This is a very challenging time to be an employer, with finding and retaining talent being the No. 1 challenge by far. ABC analysis indicates that the construction industry needs 546,000 additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring to meet the demand for labor this year—and another 342,000 new workers in 2024.

In other words, if your company is in the market for talent, you need to expect that a lot of other companies—both within and outside our industry—are as well. So, why would someone come to work for your company? And why do people stay?

The answer has everything to do with your employee value proposition. According to Gartner, your EVP indicates how the labor market perceives the value that employees gain by working for your organization. Companies that attract top talent have a robust EVP; companies that retain top talent are always improving their EVP.

A strong EVP offers a compelling answer to the question “Why should a highly talented person choose to work for us?” What does having your company on their resume do for their own value proposition in the marketplace? Will working at your company provide them with the opportunity to achieve their career dreams?

When I think of companies that have a robust value EVP in our great construction industry—whether large or small, local or national, general contractor or subcontractor, public or private, employee-owned or minority-owned—my mind automatically goes to the ABC Top Performers program, which recently published its 2023 list of the 250 top-performing contractors in the United States. (Read the full list at abc.org/membership/top-performers.) I want to personally thank our 2023 Top Performers for their industry leadership and congratulate them—as well as our 2023 Contractor of the Year, Performance Contractors (profiled on p. 14 of this issue)—for a job well done.

Suffice it to say, if you’re looking to enhance your EVP, our Top Performers would be a good list of companies to benchmark against.