When you head out to site looking like this...
You deserve all the stick you get!!
Every now and then, we get the chance to get out on-site, putting our tech to the test and last week, during a site walk around we had one of those moments that stays with you.
We caught up with one of the trades — 30+ years man and boy. After poking fun at the headgear for a solid 10 minutes, he got candid about the state of his profession:
🧱 “There’s not many of us left… guys with the proper skills to get the job done right, first time.”
⚠️ “The lack of interest in the trade and lack of training is killing us.”
📏 “Every brick we lay now is scrutinised because one mistake can derail the next trade. We’re under more pressure than ever to be perfect, but it’s impossible to keep up with everything.”
This hit hard. We talk a lot about the “skills gap” and “low productivity”, but do we really know what that feels like on site? For many in the tech world (ourselves included), it’s easy to theorise about collaboration and efficiency from the comfort of a desk.
We often coin the phrases - “There’s a skills gap that grips the industry” and "a lack of collaboration on site leads to low productivity of X%"
Do we even know what that really means???
On site, it’s not about a perfectly timed email or a beautifully designed notification. It’s about:
👉 Driving consistent behaviour that make life easier for the whole team.
👉 Providing an interface that makes sense and enables the right decision.
👉 Providing access to insights and details at the exact moment they’re needed, i.e. every time!
And here’s the thing: it’s not enough to just digitise current process. We tech companies need to keep asking the hard questions:
❓ Are the steps in this process even the right way to get a job done?
❓ Is anything that we are building going to actually get in the way of those on site?
❓ Have we erased all complexity entirely and made it bloody easy to use?
Because if your tech only works for a handful of people, is it really working at all? 🤔
The challenges faced by the trades are real. The solutions we create must be equally real, grounded in empathy, and designed to make every brick, every step, and every decision just that little bit easier.
That’s how our community will build homes—and how PlotTech will build the tech. 🏡💡