Is construction management stressful? Whether you’re a student considering a future in construction project management, or are looking to make a switch in careers, let’s dive into 7 causes of stress in construction management and whether or not this career path is a good fit for you!
Are you fascinated by how things work? Do you get great satisfaction in seeing a project finished after hours, weeks or even years of hard work? Do you like working under pressure to reach deadlines? If so, you share these traits with many construction project managers across the world!
In fact, there are over 400,000 construction management jobs in the U.S. alone (2016), according to the Bureau Of Labor Statistics (BLS), and this is expected to grow by 11% through 2026. There is presently a strong demand for construction project managers and it will only grow into the near future.
On top of this, the average salary for construction managers is very good. According to the BLS data mentioned above, the average yearly salary for construction managers is $93,370. This is nearly 2.5x the average salary across all jobs. Not too shabby!
So What’s The Downside?
Construction management is a busy industry. It’s hard work that requires having a variety of skillsets. You will experience pressure and will be expected to perform at a higher level. If you’d like to work in the industry, it’s important to have a good understanding of what the job entails. What makes construction management stressful? Here are 7 causes:
- Long Working Hours
- Unpredictable Day-To-Day Schedule
- Financially Risky
- Dangerous Work
- Handling Conflicts & Disputes
- Small Mistakes Can Have Big Repercussions
- Many Things Can Only Be Learned Through Experience
Let’s look closer at each of these causes of stress in the construction business!
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1. Long Working Hours
Many jobs are known for being ‘9-to-5’: 8 hours per day, 5 days per week. Construction management is not one of these jobs.
The majority of job sites open at 7am, and usually stay open until at least 3:30pm. Architects and engineers, however, typically start around 8-9am, but work until 6-7pm.
Construction project managers need to work closely with all of these groups. Whether it be working on the job with field crews in the morning, or meeting with design professionals in the evening, construction management hours can span from 7am until 6-7pm. This can easily result in construction managers working 50+ hours every week, sheerly based on the coordination required between parties to get the job done.
Add in other factors like deadlines, documentation, analysis, planning and administrative work, and one can easily see how construction management is not a typical 9-to-5 job, which can of course be stressful.
2. Unpredictable Daily Schedule
Construction managers are involved in every part of a construction project: billing, financial analysis, scheduling, creating documents, writing letters, handling legal contracts, etc.
Each one of these disciplines has unique demands and requirements. Billing and financial analysis, for example, is typically a month-to-month process with periods of downtime as well as periods of hustle every month.
Creating documents, writing contracts and planning, however, are mostly done at the beginning of a project.
These unique demands, and the timing of them, can create situations where deadlines stack up and workload becomes heavy at times. You may need to work very long hours for periods of time, and might need to work weekends occasionally to keep up.
Ultimately, project management in construction is all about getting things done. This sometimes does require more effort than many are willing to put in. Well-run organizations should be set up to handle the workload, but there will always be busy days.
Some days you will leave on time, whereas other days you might get home just in time for bed. The lack of consistency challenges work-life balance and can be the cause of significant stress! Consider your personal commitments and the time they require before getting into construction management.
3. Financially Risky
In construction management, millions of dollars are on the line. While the amount of financial risk you’re exposed to varies, every project manager in the construction field is handling work that involves financial risk.
Though a project manager’s personal finances are not at risk (as a salary employee), their job security and future promotions rely on their ability to properly manage a project’s finances.
If you’re working for a construction management firm, for example, your firm may bill clients based on hours worked. Your firm is there to manage the work, not perform it. This is the least risky, as you are paid for your time, but the profit margin is fixed per hour and therefore limited. To make more profit, more work needs to be managed and billed. However, if clients aren’t happy, they can terminate you for many reasons, often without notice!
As a contractor, you may work for a client under a cost-plus contract. This is a contract type where you’re paid for the exact costs you spend to complete a project, plus a fixed profit margin (typ. a % of cost). The contractor is responsible for performing this work. While also a safer setup, contractors run the same risks as the construction management firms; unhappy clients terminating the agreement without notice.
Then there are riskier setups. Some contractors take on projects through a lump-sum agreement (LS). Essentially, they agree to do the work for a fixed price, no matter what. Unless there are legitimate changes to the scope of work, this dollar amount won’t change. The profit totally depends on the costs, and how well they are regulated relative to the budget.
Another type of risky agreement is a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) agreement. Similar to a L.S. agreement, contractors are reimbursed for the exact costs they spend to perform the work, and have a fixed profit. If the project has cost overruns, the contractor pays. If the project has underruns, the contractor gets savings. The benefit of a GMP over a LS contract, is that GMPs typically have contingency funds built into the costs for a cushion (often 5%), whereas LS contracts do not.
Regardless of the arrangement, construction management involves a varying degree of financial risk. With this financial risk comes performance expectations, which make construction management a particularly stressful field.
4. Dangerous Work
Make no mistake about it, construction is dangerous. The stats are out there to prove it. Here are some from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA):
- 1 in 5 of all private section worker deaths are in construction.
- Deaths in construction are 5 times more likely, compared to the average occupation.
