Developing resilience: examining the protective factors of early career construction professionals

Abstract

Work in construction is highly demanding and stressful. Graduates must navigate these imminent challenges as well as the challenges associated with transition as they enter their new learning environment and seek to establish their professional identity. This research examined how resilience can support the transition of early career construction professionals from university into the workforce. Interviews were conducted with twenty-five participants and data was thematically analyzed. Challenges experienced by participants related to structural and cultural conditions of working in construction as well as the transitional career stage. Internal protective factors of emotional objectivity, reflection, goal setting, and physical and mental health emerged as important in positively responding to workplace adversity. Task-related and emotion-related organizational support were considered as important external protective factors that can facilitate the development of internal protective factors. Yet, formal organizational support was often not provided. Findings can inform the design of work and workplace programs which support this new cohort of workers to adapt to an unfamiliar and demanding work environment, as well as provide guidance to university construction management programs on ways to support the development of internal protective factors of emerging professionals. Furthermore, it is expected that students transitioning from university to work, irrespective of discipline, will progress through the three stages of the liminal experience and its possible that access to protective factors supporting resilience may assist students to positively move through this process.

Keywords:

• Construction
• graduate transition
• resilience
• protective factors
• work-ready graduates

Introduction

Transition from university to work is often characterized as being highly stressful for early career professionals (Reino and Byrom 2017). Irrespective of the type of workplace encountered, the new work entrant is managing uncertainty and change on multiple fronts including social, professional, and economic (Olson 2014). The workplace presents a new learning environment coupled with increased responsibility, without the same level of support provided by the university and its social infrastructure. The challenges experienced by graduates can include time demands and constraints, pressure, and general stress (Geirdal et al. 2019). The precarious nature of employment of early career professionals may be reflected in inflated turnover rates. For example, in Australia, entry, junior, and graduate level roles (40.6%) have the highest level of turnover compared with middle management (22.5%) and senior management (2.1%) (Begley and Dunne 2018).

Hawse (2017) contends that the transitional stage offers opportunities for educational institutions and the workplace to embed risk mitigation techniques and activities in curricular and workplace development program design. Ryan et al. (2019) argue that along with learning the requisite skills and knowledge aligned with a given profession, universities can actively prepare students for success by facilitating the skills required to manage this challenging time of transition. Helping young professionals to overcome transitional challenges and proactively manage their stress is a critical work-ready capability (Ryan et al. 2019). Consequently, resilience has been identified as a key competency for new graduate appointments (Edgar et al. 2013). Acquiring resilience supports the ability to adapt to changing environments and requirements of the graduate’s profession into the future (Wood and Breyer 2017).

Resilience is a concept that relates to how an individual is able to react and recover when faced with a stressful situation (Windle 2011), and is therefore positioned as an important capability that can assist new entrants to manage and adapt to the challenges they face as they transition into their new environment (Kim and Lee 2018). Resilience is particularly important for construction professionals, as the industry is known to be highly demanding of its workers, resulting in excessive amounts of stress, burnout, and work-life conflict (Chan et al. 2020). Resilience of early career construction professionals is an additional and important consideration, as resilience has been shown to have a direct impact on career success and job satisfaction (Hartmann et al. 2020). Resilience is therefore critical for a successful transition by enabling these young professionals to survive and thrive in this tough working environment.

The voice of early career construction professionals has received limited consideration in the literature. This cohort of workers is unique in a number of important ways compared with other cohorts within the construction industry. New entrants enter an unfamiliar learning environment that is characterized by uncertainty and change, and where many tasks are undertaken for the first time. Together with this, emerging construction professionals must contend with a high-stress and challenging work environment. Furthermore, in the construction industry employee resilience is identified as a protective factor (Chan et al. 2020) however little research has been undertaken with early career construction professionals. The objective of this research is to explore how resilience can support the transition of early career construction professionals from university into the workforce. Two research questions guided the research:

1. How can resilience help early career construction professionals to manage the challenges of work?

2. What protective factors are important for supporting the resilience of early career construction professionals?

University to work transition

Liminality refers to a state of transition from one life-changing event to another. According to Van Gennep (2011), three phases are associated with the liminal experience: (i) separation, where people are detached from their previous social structures; (ii) limen or threshold transitions, where new learning emerges; and (iii) reincorporation, where the new identity is integrated and the individual experiences new roles. In this state of transition, individuals go through a transformatory phase where they are subjected to invisibility, vulnerability, and a feeling of loss (Turner 1969). As students move from university to work, they can be considered to be in a liminal state. For new entrants of the construction industry, this state of transition occurs in a particularly challenging work environment. Irrespective of career stage, workers in the industry can expect to work long and irregular hours and face high risk and pressure due to tight schedules, costs and inevitable project delays (Chan et al. 2020). High levels of interpersonal conflict and poor communication between the client and contractor are prevalent in the industry (Brockman 2014). Furthermore, construction is a male-dominated industry in which women suffer from gender-based discrimination (Hasan et al. 2021). Due to its highly demanding nature, the construction industry has one of the highest rates of mental ill-health (Roche et al. 2016) and suicide (Peterson et al. 2020) when compared with other industries.

