metrics matter

Angela Robbins Taylor
C3 Executive Director

​Advocate,

Metrics! In one news brief article? It can’t be done y’all. That is the conversation I had with the marketing team, and they smiled and said great make it a series – so here we are a 3 part series on how we can measure the impact we are having on the industry. And more specifically how we are making a difference and achieving our mission of strengthening the safe, skilled, and sustainable craft professional talent pipeline.

Part 1 – what you are reading today will cover our current metrics
Part 2 – publishing on July 27thwill talk about how we prepare individually to track the talent pipeline
Part 3 - publishing on August 10th will talk about the collaborative impact of C3 on the pipeline and how we can create sustainability together.

We could do the traditional jump in the deep end but in all honesty, we are still wading on the splash pad when it comes to our current C3 metrics. Even though our mission is about the workforce our metrics are about largely about the projects. When we first rolled out our three pillars, safety was the low-hanging fruit and we made it part of our DNA at C3. So appropriately it is part of what we are currently measuring on projects. In case you did not know, C3 projects are required to submit the following things at the beginning of each month, and we report on them the following month in our news brief in a spotlight called C3 by the numbers.

The items reported are:
1.     Who has signed into the project and received the C3 orientation,
2.     What C3 safety refresh module was delivered and how many people attended the delivery
3.     Total manhours worked on the project in that month
4.     TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate)

So, here is our current state. Data is nothing without interpretation so what does it tell us about our progress? These data points demonstrate the C3 participants (Accredited Employers and Project Participants) are actively receiving ongoing safety training on job sites and that overall C3 participants produce safer jobs that the industry standard for US non-residential construction.

These measures are quantitative but not substantive enough to tell us that C3 is accomplishing its mission of attracting and retaining top talent and strengthening the pipeline. Additional quantitative data can be seen through our C3 Craft Training Endorsement. This show the number of Accredited Employers who have completed the endorsement process and the level to which their internal training programs are endorsed. We track these Accredited Employers for retention and conversion of Project Participants to Accredited Employers annually. Our final qualitative piece of data is how many individuals and companies have received training in OSHA 10, 30, Driving Business Results, Construction Workforce Development Professional, and Mentoring for Craft Professionals. Still not enough to definitively prove we are achieving our mission.

This leaves us looking at some qualitative data points. These come from testimonials of individuals and companies that tell us they can see a significant difference in the quality and productivity as well as safety of a C3 jobsite. Additional feedback has shown that the perception is a C3 jobsite has better collaboration and professionalism among the trades as they work together to create the building program with the GC, design professionals, and owner.
For as much work and as many manhours as C3 has completed, this isn’t a lot of data and it is hard to directly correlate the impact on the industry to specific C3 programs. This means we are currently going a bit with a gut feeling of “C3 is overall doing good.” While we continue to gain ground and can see our contractor count growing along with our owner base and project total, we cannot effectively map metrics to program but we believe that we are making a shift in the industry and working toward fulfilling our mission.  But the thing that keeps me up at night is the question – How can I demonstrate that progress more directly?

Next time – tapping into Angela’s dreams for talent pipeline tracking


Collaboratively,

Angela Robbins Taylor
C3 Executive Director