- Nearly 1,000 workers die in construction each year (U.S.).
- About 33% of these deaths are due to falls.
Construction workers put their safety at risk each day they step on the job site. As construction managers, the establishment of a safe jobsite and taking measures to train workers falls on us. This is of course stressful on its’ own: worker safety is priority number one and the costs of a mistake can be deadly.
The hazards in construction don’t only apply to trade workers either. Any construction managers on a job site are exposed to the same risks as workers. Consider these OSHA death statistics for specific hazards just in the U.S., which construction managers and design professionals can be exposed to:
- 381 fall deaths per year (over 1 per day)
- 80 struck by object (1.6 per week)
- 71 electrocutions (1.5 per week)
- 50 caught/betweens (1 per week)
Additionally, injuries happen way more often. These statistics paint a fair picture of why construction management is stressful.
5. Handling Conflicts & Disputes
In construction, disagreements happen. With human nature comes mistakes, and with mistakes, in construction anyways, come the loss of time and money.
Nobody in the construction industry goes into business to lose money. Whether right or wrong, contractors will often do whatever they can to maximize how much they’re paid, and also minimize how much they lose.
When disputes occur, this can include placing a lien on the property for ‘non-payment’, refusing to proceed with the work, voiding the contract, holding portions of their work ‘hostage’ (not delivering materials, etc.), lawsuits, and even declaring bankruptcy.
Even if the above instances don’t occur, disputes will still happen over money, or about who’s right or wrong in a particular scenario, etc. These disputes are sometimes processed via stern letters, nasty emails and loud, aggressive conversations.
Construction managers working for a contractor must work as hard as they can to maximize getting paid what they’re owed, and also prevent subcontractors from claiming undeserved additional money. Of course, these things must be justified, legitimate and legal.
When money and other variables like time and resources are disputed, the handling of them can certainly cause construction management to be stressful.
6. Small Mistakes Can Have Big Repercussions
One of the most important skills a construction manager can have is attention to detail.
This attention to detail is required across all types of construction management disciplines. Here are just a few ways in which this skill is needed:
- Submitting a bid for a new project
- Estimating material quantities
- Filling out logs and spreadsheets
- Inspecting work as its’ underway and when complete
- Scheduling and coordination
- Proper billing and accounting of project finances
- Providing a safe work environment and maintaining personal safety
- Coordinating several trades of work
- Understanding and interpreting drawings, calculations and documents
Although making mistakes at work is common and pretty much unavoidable, mistakes still have dire consequences, so the threat of them looming makes construction management stressful in itself. When mistakes do occur, this stress gets even worse:
- A bad bid can affect an entire company through loss of money
- Not ordering enough materials to do a job can delay the project Ordering too much means too much money has been spent
- An administrative mistake can create confusion
- Failing to spot a mistake during inspection of the work can have fatal consequences, or at least require redoing the work
- A scheduling error can cost time, money as well as cause confusion
- Issues with project billing can create cashflow problems
- Mistakes in accounting can mislead stakeholders on project profitability
- Failing to provide safe job sites and neglecting personal safety can result in injury and death
- Misinterpreting drawings can create a host of the problems above
When considering these consequences of making mistakes, it’s easy to see why construction management is a stressful career path.
7. Many Things Can Only Be Learned Through Experience
It’s not uncommon to hear about people who’ve worked in construction management for 40 years, or more.
Check out these statistics: you’ll see that the median age of construction managers is 45.6, averaged between men and women. Comparing this statistic with other field like healthcare (42.9), sales & office (41) and education/training/library (42.5), it’s reasonable to say that there are more construction managers in older age brackets compared to other fields.
This is largely due to experience; construction is an industry that relies heavily on the understanding of construction means, methods and practices, as well as experience in all 5 stages of a project’s lifecycle.
The requirement of experience in construction management can be stressful in several ways. Note that some of these stressors exist across many career paths:
- Promotions are often given on the backs of finishing projects and reaching a certain skill level, rather than purely based on time.
- Mistakes always happen when getting better at something. To gain this experience, one must go through many stressful years learning on the fly and proving themselves.
- With construction managers working to a higher average age, positions do not turn over as quickly, so promotions may not be possible at certain companies.
- Ending up on a bad project can have personal repercussions: you may not be the cause of a project going south, but by association, you run the risk of catching flack or getting blamed.
- Construction is one industry that’s less reliant (not totally) on technology. People with degrees in tech can rise to a high level at a younger age, due to their fundamental understanding of technology that older generations don’t have. In construction management, being tech-savvy is less important than in other industries, so older generations of workers can still outshine the younger based on knowledge. However, this is changing…
Having experience in construction matters. These are just a few ways in which experience, or lack thereof, can cause construction management to be stressful.
In Conclusion…
Construction management is a challenging industry that requires many skillsets and the desire to achieve a set end goal. The industry is forecasted to continue to grow, and pays very well, too. If these things sound great, construction management may be the career path for you!
Having said that, it is important to acknowledge the realities of any career path. Construction management is a great career path, but it is not for everybody. If you came here wondering “is construction management stressful?”, I hope I answered this questions fully, and that you found the information you need!