There is an expectation from construction employers, industry bodies and government regulators that graduates will commence work with developed generic, technical and early professional skills suited to diverse demands, needs and risks of the industry (Ruge and McCormack 2017, Aliakbarlou et al. 2020). Despite such expectations however, recent graduates have often yet to adequately develop the skills and networks required to enable them to manage professional work demands and “bounce back” when faced with challenges in their new working environment. Together with the stress associated with transition from university to industry, construction graduates must also contend with the demanding and stressful nature of the industry which can result in poor mental health and burnout (Franz et al. 2023). The imminent challenges faced by construction graduates brings into focus the importance of resilience in assisting them to successfully transition and thrive in the industry (Matthews 2016, Papadopoulou 2020).

Mahasneh and Thabet (2016) contend that a key issue facing the construction industry is the ability to find graduates that are knowledgeable not only from a disciplinary perspective but also with a well-developed set of “soft skills”. More recently, the term “transversal skills” has been used to describe those skills which are not typically considered as specific to a particular job or task, but as a skill set which can be used in a wide variety of situations and work settings (Whittemore 2018). Given the challenging nature of the industry, resilience is considered as one of the critical transversal skills for emerging construction professional success.

In recognition of the importance of preparing construction management students for the imminent professional challenges they will face, research has explored the resilience of this cohort. For example, Turner et al. (2017) contend that to be work-ready, built environment graduates require the capacity to bounce back and recover from stressful circumstances. Consistent with this, Holdsworth et al. (2018) identified that students undertaking university studies in built environment disciplines identify that resilience is associated with adaptability that is central to positive workplace outcomes. Turner and Simmons (2020) and Groen et al. (2019) found that for students studying construction engineering and management and building construction programs at university, resilience helped them to navigate the stress they experienced and assist in work-readiness.

Resilience

Resilience has been applied to a wide range of disciplines such as ecology, engineering, and behavioural sciences and there are widely differing views on the meaning and utility across and within disciplines (McAslan 2010, Naderpajouh et al. 2020). In the study of human behaviour, resilience has been described in a number of ways. The person-centred approach contends that resilience represents a set of personal characteristics which enable the individual to thrive in the face of adversity (Connor and Davidson 2003, Greve and Staudinger 2006). Another view positions resilience as a relatively stable personality trait (Bartone 2007, Kirkwood et al. 2008) characterized by the ability to overcome, steer through and bounce back from adversity (Ong et al. 2006). However, approaches which conceptualize resilience as a set of personal characteristics or as a stable personality trait are limited as they do not consider the impact of the environment on the individual. In contrast, the process-centred approach to resilience considers how aspects of the person and environment are connected with consequences to adversities and risks (Greve and Staudinger 2006). Masten (2018, p. 16) argues that “resilience should not be construed as a singular or stable trait, as it arises from dynamic interactions involving many processes across and between systems”. Similarly, Rutter (2006) claims that resilience must not be viewed as a fixed capability, but instead as a process, as it may alter depending on the level and intensity of risk or adversity that is presented. We position our study within the process-centred approach and draw on the definition of resilience by Windle (2011, p. 152) who describes resilience as the “processes of effectively negotiating, adapting to, or managing significant sources of stress”. Resilience is said to be premised on three requisite requirements of (1) the need for an adversity/risk, (2) the presence of protective factors to offset the effects of the adversity, and (3) the positive adaptation or the avoidance of a negative outcome (Windle 2011, Sarkar and Fletcher 2014).

Resilience can be nurtured, practiced and developed throughout the life course (Winwood et al. 2013). Protective factors are central to resilience and are described as attributes in individuals, families, or communities that assist individuals to manage stressful events more effectively and mitigate or eliminate risks (Leadbeater et al. 2005, Fletcher and Sarkar 2013). Importantly, Windle (2011) contends that protective resources are the defining attributes of resilience. There exist two types of positive protective factors. Internal positive protective factors are individual abilities responsible for fostering resilience which are specific to the individual. Emotional intelligence, reflective ability, empathy, social competencies, goal setting, maintaining perspective, and staying healthy are examples of internal protective factors (Grant and Kinman 2011, Winwood et al. 2013, Holdsworth et al. 2018, Tuck et al. 2022). External protective factors are positive environmental support structures that originate from home, work, school, peer group, and community. Positive external factors in relation to employment refer to an institution that provides a safe and supportive environment that promotes positive relationships between workers which encourage opportunities for development, growth and success (Hartmann et al. 2020).

Unlike broad definitions of resilience which often focus on adaptation to adversity and trauma, resilience in the work environment describes the ability of an individual worker to respond to everyday problems and challenges associated with their work (Cooper et al. 2013, McEwen 2018). For example, Cooper et al. (2013, p. 1) describe resilience in the workplace as: “being able to bounce back from setbacks and to stay effective in the face of tough demands and difficult circumstances”. Beyond merely bouncing back, Cooper et al. (2013, p. 1) go on to emphasize that resilience in the work environment “goes beyond recovery from stressful or potentially stressful events, to include the sustainability of that recovery and the lasting benefit—the strength that builds through coping well with such situations”. Similarly, McEwen (2018, p. 4) describes resilience at work as the “capacity to manage the everyday stress of work while staying healthy, adapting and learning from setbacks and preparing for future challenges pro-actively”.

