Blogs Archive

Under Construction: School’s Off-Season Session is a Barn Burner

It can’t be done. Not in that timeframe, not with the existing supply chain issues, not with that team, building, site, or fill-in-the-blank. Not possible. This is a common refrain in the construction industry. Common long before the pandemic and supply chains became a thing that was widely understood by adults and children alike. “What do you mean we don’t have toilet paper?” A new understanding that things came from a place before they arrive at Amazon. Legendary they may be, mass producers of all our planet’s goods they are not.

As a serial renovator of my own homes, I am fond of asking these naysayers if they have ever heard of the pyramids.

“The pyramids?” They ask.

“Yes, you know those 3D triangular structures in Egypt,” I respond.

“Well, yeah, hasn’t everyone?”

“Perfect, you know them. They built those with a chisel and no power tools, so we can certainly figure out how to build this with all the technology, tools, and ingenuity at our disposal today and do it despite the challenges that you outlined.”

If you are a member of the Capital Planning, Design, and Construction, or an Annual Projects and Differed Maintenance Divisions of a college or university, you have likely heard that “It can’t be done”, heck you may have been the one saying it to the leadership of your institution, but then you do the seemingly impossible, and delivery a completed project in that sliver of time that separates spring semester from fall. A precedent is set, and the 14-week schedule becomes 13, 12, and then 11, 10, and gulp 8, and the terms Summer Slammer and Barn Burner begin to make sense.

Aggressive summer schedules make sense for many reasons, including that campuses are often populated with fewer students, professors, and visitors. Buildings can be made vacant, construction can be carried out in three shifts, and work that might otherwise be phased and take two to three times as long can be completed in a single summer. Second and third shift costs take the place of and/or are offset by the elimination of demobilization and mobilization over the course of multiple summers.

Hyper-speed schedules come with their hurtles and aren’t for everyone. Like Algebra, there is a certain sort of builder that loves the challenge of a fast-track project, the pre-planning, the troubling through constructability approaches that deliver efficiency and craftsmanship, and the development of contingency plans for the inevitable barriers that will be placed in their path. They are the sort that says yes to a competition. They take pride in achieving what others think is impossible.

If summer school were in session and a fresh cohort of builders had set their sights on being the next and the best at barn burners, they would likely learn that building it is the easy part. The real secret to success is in the planning, the materials procurement, the communications structure that is established and followed, the decision-making schedule, and the approvals matrix. It takes collaboration, shared vision, grit, grind, and an agreed-upon commitment to success. When the last nail is slammed into place, the fire is out, and the report on the card is an “A,” it’s all worth the effort.

How Trades Can Use Construction Planning Software to Improve Crew Planning – A Webinar Recap

Touchplan recently hosted a webinar featuring Sales Lead Matthew DeKoeyer and a panel of specialty trade contractors on using Construction Planning Software (CPS) to manage their work crews and team leaders better.

The group discussed how Construction Planning Software improves visibility to plan their work crew sizes, helps better manage workforce, allows plans to be adjusted on the fly, and more.

Some of the takeaways from the webinar included:

Construction Planning Software, like Touchplan, helps trades simplify instructions with foremen. It breaks down the master schedule to make it digestible and provides the ability to move it with milestones. CPS is “needed tech” to manage their human capital and easily identify where staff shortages exist. This is crucial to trades, especially now, where they are seeing frequent growth.
Construction Planning Software allows trades to identify issues they may have not previously seen and can do it much sooner during a construction project. Before using products like Touchplan, Trades would have to build macros into spreadsheets which was rather frustrating. With CPS, they are building a “better system,” which saves a significant amount of time in terms of planning and scheduling.
Before having a quality Construction Planning Software like Touchplan, data entry was a full-time job for specialty trades. Touchplan offered the best visual and easy-to-use product that allowed for better strategic planning as it relates to the workforce. Trades use the swimlanes to manage their work crews and tickets to manage foremen. With labor-intensive projects, it is a game-changer.

