Rich Henry takes any opportunity he can to visit buildings in the Bay Area that were constructed by his team at McCarthy Building Cos. Inc.
“I do that all the time,” says Henry, president of the Northern Pacific Division at McCarthy. “I’ll go out of my way to drive through Berkeley to look at two or three spectacular projects that our company has built over the past 10 years. There is huge satisfaction in our business to drive by and go, ‘Wow, look at what we did,’ especially for those institutions that are such an important part of the community.”
It’s that pride and personal satisfaction of a job well done that Henry tries to instill in his team of nearly 450 employees at the $500 million division of St. Louis-based McCarthy. He wants everyone to feel like they played a part in helping the company complete its work and satisfy customers.
This synergy between company, employee and project is not always an easy one to create.
“As we have grown as a company and a group here in the Bay Area, we’ve added quite a few individuals from a variety of different generations,” Henry says. “Getting everybody to communicate effectively has been a huge challenge for our leadership group.”
It’s a challenge that many growing companies face, especially when they work in a highly competitive industry like construction.
“You are so busy managing the business that you forget to manage the people who are running the business,” Henry says. “Staying out in front of those elements of engagement and organizational health, it takes a lot of time, hard work and focus. It can distract you from the blocking and tackling of normal business activity. But it’s very important.”
Companies that don’t recognize the value of employee engagement in their organizations do so at their own peril. Henry and his team were aware of what was at stake and chose to act.
“We needed to take a step back and take a better look at those elements that were important to the employees in the last two or three generations that are different from the baby boomers,” Henry says. “They had a completely different set of needs and career aspirations.”
Demonstrate a strong response
Henry became aware of the disconnect with employees at McCarthy through a round of annual engagement surveys.
“Our employees were telling us that it’s not only about the dollars and cents on a paycheck,” Henry says. “It’s about having a healthy work environment and paying attention to elements related to their commute, work assignments and working hours.
“As we analyze on a very regular basis the needs for our group in terms of people, we also look at the attrition of our employee base. That historically has been very low for us, but anticipating a more competitive marketplace, we suddenly identified this could be a very big problem for us if we didn’t get in front of it.”
The younger generation is becoming a bigger part of the American workforce and people in this group have a hunger for instantaneous feedback, as well as a desire to have a clear sense of purpose for what they are being asked to do.
“People want to enjoy coming to work and want to be excited about it when they leave work,” Henry says. “They want to feel that they are serving a purpose and contributing to the business. When that stops and they don’t feel like a contributor, they’ll leave.”
The first step in this type of situation is to be upfront and show people that you’re aware of the problem. Henry gathered his senior leadership team and initiated an open discussion about employee engagement and what could be done to strengthen it.
“That’s the biggest thing that organizations don’t do,” Henry says. “We hear it and we’ll put somebody on it. That’s somebody else’s problem; we’re too busy. The leadership group has to come together, look each other in the eye and say, ‘This is important.’ We have to be all in and together on solving the problem. If you don’t have everyone at the top looking at the issue and participating in the effort to solve it, nothing else will fall in place.”
Focus is another important part of any organizational fix. Henry and his team needed to figure out where to direct their attention and who could influence the largest group of people in the organization to get buy-in on the elements needed to improve employee engagement.
“It’s not about running all the way to the bottom and working your way up,” Henry says. “You have to clearly work your way down through the organization and find those pathways to the largest part of your population as quickly as you can and influence that.
“It involves formulating work groups and committees that have a diverse profile across your organization. Have representation from all departments and then those representatives can go back to their respective groups and not only get feedback, but provide feedback to the groups in terms of what everybody is thinking about and where the company is headed,” he says.
Employees will show patience if they feel confident you’re taking their concerns seriously.
“They don’t have to be involved in everything along the way,” Henry says. “But as long as they realize you’re not just giving their concerns a hand wave, but you’re actually working on those elements that they have highlighted, people are pretty patient.”
You won’t make everyone happy. But you’ll show that you appreciate the role your people play in the success of your business.
“Our business requires a lot of hours and when I see people here early in the morning or working late at night and they are not sitting here frowning and grumbling, it’s a measuring stick for success,” Henry says.
