Labor Shortages, Digital Transformation & Hacks for Avoiding Project Delays

Now is as good a time as any to look at the state of the construction industry and what to expect over the coming months. Two recent Quickbase surveys of over 400 construction professionals uncover what is really happening on the jobsite, the impact of technology on productivity and how to get ahead of issues before they create a ripple effect on project timelines and budgets.

Some of the issues raised in Quickbase’s 2025 State of Construction, such as the ongoing labor shortage and skills gap, were expected. For 88%, labor shortages impact their ability to complete work on time. Along with falling behind on projects, labor shortages impede the ability to win new work for 76% of survey participants. Filling the labor pool is getting harder as fewer workers enter the industry and more are retiring, leaving 82% of construction company leaders concerned about losing institutional knowledge from more experienced workers.

A closer look at some of the related challenges, such as project delays, is shedding new light into the newer ways that work gets done these days. One surprising finding was a continued overreliance on outdated processes, such as paper forms still being used to some degree by 91% of survey participants. This likely contributes to 95% of construction projects experiencing unexpected or increased costs, which resulted in exceeding project budgets.

These challenges may also explain the growing interest in using digital tools to close some of the labor gaps and spot project delays before they cut productivity and profitability. While only 12% currently use fully automated software to manage projects, a separate survey conducted by Procore found that 32% of construction professionals say they need new technology to overcome economic and industry volatility.
 

When Digital Transformation Helps & Hinders Projects

For digital transformation in construction, it’s not as simple as just moving from paper to digital; it’s a larger leap involving processes and employee buy-in. Yet for many construction firms, the ease of downloading digital tools and the ubiquity of project managers bringing their favorite apps to each new jobsite does offer time savings — at least in the short term.

However, there is a risk of having a glut of digital tools, especially when you have crews in the field, subcontractors coming on and off the jobsite, and different systems back in the office.

What happens is each team adapts their own way of doing things, mastering their digital tools of choice. From a strategic perspective, there are technology feature redundancies as similar products are used on various jobsites. This increases the risk of shadow IT and security breaches, along with unnecessary software subscription costs.

Then, when it comes to seeing the big picture on a project or bidding for a seven- or eight-figure requests for proposal (RFP), teams must scramble to pull together information from all these disconnected tools. This takes longer than most project managers anticipate and leads to overwhelm.

In the 2025 Gray Work Index by Quickbase, nearly 88% of the 400 survey participants report being overwhelmed to some degree by the amount of software solutions needed to get work done on a typical day.

The lost productivity time is significant, as 59% of respondents are spending upwards of 11 hours per week going through various digital tools and tapping colleagues for their insights so they can cobble together the information they need. This issue is known as gray work, and with it comes an inherent risk that critical data might be lost in the reconciliation process. As a result, 50% of respondents experienced project delays over the past year.

When projects are delayed and contractors can’t complete their work on time, profitability is undermined, quality is compromised, and the relationship between contractors and clients is at risk. Meanwhile, rushing to catch up on that lost time leaves the workforce vulnerable to accidents.

Streamline Processes & Information for Strategic Project Management

This is why it’s best to start small with a strategic digital transformation. For example, begin by creating reusable digital forms on the jobsite for activities such as signing in, documenting project status, immediately capturing incidents and more. Along with enabling better recordkeeping and the sharing of learnings among coworkers, you reduce admin and manual errors previously caused by having employees rekey handwritten notes. Once workers get more comfortable with digital tools, you can automate more processes and document on-the-job knowledge to avoid brain drain once workers leave or retire.

To avoid having too many tools and reduce the risk of gray work, centralize information on a work management platform. This avoids confusion or questions about the accuracy of project information by making it available to project stakeholders in the office or on a jobsite.

The Future of Construction Tech

A streamlined work management platform complements existing investments in technology and sets you up to easily add newer technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, the Gray Work Index shows that 49.42% of construction professionals are using AI tools daily, while 34.57% use them weekly. A further 70% anticipate their organizations will increase their investments in AI tools. For AI to be effective, the underlying data must be accurate.

The survey results underscore the fact that many delays, including bidding, project management and administrative, are avoidable. When every person involved in a project has current and consistent information on progress and status, their collective experience and intelligence allows them to get ahead of delays to boost profitability.