There is an increasing emphasis on the workplace as a point of intervention for targeting the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of wellbeing (Harvey et al. 2014). Many occupational health initiatives focus on reducing sickness, presenteeism or sickness absence, which are all known to present a high cost to organizations. However, it is increasingly recognized that workers who are mentally and physically healthy are also more productive, shifting the emphasis from prevention of ill-health to the promotion of good health in workplaces (Christensen 2017). In the workplace, developing employee resilience has been positioned as a method of supporting the “working well” to manage and thrive in the everyday challenges they are facing. This is in contrast to supporting employees recovering from trauma or major setbacks (McEwen 2018).

Resilience and wellbeing in the construction industry

Research has identified that resilience is associated with construction worker’s wellbeing. For example, resilience was identified as a protective factor for mental health of construction tradesmen in Nigeria (Nwaogu et al. 2022). Nwaogu et al. (2022) report that tradesmen with increased resilience were less likely to experience depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as suicide ideation. Level of resilience was also associated with the use of positive reappraisal coping behaviours. In the Canadian construction industry, resilience was reported to have a significant negative impact on psychological stress and is considered as a secondary preventer of job stress for trade workers (Chen et al. 2017a). In another study with construction trade workers in Canada, Chen et al. (2017b) found that resilience had a significant negative correlation with workplace interpersonal conflict with supervisors and coworkers, which in turn could decrease the frequency of physical safety outcomes and job stress. In another study, He et al. (2019) explored the resilience of Chinese construction workers in the context of safety behaviour and findings suggest that resilience was positioned as an element of psychological capital. In the Australian construction industry, women in trades and skilled roles consider that resilience is a requirement to manage setbacks, overcome challenges, and attain career goals (Turner et al. 2021, Bridges et al. 2023). There appears to be a gap in the literature in relation to the resilience of early career construction professionals and what type of protective factors can help them to manage stressors to support wellbeing.

Method

Sampling strategy

Early career professionals have been defined as having up to three years (Shields and Kilgour 2018), five years (SPIE 2020), or ten years (Brink and Cooper 2016) of work experience post-graduation. Other definitions are descriptive in nature and refer to early career professionals as future leaders of their profession (Kulkarni et al. 2018). We took the numerical mid-point and defined an early career professional of having up to five years of work experience post-graduation. A purposive sampling strategy was applied to the research and participants were invited to take part in an interview if they met all of the following selection criteria: (i) had completed or close to completing a construction management bachelor degree; (ii) had up to five years of work experience in the construction industry related to their construction management degree; and (iii) working full time in the construction industry at the time of the interview. Inclusion of students who were close to completing their degree alongside their fulltime employment was warranted as its common that students undertake full time work in parallel with their construction management studies (Lingard 2007).

In the first stage of sample recruitment, the research team provided an overview of the research to students undertaking a final year subject as part of their construction management program and invited students to participate if they met the selection criteria. The research team made a presentation in class and approximately 25 students were in attendance. The construction management program is located at a large urban Australian University. The four-year full time program consists largely of technical subjects. Subjects focused on the development of transversal skills include communications, management and leadership. In the second stage of sample recruitment, interviewees were asked to circulate information about the research to their work peers. Prior to the interview, all potential participants were asked screening questions to ascertain whether they met the selection criteria. The sample size was guided by the principle of data saturation (i.e. data collection ceased when no new content was raised by participants). (Saunders et al. 2018, Hennink and Kaiser 2022). Approval for the research had been received from the university ethics committee and the dean of the faculty.

Instrument and analysis

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants by telephone or face-to-face. The questions were structured to explore the expected challenges of working in construction; the actual challenges experienced while working in construction; the value of resilience in helping to manage the challenges; and strategies that can be used to positively adapt to these challenges. Sample questions included:

• Prior to commencing work in construction, what expectations did you have of the industry?

• Now that you are working in construction, were your expectations met?

• When things get difficult at work what do you do?

• When things get difficult at work, what else might help you?

Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. In preparation for analysis, transcripts were de-identified and each participant was allocated a unique code. Deductive thematic analysis was applied to the data (Boyatzis 1998). Theory-driven themes were generated deductively from the three stages of the process-centred approach to resilience: adversity (challenges), protective factors, positive adaptation or the avoidance of a negative outcome (Windle 2011, Sarkar and Fletcher 2014). Data was manually coded independently by two researchers. Following this, initial codes were compared by the researchers, subthemes were developed, and alignment of subthemes to theory-driven themes were agreed upon, thereby supporting the trustworthiness of data analysis and emergent findings (Braun and Clarke 2006). To support the trustworthiness of the analysis, quotations are used to illustrate findings (Eldh et al. 2020).

