At BEC Conference, New Tech offers Next-Gen Recruitment Opportunities

Last week, over 650 glazing contractors, fabricators and suppliers met in Louisville, Kentucky, March 1-3, for BEC Conference. The three-day event offered critical education on the newest technologies, exit and succession planning tools, and tactical strategies for weathering an uncertain economy. If there was one throughline to the event, it was that “doing it the way you’ve always done it” won’t cut it; new hiring practices, tech adoption and a strategic outlook is required to stay competitive in this rapidly evolving economic landscape.

Read a recap of day one of BEC, including strategies for exit and succession planning, an update on the regulatory and economic outlook, and an architect’s insight on better collaboration with the glazing trades.

Industry leaders encourage companies to think strategically in adopting AI and robotics

Two panel discussions, “AI Is Your New Power Tool: Timelines & Takeoffs” and “Glazing Technology for Installation” considered how companies are already using AI and robotics in the field, what industry members should consider when adapting new tech to their business, and the benefits incorporating these new tools can offer.

Ethan Turner, vice president of sales and marketing, Binswanger Glass, moderated the discussion on AI tools for the field and office with panelists Tyler Clark, preconstruction manager/software developer, Barringer Construction; A.J. Hubert, senior project manager, Dynamic Group LLC; and Johnny Maghzal, head of revenue, Togal.AI. The conversation sought to debunk misinformation and dispel fears around AI, including that it will replace all construction jobs. Panelists say that AI tools will replace tasks for the most part, not people.

“Your craft is not going away,” says Hubert. “The goal here is to be able to get faster workflows that allow humans to do higher yield human activities.” Those higher yield activities will likely include forming more crucial relationships within the industry. “AI can free people up to form relationships in the industry so they’re not just sitting at a computer doing data entry,” Clark adds. Data entry is one of the manual tasks AI can replace or automate, panelists say, as well as manual counting, document searches and basic quantity extraction.

Clark recommends that companies pace their adoption of AI, using a “crawl, walk, run” mindset. The most effective way to incorporate the new tools into existing workflows is identify your own pain points before consulting with a technology partners, he says. “The software companies are going to find you and they're going to try to tell you the problems that you have and that there's a solution. And the reality is this, you know your problems better than anyone else.”

Panelists also talked about AI as a way to ensure business continuity, by capturing “tribal knowledge” from a retiring generation. Clark says that his company has used AI to store and analyze past bids in order to more quickly generate estimates for new bids. Maghzal and other panelists also suggested that the use of AI and new tech is attractive for a new generation of contract glaziers, but that a paced training program is crucial for introducing old and new employees to the tools.

AI tools you can use

Hubert suggested a few AI tools and apps that companies can start using today.

Fathom: useful for recording and summarizing meeting minutes.
Reve: an image iterator tool that can create renderings from elevation drawings; useful for creating images for proposals.
Claude: app useful for writing and grammar needs.
Gsuite: built-in AI as part of the Google suite of products.

Many of these ideas were echoed in the panel discussion on using robotics in the field, moderated by Travis Nevins, deputy director of organizing, IUPAT Glaziers, with panelists Evan Pennington, industry workforce development advisor for Trimble, which offers hardware and software; and Conley Oster, co-founder of Raise Robotics. Like AI, robotics offers many strategic advantages to installation, including safety and efficiency, panelists say. Pennington’s company produces robotic total stations, or RTS, which he says allow remote operators to perform many construction tasks in the field, including remote scanning, which allows an installer to work with more precision and less risk. “This tech can work in environments that are caustic to humans—we can send a robot in there,” he says, with the advantage that “the technology is speeding up the process, and is incredibly accurate.”

Like AI, implementing robotics requires a training program, panelists say. Pennington says that typically the company trains installers three to five days on the total stations, with two to three weeks of using it on the jobsite. “After that two weeks, then I would like to come back and go over some more advanced features and and get in the nuts and bolts a little bit more,” he says, adding that robotics requires ongoing training as the technology evolves. “I've been doing this for eight years now, and I'm still learning every single time I do a training.”

Like AI, the use of robotics can also be a recruiting tool, panelists argue, especially given how the automation potential of tool stations can help to expand installation work to a new labor pool. “This technology offers the potential for upskilling the workforce, as well as bringing in people who previously would have been physically disqualified from performing this work,” Oster says.

Dealing with ICE Enforcement on Jobsites

Technology is far from the only factor influencing construction employment. Immigration enforcement on jobsites by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers has been a major challenge for employers in the past year. Robin McGuffin, an attorney at Stites &Harbison PLLC, provided some recommendations to employers about how to stay prepared if and when ICE visits.

ICE agents can visit businesses for a variety of reasons. No matter the situation, McGuffin recommends employers adopt the following principles when dealing with ICE.

• Courteous. Be polite to agents, and do not block or interfere.
• Closemouthed. Do not answer substantive questions and do not give access to nonpublic areas without seeing a judicial warrant.
• Counsel. Call the company’s attorney as soon as possible.
• Capture. Take pictures of any warrant/notice and record agents’ activities.

The three most common types of interactions with ICE include a “knock and talk,” an I-9 audit and a raid, McGuffin says.

Agents could stop by a business for a “knock and talk” without any type of warrant, notice of inspection or subpoena, McGuffin explains, and they will seek voluntary cooperation from an employer. Since it’s not possible to know the agents’ motives, McGuffin recommends being polite, but not offering any information and directing agents to the company’s legal counsel.

I-9 audits are another common ICE interaction, and have been increasing under the second Trump administration, McGuffin says, and are even more common than ICE raids. During an I-9 audit, an agent will serve an employer a notice of inspection, or NOI, either hand-delivered or by certified mail. The NOI is usually accompanied by a subpoena and will require an employer to produce all I-9 forms and any relevant supporting documentation. It could also require the employer hand over a list of employees, payroll records, ownership information, company formation documents, business licenses, E-verify confirmations, and agreements with staffing companies, among other potential documents.

Raids are the type of enforcement most likely to be in the news, McGuffin says, and often come about because ICE uses a confidential informant to attempt to get hired by a company without completing an I-9 form, which is illegal. She cautions employers to take note of the type of warrant ICE officers have when they conduct the raid. Only a judicial warrant, signed by a judge of the United States District Court can authorize search into nonpublic areas specified on the warrant. A judicial warrant can also authorize the arrest of a specific individual. In this case, the agents’ authority is limited to the warrant’s stated scope. ICE agents may also produce an Administrative Warrant, which is not signed by a judge, and does not authorize entrance into nonpublic areas, search or seizure, and doesn’t require employers to introduce them to a specific employee.

Other notable sessions

• McGuffin's colleague Steven Henderson, construction attorney, Stites & Harbison PLLC, provided insights on how to mitigate risk in cases of material cost escalation.
• Leaders of Drafting Marketplace Brandon Bellegarde, CEO, and Tyler Faulk, chief experience officer, discussed how firms lose profits in pre-construction.