If you want to watch the entire webinar, you can find it on our website.

Expand Your Knowledge at Touchplan Academy

Touchplan’s Customer Success Team is excited to introduce a new educational resource open to all Touchplan users. Touchplan Academy allows customers to take a variety of classes and also receive certifications that can be added to a LinkedIn profile. We sat down with Customer Success Associate Sarah Cusack to learn more about Touchplan Academy and what customers can expect from it.

Please give us an overview of Touchplan Academy and what was the motivation for adding it?

Touchplan Academy is a new educational resource available to all Touchplan users! With Touchplan Academy, users can take their knowledge of Touchplan to the next level and take a deep dive into different areas of the tool. Users can take any of the five short courses available and receive a certification for each course that they can add to their LinkedIn. Each course includes a quiz to review the course’s information and should take 10-20 minutes to complete. We wanted to provide users with educational content that allows teams to certify that they all have received the same training in many core planning concepts. In addition to allowing teams to become certified, Touchplan Academy gives users insights into different features and planning methods that can help them better optimize the tool.

How many total courses are offered through Touchplan Academy?

Currently, there are five courses offered in Touchplan Academy that cover a wide range of topics, from pull planning to continuous learning in the dashboard. Each of the five courses is focused on a different aspect of Touchplan and the planning process. Below is a list of all of our courses and brief course descriptions:

Start Planning Course: learn how to add members to a project and organize the planning environment to begin collaboratively planning with the project team.
Weekly Meeting Course: learn how to increase the predictability and certainty of a project by tracking weekly commitments and variances from the team.
Run a Pull Plan Course: learn basic concepts of pull planning and how to convert a Pull Plan into a Look-Ahead plan.
Continuous Learning Course: Gain a deeper insight into project planning efforts by using Touchplan project data to increase project predictability and certainty.
Basic User Course: Learn the two primary responsibilities of Basic Users, adding and updating tickets.

What are some of the benefits to Touchplan customers?

Touchplan Academy allows users to bring their knowledge of Touchplan to the next level and to gain a deeper insight into the tool. Users who are looking to learn and get more out of the tool now have the opportunity to do so while also getting certified. In addition to allowing users to gain more insight into Touchplan, Touchplan Academy will enable users to learn independently at their own pace. Users can start their courses and come back to them at any point to complete their certification or to relearn any of the material. Touchplan Academy is a fantastic way for users who have a busy schedule to learn more about the tool without worrying about carving a significant amount of time out of their schedule.

Who should access Touchplan Academy?

Touchplan Academy is available to all Touchplan users looking to gain a deeper understanding of how to use Touchplan effectively. We offer four Admin User courses that cover how to run an effective pull plan, how to have a collaborative weekly meeting and more. For Basic Users, we offer a Basic User course that looks at the two primary responsibilities of Basic Users, creating and updating tickets.

How do customers access Touchplan Academy?

Customers can access Touchplan Academy by going to https://academy.touchplan.io/ or by going to Support-> Knowledge Base and selecting either the Admin or Basic User Resources sections.

How Owners Can Maximize Project Certainty with Construction Planning Software: A Webinar Recap

Touchplan recently hosted a webinar featuring the Head of Strategic Partnerships for Touchplan and former superintendent for Whiting-Turner Andrew Piland, and Tayna Rucker, an Owners Representative for MOCA Systems, Inc.

The two discussed how implementing a digital planning tool can increase project certainty and ROI for construction projects. Additionally, the conversation focused on why more owners require digital planning software, how software fosters better communication and collaboration, and how to overcome technology resistance at the owner level.

