Changing Attitudes and the Struggle for Safe Work Culture Identity in Construction

Employees have a need to know where you stand regarding the value of their safety while in your employment, whether they express it openly or not, and the need to be well positioned in this regard – publicly – has always been essential. We must first understand the differences between values, priorities, responsibilities, and accountabilities, and make these clear to employees at all levels through communication mediums that are backed and driven by corporate leaders meaningfully. I will explain how this can be achieved below. Assuming that your employees understand how you are thinking can be a tragic mistake, even within best in class, well maintained corporate cultures - use your voice and be well understood!

Step One – Finding the difference between Values and Priorities

There is a popular exercise where managers are first asked to make two columns on a blank piece of paper. They are then asked to write in the left column all those things that they feel they must do every morning before leaving for work. In the right-hand column, they are asked to transfer over only those items from the left column that they would still need even if being late to work meant they would be fired. Those items still in the left column are priorities, and those items transferred to the right column are values – absolute must haves. This exercise, as applied to getting up and going to work, can easily be applied similarly to any work crew where the starting point is arriving at their reporting location and the end point is leaving the job site.

The exercise is the same for all levels, and when done independently by Foremen, Superintendents, Project Managers, etc., generates lists that can be wildly different. In such an exercise, the trigger for movement of items to the right-hand column must be carefully considered. Trying something along the lines of “list in this column only those items from the left -hand column that must be present to ensure that every member of the crew returns home safely.”

The list of items transferred to the right-hand column will be longer than the list in the original example and will vary from one employee level to the next. Welcome to the starting line of culture! The middle ground of compromise in priorities and values as related to safety. This exercise also helps the levels in your organization find common ground in which to work and spurns meaningful discussion between levels.

Exercise = Build the above exercises for all your employee levels and see how your people are thinking! Don't ask for the lists, but rather ask for the short list of items that was added to the right column in order to ensure a safe return home.

Step two – Responsibility and Accountability modeling, Leadership and Followership clearly Defined.

Every business unit within any construction organization has built-in responsibility and accountability. The difference between companies is in how well these are defined and communicated. Many times Leaders and Followers are lacking structure. Here’s a great way to look at how this works best at every level. Think in terms of the military. A construction crew all report to a Foreman. The Foreman reports to a Superintendent, and so on, (insert your structure here). The highest level of every unit has a leader, and every organization has followers. Let’s look at the functional unit of a construction site crew again. The Foreman has responsibilities to his crew members, (and they to him/her) and accountability to the next level of management. The same is true onward until reaching the very top dog, who I can assure to all who are reading this, understands full well better than anyone else exactly what accountability truly is.

Exercise = take the time necessary to ensure that your “Non-Commissioned Officers” understand what their responsibilities are, to whom, and what they are accountable for and to whom. Definitions and boundaries can be very comforting! Assure that Leaders know their roles as do Followers and instill respect for both roles among the entire structure. Once you’ve built this model, apply it to all folks in the same position, establish overlaps between levels and rest easier knowing that your people understand what their boundaries and overlaps should be. From the perspective of a manager, having your people know what is expected of them is powerful.

Step three – merging Responsibility and Accountability with Core Values and Operational Priorities

Welcome to your leadership program. Sustainability and promotion from within only work when you have tended to your own crops lovingly and totally invested yourself in the harvest. Training employees regularly to understand these principles is an essential function of any leadership program. That being said, there will still be folks who believe that getting to the finish line first is more important than how they ran the race. Goodness, this sounds like an exercise in character, doesn’t it? Character is smart promotion, and the roadrunner promotion comes fraught with uncontrollable risk. Remember – the personality you promote will be the one that is dominant once that employee takes on additional responsibilities. My advice to executives is always the same – promote the traits that are consistent with the Core Values you established, not those that expose your crop to harm. Above all, try to remember that if you want the results of the roadrunner, be willing to accept the exacerbated personality traits that come along with these folks, because the dominant personality traits of others cannot be changed just for your purposes.

When every level understands what they are accountable for and the responsibilities they have to their direct reports, the real work of incentivization can begin. You’ve got everyone on the same page, now turn to the next chapter and show them your vision. Having a vision of the future of your company is meaningless unless you not only share it with others but SHOW them how to get started on the path to visualizing it. There are so many leadership quotes that apply to this stage that there is not enough space in this article to publish them all. Let’s go with this one – “A leader brings people where they need to be, not where they want to go.” This is you defining the starting point for your people and seeing the forest for the trees. The pace you set brings with it a series of different employee level goals and timetables. “Where we go one, we go all.”

Exercise = Offer to cook every employee of the company burgers, hot dogs, and brats if they reach your established milestone goal(s) for safety. This simple thing which may not mean much or cost much to you will mean the world to them. If it doesn’t, you’ve not inspired them well enough, either they aren’t the right fit for your organization, or you for the culture THEY have built. Making them want to get that hamburger from you is the real challenge of inspiration!

Step four – Publishing your Vision and Mission statements and Core Values

Why do this at step 4? Shouldn’t this be step 1? For one very simple and all-important reason, this comes later on in the process. Yes, you already know what your Vision is for the company, you know how you want the company to get there in a Mission Statement, and you had a pretty darn good idea what your Core Values were before starting any of this work. There is only one problem…and it’s a big one. You are alone in your head. Getting where you want to go takes everyone else in the organization – all of them. They all play a part, and before you worked through steps one through three above you weren’t as smart as you thought you were about your employees – guaranteed. THEIR motivations are what is important to them, and you must help them progress toward what motivates them for them to care about what motivates YOU. Receiving a paycheck is far from being their sole motivational factor. If that is all-important you've worked the algebra problem wrong.

At this point, creating a Vision Statement should be easy. Don’t be trapped into the old “To be the best blank in the business” vision statement – that’s a betrayal to all the work you’ve put in. Find a way to include your team meaningfully in your statement.

Establishing Core Values is not the hard part of this portion of the work, limiting these to a manageable number is the key. Try to stay at about five or six Core Values – allow your folks to be humans and leave the superhuman abilities to yourself! Rate those five or six values identified in an order that your folks can get on board with as well, keeping them in the process as much as possible.

At the end of all this work you should have established an identity that does not define you alone, but everything you have built together. No company is all one person unless you are its only employee. The old saying “a good day’s work for a fair wage and we all hold our heads up high” is something we all strive for, and construction is no different. Good days and bad, rain delays and material issues, etc. affect everyone, it’s how we roll with it and survive until the next day that we should pride ourselves on.

Never compromise any of the Core Values that have been established. Doing so can destroy all the meaningful employee engagements that took place to establish culture to this stage. I think every executive or owner knows of the following adage, “you’re only as good as your last project” … The same is true of culture and value compromises unless you maintain the standard that you set…together.