Results

Participants

Twenty-five participants were interviewed and demographic characteristics are summarized in Table 1. The majority of participants were male (80%, n = 20) which is consistent with gender participation in the construction industry (French and Strachan 2018). All participants worked full time in construction, and the majority of participants (64%, n = 16) had completed their construction management degree. Of those who were competing their studies, six participants studied part time and three studied full time. Weekly work hours ranged from 40 to 70 hours. The mean working hours per week for participants who were studying full time was 43 hours, for those studying part time was 53 hours, and for graduates was 54 hours. The age of participants ranged from 22 to 32 years, and the mean age was 25 years. Total years of working in the industry ranged from four months to ten years. In cases where participants had worked for more than five years in the industry, work experience had preceded commencement of the construction management degree and often related to trades or labouring work. For example, participant 4 had ten years of experience in the construction industry and started as an electrician apprentice and became qualified before commencing his construction management degree. Similarly, participant 18 had ten years of experience in the construction industry and started as an apprentice carpenter and became qualified before commencing his construction management degree. Ten participants were in a cadet or graduate role, and two participants had recently completed their graduate role. Two of the participants who had yet to complete their studies held graduate positions. Participants who were not in a cadet or graduate role were in various roles including assistant project manager, project manager, development manager, construction manager, construction coordinator, and junior foreman.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of participants.

ID	Sex	Student/graduate status	Total years working in industry	Average hours worked per week	Current work role
1	M	4th Year PT student	2	50–60	Graduate role
2	M	4th Year PT student	1	60	Junior site foreman
3	M	3rd Year FT student	4	40	Junior site foreman
4	M	4th Year FT student	10	44	Site foreman
5	M	Graduated 3 years ago	3	50–60	Project manager
6	M	Graduated 2 years ago	2	60–70	Project manager
7	M	Graduated 1 year ago	1.5	60	Project coordinator
8	M	Graduated 1 year ago	4	50+	Cadet
9	M	Graduated 2 years ago	4 months	50+	Graduate role
10	F	Graduated 3 years ago	3	45–50	Project manager
11	M	3rd Year FT student	5	45	Graduate role
12	M	Graduated 1 year ago	4	50	Assistant project manager
13	M	4th Year PT student	3	60	Cadet
14	M	4th Year PT student	5	45	Cadet
15	F	Graduated 5 years ago	5	55–65	Construction coordinator
16	M	Graduated 1 year ago	1	50–60	Graduate role
17	M	Graduated 5 years ago	5	60	Senior site coordinator
18	M	Graduated 2 years ago	10	60	Graduate role
19	M	4th Year PT student	3	55	Development manager
20	F	Graduated 1 year ago	5	60	Assistant project manager
21	M	4th Year PT student	6 months	40–45	Development manager
22	F	Graduated 1 year ago	1	50–55	Assistant project manager
23	M	Graduated 5 years ago	5.5	55	Senior manager
24	F	Graduated 3 years ago	6	40–45	Assistant development manager
25	M	Graduated 3 years ago	8	Unknown	Construction manager

M: male; F: female; PT: part time student; FT: full time student.

Themes

Table 2 outlines the themes and subthemes which emerged from the data in relation to challenges (adversity) expected and experienced in the workplace, protective factors, and the utility of employee resilience (positive adaption or avoidance of a negative outcome). Each theme and subtheme is described in the next section.

Table 2. Themes and subthemes.

Theme	Subtheme
Challenges expected in the workplace	Unsure of what to expect prior to commencing Long work hours Lack of work life balance High pace and high pressure of work Work environment that is rough, confronting, male dominated and lacking in professional behaviour
Challenges experienced in the workplace	Long work hours Lack of work life balance High pace and high pressure of work Work environment that is rough, confronting, male dominated and lacking in professional behaviour Gender-based challenges for women Lack of support and feedback Steep learning curve and thrown in the deep end
Protective factors	Emotional objectivity Reflection Goal setting Staying healthy Support
Utility of employee resilience	Adapting and bouncing back Persistence and moving forward Survive in the high-stress work environment

Challenges expected and experienced in the workplace

Six participants had not been sure what to expect prior to entering the construction industry. Nineteen participants expected to experience challenges related to:

• long work hours and lack of work life balance

• high pace and high pressure of work

• work environment that was rough, confronting, male dominated and lacking in professional behaviour

All participants who had pre-conceived expectations of the industry reported that all of their expectations had been met and, in some instances, surpassed. Of concern was that the majority participants (n = 23) felt unprepared to manage the challenges associated with the workplace culture they had encountered. In relation to work hours, many participants reported that the hours they worked had surpassed their initial expectations. Participant 7 (graduate, project coordinator) commented that: “my expectations were met and passed. It’s more tiring than I imagined, the long hours”. As expected by most participants, long working hours led to poor work-life balance. Participant 5 (graduate, project manager) commented that: “work life balance is horrible”. Participant 15 (graduate, construction coordinator) commented that a lack of work-life balance had been recognized at her workplace but nothing had been done to rectify it, suggesting that long working hours continued to be the norm: “work life balance is spoken about a lot but [there are] no actions from it”.

In many cases, the work environment had been more challenging than had been initially expected. Participant 23 (graduate, senior manager) noted that “dealing with people is harder than I expected”. Participant 4 (4th year full time student, site foreman) who had previously completed an electrician apprenticeship and had ten years of experience in the industry, commented: “I knew what I was roughly getting into. I knew it could be quite a hostile environment. What I have found though is that the percentage of people who are educated and deal with things in a professional manner is quite limited”.