Some of the key takeaways from the webinar include:

Not all owners know the details that go into a construction project, let alone planning for it. They don’t need to get granular and see the day-to-day activities but seeing the high-level reporting and whether teams are reaching their milestones is valuable in staying on top of the project.
The relationship between the GC and Owner and establishing trust is most important. As a GC, having confidence in the plan and having an immediate, accurate answer for the owner in real-time is very important and helpful. The evidence speaks for itself, and now the owner doesn’t have to run around asking multiple people what’s correct.
Touchplan is a very flexible software that is very easy to use (like google calendar). If you’re an owner and don’t want to see everything all the time, or even if they don’t want to adopt technology, you can still look at reports and insights to give you an overall understanding in real-time. As a Super, Touchplan gives you a real-time view to build a schedule and generate an effective production system.

If you want to listen to the entire webinar, you can find it on our website.

Do More with Your Data Inside and Outside of Touchplan

Touchplan is excited to announce that it is now offering select customers an Application Programming Interface (API). This feature allows customers to retrieve and manipulate the data of their construction projects from outside of Touchplan. We sat down with Touchplan Product Manager Cory Brennan to learn more about this new feature and its benefits to our customers.

Tell us what the Touchplan API is all about – what is the greater value being delivered to our customers?

The Touchplan API provides our customers with access to retrieve and manipulate the data of their projects from outside of Touchplan so that they may more easily create workflows unique to their company. These workflows, such as displaying the data being captured on-site from various tools on dashboards or managing access to Touchplan through internal processes, allow our customers more granular control of their data that the evolving construction landscape demands.

How do customers access the information from the Touchplan API?

The Touchplan API uses a common API standard known as REST. Customers will need to configure their systems to interact with the Touchplan API.

Who will benefit the most from utilizing the Touchplan API?

Customers who want to integrate Touchplan project data with data from other systems will find the Touchplan API valuable. It allows them to much more easily aggregate Touchplan data into their existing systems for custom workflows.

Why was this an essential feature for Touchplan to roll out?

The data that is available on a jobsite can provide an immense amount of value when utilized. As the construction industry evolves into more data-driven workflows, we believe that the Touchplan API will enable customers to take full advantage of the data their jobsite is generating and use it to its full effect.

Supporting the Superheroes

Touchplan recently formed a marketing collaboration with Genda, a real-time data gathering platform for the superheroes on construction sites, namely superintendents and project managers. We sat down with CEO Erez Dror to learn more about their technology and why they chose to collaborate with Touchplan.

So to kick it off, we’d love to hear more about Genda and what was your motivation for starting the company?

So allow me to start with a bit of background on myself because, as you will see, it ties directly to Genda. After spending some time in the military like every Israeli, I started working in construction as a construction laborer about 13 years ago. The company that I worked for was building single-family homes, and as I gained more experience, I fell in love with everything related to construction and decided that that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I made two simultaneous paths in construction, a professional one and an academic one. So I became an assistant superintendent working on projects in Tel Aviv for a prominent developer in Israel. I also held positions as a structural engineer, BIM Manager, and eventually a Project Manager. At the same time, I earned a Bachelor’s and Masters in civil engineering. So I got to see the industry from different perspectives. The challenges that I was facing as an assistant super on-site, I discovered the solutions as a researcher as part of my Master’s thesis, and it all clicked. It was at that moment I realized I had something. My first call was to the people that ended up being my co-founders. Eyal Kulik, our COO and a childhood friend was the first to join. As we started working on Genda a few months later, Shai Levy joined the company as our CTO. That was three years ago, and the motivation to start the business was that we had all experienced construction challenges firsthand and knew we could develop technical solutions. We did the initial technical work and field/pilot testing in Israel, but the first commercial project, we deployed in Texas. Today we have been used on quite a few construction sites totaling a few million square feet.

Can you tell me more about what Genda does and its greater value to the construction market?

