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Sarabeth Gandara Publishes Article on Employee Retention in the Mechanical Contracting Industry

May 14, 2019

U.S. Engineering

Sarabeth Gandara, U.S. Engineering Preconstruction Engineer, recently published an article in the Spring 2019 Issue of The Professional Constructor, Journal of the American Institute of Constructors (AIC). 

The article is titled, “Social Resources of Mechanical Contracting Management Personnel,” and focuses on the mechanical construction industry’s employee retention plan with significant industry growth predicted over the next 10 years. The expected increase in construction activity will require specialized managers, which means organizations must realize the importance of retaining high-quality management personnel through the reduction of burnout factors.

“Even though our industry is very technical and often hectic, we still work with people day-in and day-out,” Gandara said. “It’s important to value their needs as human beings, not purely as employees, in order to minimize burnout.”

Gandara’s research concludes that supervisors in the mechanical contracting industry have low levels of social resources, or coping resources, with regard to their children, which causes high levels of corresponding life stressors. The combination of high levels of corresponding life stressors related to children and low levels of coping mechanisms results in greater potential for burnout. If mechanical contracting companies want to combat burnout and reduce turnover, the article suggests organizations tailor Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to increase social resources related to children of their employees.

Gandara’s article is an extension of her thesis in architectural engineering and is co-authored with Dr. Blake E. Wentz, chair of the Civil, Architectural Engineering & Construction Management Department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

The Professional Constructor is a bi-annual, national publication in which content pieces are chosen after close review by a three-person review panel of AIC members.

To read Sarabeth Gandara’s article in The Professional Constructor, click here.

Mechanical contracting employee retention
Sarabeth Gandara’s paper appears in The Professional Constructor.

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