On top of the challenges experienced by early career construction professionals, females acknowledged that they experienced additional challenges due to their gender. For example, participant 15 (graduate, construction coordinator) explained how she had been excluded because she was female: “[the construction industry is] still mostly a boys club and there are conversations you get left out of”. Because of these gender-specific challenges present in construction, participant 22 (graduate, assistant project manager) believed that: “being female in this industry requires a fair amount of resilience in itself”.

In addition to the anticipated challenges of working in construction, some participants identified lack of support and feedback as an additional challenge they had not expected. For example, participant 7 (graduate, project coordinator) explained: “[the work is] mentally very draining and the hours are very draining. You don’t really get any positive feedback so it takes a lot of self-motivation and inner determination to do your work even though you don’t really see the fruits of your labour”.

Aside from the challenges arising from working in construction, challenges also arose as a result of transitioning into an unfamiliar role and workplace. Many participants referred to a “steep learning curve”, “thrown straight in the deep end”, “making mistakes”, and needing to “ask lots of questions”. The unfamiliar and new work environment that participants experienced is illustrated by participant 2 (4th year part time student): “I have only been in the industry just over a year, so it is very new to me”. Similarly, participant 10 (graduate, project manager) commented on the steep learning curve she had experienced since she had graduated from university three years ago and commenced work in construction: “It’s been a steep learning curve since university. When things get tough I just remember that I’m very early in my career. I take a step back and think that I’m not supposed to know everything yet. There is always so much I don’t know”.

Protective factors

Participants identified both internal and external protective factors as important to manage the everyday challenges they experienced in the workplace. These consisted of emotional objectivity, reflection, goal setting, staying healthy, support and feedback.

Emotional objectivity

Emotional objectivity was described as the ability to solve problems considered stressful or challenging by drawing on facts rather than being driven by an emotional response. This was considered particularly important in a work environment which could be abrasive and confrontational, especially towards junior workers. Emotional objectivity was associated with self-confidence and self-belief. Some participants described how they “walked away from stressful situations to re-group”, “walked around the block” or “switched tasks for a period of time” to manage their emotions and move towards a state of emotional objectivity. Participant 17 (graduate, senior site coordinator) explained how he used emotional objectivity to resolve a challenging work issue: “I take a step back and look at it [the situation] as a problem-solving issue. Take the emotion out of it. Just look at how to get out of the situation”. Participants identified that emotional objectivity helped them to maintain a professional manner, particularly in situations when other workers were abrasive, rude, or insulting towards them.

Reflection

The ability to reflect on and learn from experiences was described as a capacity that assisted participants to respond to similar challenges in the future. Participants described occasions where they had taken time out or spent time alone to reflect on and learn from work challenges they had experienced. This consisted of considering what they would do again and how they might do things differently in the future. For example, participant 11 (3rd year full time student, in a graduate role) commented: “experience helps, working out what works for me and the only way to learn is to experience it”. Similarly, participant 13 (4th year part time student, cadet) commented: “Experience helps. Putting yourself in situations you are uncomfortable and then reflect to grow”. Due to the very nature of being an early career professional, some participants expected that they would make mistakes as they navigated new tasks in an unfamiliar work environment and that taking a reflective approach would help them to learn from their mistakes. For example, participant 22 (graduate, assistant project manager) commented that: “I need to make mistakes to see how I bounce back and work through them”.

Goal setting

The ability to set goals enabled participants to persist and keep moving forward when dealing with stressful circumstances. Immediate challenges were considered as short term setbacks in the context of a future-oriented approach. For example, participant 12 (graduate, assistant project manager) commented: “goal setting allows me to understand how to work and push forward to achieve something”. To support the setting and achievement of career goals, participants drew on the support of their peers and mentors to track progress, as well as self-assessment to track progress against medium and long term goals. Goal setting was also associated with the ability maintain a work style or approach, especially in the context of challenging situations. For some participants, career goals were intrinsically linked with working style and values. For example, participant 25 (graduate, construction manager) describes how he expected to achieve his career goals whilst maintaining a particular work attitude and set of values: “[I will] maintain a work attitude and ethic regardless of [the] environment around me”.

Staying healthy

Staying mentally and physically healthy was considered important by participants to manage stress. Staying healthy was enabled by having time outside of work to exercise, rest, and relax, however this could be challenging when working long hours. Some participants used physical activity as a form of stress release. For example, participant 5 (graduate, project manager) commented: “outside of work I like going for runs, I feel it uses excess energy or built up emotion/anger [from work] when you can just run”. Mentally switching off from work was considered important for managing stress and maintaining good mental health. Participant 2 (4th year part time student, junior site foreman) explained: “Distance yourself so that once you get home from work try not to think about it [work]”. Being organized and establishing routines to transition into and out of work were also considered important for supporting mental health. For example, participant 17 (graduate, senior site coordinator) described his morning work routine: “I used to drive to work in silence and plan the start of my day so when I got to work I was ready to go and organized”.

