Human Side of Construction

It’s ok not to be ok.

There are countless people struggling in silence.

You don’t have to go it alone.

Been there done that 🤪

We keep treating this like a soft issue. The math says otherwise.

Poor mental health costs U.S. business up to $300 billion a year. Run construction’s share of that and you’re near $12 billion. Add Canada and the estimate clears $21 billion.

Given what we already know about this industry, that’s the conservative version, not the alarming one.

But a number that big hides the actual thing. It hides the guy who’s on site every day and hasn’t been himself in months. Present, but running at half capacity. It hides the roughly 12 days a year someone with poor mental health quietly disappears, while the guy next to him misses two or three.

We were trained to file that under personal problems, handled on personal time. It isn’t. It’s an operating condition. And the data cuts the other way too. Organizations that actually invest in mental health support see about $4 back for every $1 they put in.

The cost of looking away was never zero. We just weren’t writing it down.

Ask a guy on a tough stretch how he’s doing and a lot of them will tell you the same thing: “I feel good when I’m at work.”

At work there’s belonging. There’s value you can see right in front of you. By about 9:30 in the morning the adrenaline kicks in and every pain you’re carrying disappears for a while.

Then you clock out. You walk off the job site. And your reality slams into you.

The relationship that’s falling apart. The kid whose life you’re absent from because being a provider is how you see yourself. The substance use. The pain you spent all day outrunning.

It was right there waiting the whole time.

We don’t talk about this part honestly enough. Work isn’t the thing breaking some guys. For a lot of them it’s the one place the noise goes quiet. That is exactly why the hours after the shift matter so much, and exactly why nobody thinks to check on them then.

5,600.
That’s roughly how many U.S. construction and extraction workers we lost to su***de in 2023.

About 1,000 died from injuries on the jobsite that same year.

Read that again. We lose about five times as many of our people to su***de as we do to falls, struck-bys, and
every other “accident” combined.

I spent 20+ years on jobsites. We drilled fall protection until it was muscle memory — toolbox talks, lockout/tagout, three points of contact. And the whole time, the thing most likely to kill the guy next to me wasn’t
the scaffold. It was what he carried home and never said out loud.

Construction has the highest su***de rate of any occupation in America. Not one year — every study. 2016, 2021, 2023. Same result. And it’s climbing.

This isn’t a “soft skills” problem. It’s the deadliest hazard on the site, and it’s the one we’ve never put a harness
on.

If you’re a foreman, a super, a PM — the guy who’s “fine” might not be. Ask twice. Make it normal to not be
okay.

And if you’re the one who’s not okay: you’re not weak, and you’re not alone. Call or text 988 (U.S. & Canada).
Today

Better hope he doesn’t find it … 🙃

It’s there if you want it 🌎 👇

Construction won’t stop being an integral part of the world.

Society depends on us to move things forward.

Roads, bridges, buildings, hospitals - they all need to be built and it’s gonna happen one way or another regardless of how many people are retiring.

It’s a great time work in construction whether you’re in the field or in the office.

It’s not gonna be easy, but it will be worth it.

Thoughts? ⬇️

Everyone says "be more vulnerable."

Almost nobody builds the thing that makes vulnerability possible.

Safety to say what you're actually going through — no fear of getting yelled at, talked about, or losing your job — is the goal. But it doesn't show up because you asked nicely. It shows up when you back it with real practices:

→ Curious communication → Monthly check-ins on your crew, not just the numbers → Accountability to the culture you say you want → Dropping the guilt and shame around growth

Mental wellness isn't a side project in construction. It should be the #1 initiative going forward.

The nervous systems are shot. We're finally talking about it. Now's the time to act.