and sports and they put defibrillators on every bench. Yeah, you know, well, this is a real thing right now, that's affecting, particularly at a 30% rate construction. And so to be able to have this on job sites, that's gonna save lives. And which is crazy and means people are well, it's probably not even just people coming to work. It could be anybody even around the areas, you know.

James Faulkner:

So 30% worked in the construction industry. I'm wondering how many, how many were on site? Right? Right out of the 850, whatever it was, right,

Christian Hamm:

right. They're gonna make construction workers into like, first responders?

James Faulkner:

Well, this is this is kind of interesting, because there's a cultural thing that I think is going on here. And I, I think in order to make a call on what's going on culturally, you really need to, for someone to investigate the number and know where the source of the numbers coming from,

Christian Hamm:

Oh, totally.

James Faulkner:

Because otherwise, it's just a number and you're not going to really, you're not going to really diagnose where to even start. True. So you know, I Yeah, it's because, like, if you're, there's a heroin user. Yes. Right. Which is like a full on. That's like, an addict thing happening. Yeah. I mean, if you are, you know, shooting up a needle, you are in a certain stage of life. I mean, that is like another whole follow up,

Christian Hamm:

and it might have taken you a while to get there. Yeah, like it's a long journey.

James Faulkner:

You know, did that start when they had an injury, and then they, you know, some people like when I broke my leg, I they gave me Percocet for a month. Right. Okay. Oh, yeah. And when they said, Yeah, the prescriptions done, I'm like, okay.

Christian Hamm:

You were good. Yeah.

James Faulkner:

Some people don't have that. No, no, does not work that way for them. I can't live without this, like some chemical stuff goes that way. So after an injury, perhaps there as well. You know, I gotta go and find something else or? Yeah, I mean, this is this is complicated. And putting that number in there, like having those. What's it called? Naloxone was like, Yeah, Naloxone naloxone. When I see I see those things, and you see them in parks, sometimes you see them in places. I think was this was this happening 30 years ago? Well, like what are we doing?

Christian Hamm:

You make a good point, when you talk about are we getting to the root of what's going on here? It's an understanding because basically what you're doing and good, this isn't a bad thing, because they're dealing with something that's happening.

James Faulkner:

This is a positive uptick.

Christian Hamm:

It is gonna make a change. It is a positive uptick, but it's a bandaid. It is a bandaid. Right. Which again, goes to a much deeper thing of okay, wow, this is really affecting construction quite proportionally. Yeah, right. So okay, we we take some serious a lot of seriousness to this not just even if it wasn't just construction, but it is.

James Faulkner:

But that, OK just one sec. When you say in construction, that 30% Number. I'd like to know if we're talking about somebody who's sweet to site once. Sure. And they have a T for that said they were in construction. Oh, yeah. The more are we talking like the data does matter for data totally matters because they might actually be putting a black eye on construction here. Because yeah, if you're saying 30% of you know this number And then you're not you're thinking, Well, you know, people go into construction sites are high all the time. It's telling us okay,

Christian Hamm:

Well, no, no, no, this is the thing too. And again, like we're not experts by any means. But we do like to uncover these things as they impact culture, and it has to be constructed happens to be construction culture, this is a real thing, right? Whether people talk about it or not like it's happening. And there's a lot of bad drugs that have infiltrated North America, and our city in particular here in Vancouver. A lot of the the real bad things that happen are accidental. Right? There's there's no real intention. It's just like, it's tainted things or whatever tainted drugs and stuff like that, that people are in construction. We talk about the manual nature of it. It could be there's more pain, there's more physical wear and tear that requires one to maybe go and take something. Yeah. So there is you could you can kind of logically and maybe stitch it together. But you would need to know, of course, the root of the data to make sure that it's not sure putting a black eye on it. But it could make sense that you know, that that would be a population of people that would be I know that I I have stuff that's lasted from the times when I was lifting and packing pallets of lumber and dimensional stuff all across the jobsite. Shoulder stuff. It still sticks with me.

James Faulkner:

Yeah. Right. So and I've seen it pop out playing golf. Like a chicken bone.

Christian Hamm:

Yeah, it's kind of scary. But yeah, there's lots of things that linger anyway, this is something actually that would be really good, too. We need a special we need a specialist on this one. Yeah, for sure. And this is the thing we got to tell our audience too, is we just like to have conversations as it applies to construction, especially with this weekly site report. We really like to dig into things that that really impact construction culture. Yeah, right. And we're no not experts. We just like to have a conversation. We'd like to throw it out there. And so this kind of wraps up, I think, yeah, this is the second weekly site report that we've done. We're trying to exhaust these things a little bit. But please do jump on and comment on these things. It's all up on YouTube. Now our videos are on YouTube, we've got the clips and the full length videos up gets posted on all of our social channels on Instagram and on LinkedIn. We want comments, we want the comments and we started getting them. I had people reaching out to us. You know, people do know who we are just from the industry locally, and they reach out but we do get comments in a lot of inbounds from people but but please yeah, like interact with this stuff. Send us more messages about your thoughts on this stuff. And maybe even those that could help us unpack these on a more professional level. Yeah, or knowledge to bring someone on for sure. For sure. For sure. Okay, cool. Well, the second week, this airport, this is fun. I love talking about this. Our next episode comes out episode 88. We're closing in on 100. And like I said that is with a construction lawyer and a specialty contractor who worked together that conversation is going to be it's going to be a good one really applicable to a lot of our audience. So looking forward to it, but here we go. Hit 'em hard!

James Faulkner:

That does it for another episode of the SiteVisit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystems.com/thesitevisit where you'll get Industry Insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and SiteMax the jobsite and construction management tool of choice for 1000s of contractors in North America and beyond. SiteMax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building!