Support

Both formal and informal support and feedback were considered crucial, especially when participants were experiencing unfamiliar problems and challenges. Participants identified that mentoring was an important element of organizational support during the transitional stage. Some participants had been formally assigned a mentor by their organization, while others had independently sought out a mentor. Mentors supported the growth and development of participants, as illustrated by participant 20 (graduate in graduate program) who commented: “having a mentor helps growing you to get the confidence”. Similarly, participant 18 described how mentoring was associated with learning: “find yourself a good mentor and take in as much as you can.” Participants who were in a graduate program or cadetship were more likely to have formal support from their organization, such as being assigned a mentor, however once these programs finished, formal support was often no longer available and participants were left to fend for themselves.

As new entrants to the workplace, participants valued the opportunity to ask questions and learn from team members which enabled career growth and development. For example, participant 19 (4th year part time student, cadet) commented: “Internal support from the site team makes it a lot easier to get knowledge and a way to approach issues”. In addition to asking questions, feedback on performance was also considered an important element of support for participants, especially in the beginning stages of their career. Some participants had experienced a “lack of support” in the workplace and therefore needed to be proactive in seeking support and asking questions. For example, participant 4 (4th year full time student, site foreman) explained: “I am quite good at knowing who I can go to, to provide that expert advice and getting feedback”. Participant 4 had ten years of experience in the construction industry and had completed an electrician apprenticeship prior to undertaking his construction management studies, and therefore this may have contributed to him knowing who and how to access advice and feedback.

The proactive nature of seeking out support, often from senior team members, suggests that self-confidence is an important aspect of being proactive in seeking support and feedback. Some participants acknowledged that their organization helped them to feel confident in approaching senior team members. For example, participant 8 (graduate, cadet) commented: “They [the organization] do promote cadets to feel comfortable speaking to positions up [senior managers]”.

Informal support from friends who worked in construction was also considered beneficial as they understood the work context and had possibly faced similar challenges. For example, participant 2 (4th year part time student, junior site foreman) commented: “some of my friends are in the same industry so it can be helpful to talk to mates about problems faced at work because sometimes they may have faced it as well so they can give their opinion on what could help”. Similarly, participant 22 (graduate, assistant project manager) commented: “calling friends who have gone through the same thing for help and guidance sometimes. Helps me reflect and ask questions to see how best to work through it”.

Utility of employee resilience

Adapting and bouncing back were associated with resilience. For example, participant 13 (4th year part time student, cadet) commented how resilience can help to adapt and bounce back from an unfamiliar situation: “when faced with situations you are not comfortable with or used to, how you are able to adapt or bounce back to create a positive outcome for yourself and not bring yourself down”. Participants also described how resilience can help them to manage the demands associated with work tasks. Participant 23 (graduate, senior manager) commented that resilience: “enables an ability to overcome highs and lows in both emotional and physical strain of the nature of the work I am doing”. The ability to be flexible and adapt when work did not go according to plan were also associated with resilience. For example, participant 16 (graduate in a graduate program) commented: “Resilience is the capacity to recover, flexibility, toughness. If something goes wrong you need to be flexible to counteract the plan or change the process”.

Persistence and moving forward were also associated with resilience. When faced with a challenging work experience, resilience assisted participants with the ability to persist and move forward. For example, participant 12 (graduate, assistant project manager) commented: “[being resilient] means the ability to bounce back, move forward and push through tasks”. Similarly, participant 16 (graduate in a graduate program) commented that resilience helps to “continue going where you need to go”. Participants also perceived that resilience assisted with moving forward when faced with challenging or difficult interpersonal work interactions. Participant 20 (graduate in a graduate program) commented that: “[resilience is] important because you are dealing with a diversity of roles everyday with conflicting work styles, and different values”. Similarly, participant 17 (graduate, senior site coordinator) commented that resilience enabled him to: “Still being able to operate in a difficult environment”.

There was a perception by some participants that the challenges experienced in construction had compelled them to develop their resilience in order to survive in the high-stress work environment. For example, participant 11 (3rd year full time student, graduate program) commented: “I am forced to be more resilient than I am”. Participants acknowledged that their level of resilience had improved by experiencing and managing challenging work situations. For example, participant 15 (graduate, construction coordinator) commented that: “before I started in the construction industry I had resilience, but I have definitely built on it and I am now extremely resilient because of the type of environment we work in is high stress”. Similarly, participant 4 reflected that they were “increasingly resilient and that only comes from experience”.

Discussion

Challenges of working in construction

Resilience in the work environment describes the ability of an individual worker to respond to everyday problems and challenges (“adversity”) associated with their work (Cooper et al. 2013, McEwen 2018). Our findings revealed that early career professionals experience problems and challenges associated with working in the construction industry such as long working hours, lack of work-life balance, and rough and confronting interactions. Unlike more experienced construction workers who have learned to navigate through these workplace challenges, our participants were attempting to navigate their way through a vast array of challenges for the first time whilst attempting to establish their professional identity and consider their career trajectory (Nyström et al. 2008). While most participants expected to be faced with challenges upon commencing work in the construction industry, the reality was often more challenging than what was initially expected.

While the interview questions did not explicitly ask about the role of gender in relation to resilience, gender was raised as an issue impacting on women in construction. Early in their career, women had already experienced challenges related to their gender such as being excluded and isolated. Furthermore, some women felt that they needed to be resilient to get by in this male-dominated industry. Our findings concur with previous research contending that resilience is a requirement for women working in construction (Turner et al. 2021). Our findings suggest that early career construction women may experience additional challenges than men as they transition into work based on their gender status. However, unlike the challenges associated with the transitional phase which may be resolved as graduates move past the early career stage, women will most likely experience gender-based challenges throughout their career, irrespective of career stage (Galea et al. 2018). Gender-based challenges experienced by women that are prevalent in the construction industry are likely to put early career construction women at a career disadvantage. Our findings support calls for the removal of gender-based discrimination and harassment in construction (e.g. Galea et al. 2018, Hasan et al. 2021, Turner et al. 2021).

Arguably, many of the challenges expected and experienced by early career professionals are associated with the culture of the industry and the way in which work is fundamentally organized and structured (Lingard and Turner 2022). For example, long working hours are driven by industry norms and procurement practices and are known to be harmful to workers’ mental health and wellbeing (Chan et al. 2020). Utilizing protective factors to respond to structural- and cultural-related work conditions may help early career professionals to a certain extent, however these challenging conditions are likely to persist. A more sustainable approach would be the removal of work conditions which create stress and are associated with negative health outcomes. In the case of early career professionals, this would mean the removal of long working hours which in turn enables work-life balance and supports mental and physical health. Additionally, the creation of a respectful work culture that values and supports inclusion and civility between all workers irrespective of gender, age, occupation, and career stage.

Together with the industry-specific challenges, participants also experienced challenges related to the transitional phase of their career. Participants in our study referred to “being thrown in the deep end” and experiencing a “steep learning curve”. There was a sense that new entrants were dependent on more experienced staff to learn and develop and to navigate the challenging construction environment. Yet, many participants felt unsupported by their organization which may have led to a feeling of vulnerability and a lack of self-confidence. Of concern was that many participants felt ill-equipped to navigate the various challenges they experienced in their new environment.

Aligning role to capability

It is possible that the difficult and challenging aspects of work experienced by early career construction professionals may have been exacerbated by the roles allocated to graduates. For example, participant 5 had been working in construction for three years and was employed as a project coordinator where he “looked after 7–12 jobs with 7 people per job”. In a somewhat surprising finding which falls outside the scope of the current study but merits further exploration, many participants had experienced a rapid promotion to a senior role soon after commencing their graduate role. For example, participant 6 commented: “I started in a graduate role in my first year and then got promoted to a job role that requires 5 years of experience although I got the role after just 1 year”. It is possible that assigning early career construction professionals to roles with a high level of complexity and responsibility that is not aligned with their current level of knowledge, skills and experience may lead to feelings of inadequacy, vulnerability and stress.

Internal protective factors

According to Windle (2011), protective factors are the defining attributes of resilience. Participants identified a range of internal protective factors (emotional objectivity, reflection, goal setting, staying healthy) and an external factor (support) as important in supporting their resilience. Emotional regulation has previously been identified as an important protective factor which can assist individuals with positive refocusing (Winwood et al. 2013, Kim and Lee 2018). Thomas and Zolkoski (2020) contend that emotional intelligence facilitates the use of effective emotion regulation practices and the ability to recover from sources of environmental stress.

While emotional regulation is an internal protective factor, its development can be supported by the university through curriculum-based activities structured around refocusing and positive reframing of problem-based construction case studies. Emotional regulation may form one component of a soft skills program embedded into the construction management degree (Mahasneh and Thabet 2016). In the workplace, the development of emotional regulation can be supported by mentors and supervisors, which is further considered in the context of organizational support in a later section of the discussion.

Our results are consistent with studies identifying reflection as an important internal protective factor (e.g. Grant and Kinman 2011). University students undertaking studies in construction management have previously identified self-reflection as an enabler of resilience (Holdsworth et al. 2018). Consistent with our findings, Holdsworth et al. (2018) found that reflection was considered important by students when adapting to or managing adversity, and was associated with the ability to put a situation into perspective in relation to other events or circumstances in the individual’s life, and to learn from the experience. Emerging from reflection is new knowledge and experience which contributes to the student’s confidence (Holdsworth et al. 2018). Developing students’ reflective ability through the university curriculum has garnered much attention in the literature (e.g. Ryan and Ryan 2012), and the results of this study suggest that it’s a critical component of the construction management university curriculum.

Goal setting has previously been identified by construction management students as an enabler of resilience. Setting long term career goals and the associated intermediary- and short-term goals help students to endure, persist, and stay motivated when experiencing stressful circumstances (Holdsworth et al. 2018). Like that of Holdsworth et al. (2018), goal setting was associated with a focus on the future. Given the importance of goal setting in the context of resilience, this is an area in which construction organizations should focus. This could entail the implementation of formal career planning in which young professionals articulate their career goals and the organization identifies how it will support the achievement of these goals.

Staying mentally and physically healthy was considered important for participants’ resilience, which is consistent with previous research with construction management students (Holdsworth et al. 2018). Participants utilized their time outside of work to exercise, rest, and relax. Participants did however, experience long working hours which impeded on the time available outside of work to exercise and rest. This finding is consistent with research which acknowledges construction as a long working hours industry in which its workers are expected to prioritize work over personal and family activities and responsibilities. Construction professionals based onsite routinely work a six-day week with an average of 50 hours per week or more (Lingard and Francis 2004). Long working hours is likely to have a negative impact on staying healthy, and the absence of this internal protective factor may impact the ability to positively adapt.

External protective factors

Support was identified as an important external protective factor, and two elements were considered of value for participants’ resilience. Support was associated with the provision of task-related expert advice and performance feedback. Emotional support in relation to responding to and managing the challenging construction work culture was also considered important. Critically, the availability of formal support structures in the organization was not available for many participants. Limited social support from colleagues and immediate supervisors as well as lack of feedback mechanisms in construction have been acknowledged as a shortcoming which can lead to mental ill-health (Chan et al. 2020). In the absence of work support, construction workers must compensate through self-support mechanisms (Love et al. 2010). For early career construction professionals, self-support mechanisms may be underdeveloped at this stage of their career which may leave them vulnerable, and impact on their capacity to be resilient when facing challenges imminent in the workplace.

Emerging from our findings is the criticality of formal organizational support and its wider impact on resilience for early career professionals. In addition to task-based support and emotional-based support, support mechanisms can facilitate the development of internal protective factors. For example, mentoring may assist with the development of reflective ability and emotional objectivity. Formal feedback mechanisms are likely to facilitate goal setting and attainment. The interdependent nature of protective factors indicated through our findings is consistent with the literature highlighting that resilience is a multi-dimensional construct (e.g. Winwood et al. 2013, Hartmann et al. 2020).

New learning environment

As graduates transition into the workplace from university they will experience new and unfamiliar situations. The workplace presents a new learning environment where new identities are forming, without the same level of support provided by the university and its social infrastructure. Resilience was considered important for participants, enabling them to adapt and bounce back from the challenges they experienced in their new environment whilst maintaining their persistence to move forward in their career. It is possible that during this transitional phase, positively adapting to workplace challenges is aligned with liminal experience of stage two in which new learning emerges, and stage three where the new identity is integrated (Van Gennep 2011). Persistence and moving forward were considered important aspects of resilience by our participants, which may indicate that resilience is also linked to retention for emerging construction professionals. Holdsworth et al. (2018) contends that resilience is important for the wellbeing of workers and their long-term engagement in the construction industry and is therefore linked to retention. Further research with this cohort is required to explore this proposition with early career professionals.

Conclusion and limitations

The voice of early career construction professionals and their experiences in the transition from university into the workplace is rarely explored. Prior to this research, relatively little was known about the experience of emerging graduates as they transition into the construction industry and commence their professional life. Findings identified that resilience is important for early career construction professionals, and that both the university and the employer play a critical role in resilience development. Findings can inform the design and implementation of workplace programs which support this new cohort of workers to adapt to an unfamiliar and demanding work environment. Workplace programs could helpfully include the implementation of formal mentoring programs which offer task-based and emotional support and which facilitate goal setting and achievement of goals. Importantly, task-related and emotion-related organizational support were considered as important external protective factors that can facilitate the development of internal protective factors, yet formal organizational support was often not provided. Furthermore, direct managers of early career professionals should be supported by their organization to provide regular and constructive feedback to new entrants through a structured and formalized supervision program. It’s also imperative that organizations employing early career professionals implement formal career planning programs which incorporate the development of career goals and the role of the organization in assisting to achieve career goals. Organizations should also consider how they can support early career professionals through the provision of working hours which supports work-life balance and time for activities contributing to staying physically and mentally healthy.

Findings can also provide guidance to university construction management programs through the implementation of curriculum-based strategies which support the development of emotional regulation and reflective practice. This may be achieved by facilitating activities structured around refocusing and positive reframing of problem-based construction case studies. The findings also suggest there is merit in emphasizing the soft skills as well as the technical skills and embedding them across the construction management degree.

It is possible that survivor bias was present in this study. That is, participants may have already demonstrated some level of resilience by remaining in the industry. Early career professionals who had left the industry because the university did not prepare them for adversity and who were not adequately supported by the workplace would not be available to interview or may be less inclined to participate. Further research may address this limitation by exploring the reasons why early career professionals choose to leave the industry and do not pursue a career in construction.

Participants of the research were construction management students or alumni from one large urban Australian university working in the construction industry, therefore results cannot be generalized to other disciplines or countries. However, it is expected that new entrants, irrespective of discipline, will progress through the three stages of the liminal experience and its possible that resilience may assist with this process. Further research may investigate the experience of new and emerging construction professionals from other countries to better understand how students can be adequately equipped for a smooth and successful transition into the challenging construction industry. Furthermore, a limitation of the method utilized is the use of self-report data. Given that experience is self-referent and subjective in nature, this does not present as a significant limitation. Instead, results of this study contribute to knowledge in this understudied area of research. Finally, it is acknowledged that various internal and external protective factors associated with resilience have been identified in the literature, and that only a subset emerged in our study. It is possible that additional protective factors are applicable to early career construction professionals and further research can address this.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.