So when you look at it from the 10,000-foot level, it’s a software solution for general contractors. We are mainly working on commercial construction firms, and Genda provides construction project teams with visibility and clarity on what’s happening on site. We generate data from the construction site, the production floor at the construction phase. So we monitor the site resources, like labor equipment and material, in a way that generates data. We then analyze the data to understand what activities are happening on site. For instance, plumbing is being done in unit 1571, and flooring is being done in level 19, then we analyze those activities to optimize operations and safety. We like to look at it as a sidekick for the superhero (the superintendent & the PMS). So it’s a tool that shows them exactly what’s happening and makes sure they’re not missing anything.

So how’s the reaction been from the market so far?

We see that the fun part about building a solution is that we’re solving a real pain for many stakeholders in the construction industry. The hard part is prioritizing what problems you want to solve. The construction industry is amazing, but many things can be done more efficiently and safely. So with every step we take, we see a value for the developer, the subcontractor, and the worker. We’re choosing the ones that we think can best solve these people’s present challenges. So the reaction has been good. People get what we are trying to accomplish right away. As you know, it’s not always an easy sell in construction because it’s a very traditional industry, and adoption/acceptance can take some time. Still, it got way more manageable as the value is easily seen.

So what’s that value that the field staff gets from it?

Clarity. Genda fosters data-driven decisions on site. It enables field workers to make sure they’re not missing anything. When decisions have to be made, they can be made based on data, which is happening daily. For example, if I want to send a team to work in a specific location, Genda provides the status of that location and makes sure it’s ready for them. We can also look at it from a historical point of view because the data documents everything that happened on site. So we know which trade worked in which location and for how long. It also helps with a lot of aspects related to risk management. If someone gets injured, Genda tells you who was there in case you needed to speak to anyone about the incident.

Tell us about the motivation for partnering with Touchplan?

Let me start with the vision for Genda because that’s one of the steps that we’re taking in that direction. We’re aiming to automate a lot of the superintendent’s activities. We want to help them optimize the way they assign tasks. So to assign an activity, we need to understand there is a plan. The project team created a plan of what they want to do, in what order, and the time it should take. We know in many cases, the plan doesn’t meet the reality, or the reality doesn’t meet the plan because construction can be complex. Genda is making those optimizations for a plan with the software. In following Lean principles, we have to Plan, Do, Check, and Act. We plan, we do, then we need to check and fix the plan. So, to do that, we need a plan. So we knew from day one that we needed to have the plans in Genda. Planning was a world that we did not want to go all in. So we always intended to take partnerships, not only in the scheduling phase but with other software solutions. Touchplan does a fantastic job planning and scheduling. So if we can take the plan part and provide the doing and check part, it’s a win-win situation for both.

You mentioned earlier that Genda is a tool designed for superheroes (Supers & PMs). Are they the only users of it?

That’s a great question, and it relates to what I said before that everybody can get value. When you have data, the possibilities are endless. Our key users are absolutely the field management team. But related to your question, subcontractors also see a lot of value in the tool. So the exciting part is that the subs pay their workers on an hourly basis. However, they can have a lot of constraints that don’t allow them to work as they want. A sub gets paid for the work they’ve done, but they pay their workers according to the time they spend. So subcontractors want to make sure that their workers can work as much as possible. The data that Genda generates shows to the subs if they can do that work, and we’re enabling them to report to the GC, so that’s a value add for them.

So what do five years down the road look like for Genda?

We have a big vision. If we look at the industry at the macro level, the first wave of innovation is digitalization. There has been digitization of plans, schedules, RFIs, etc., so everything is there. But we’re missing the execution part. I believe that in five to ten years, we will see the next phase optimize the execution on-site, which will lead to several data sources and very sophisticated AI. The main challenge for the construction industry is the labor shortage. Not just laborers but the backfill of field managers. Unfortunately, not enough people want to work as field managers. If we look at the trends of how much new construction talent is coming into the pool, we won’t be able to build. We must make our field managers more productive so they can execute the challenging projects they are working on. And while many tasks can only be done by a person, things like daily reports, analysis, and other data gathering can be done by machines and done better because, for a computer, it’s a simple analysis. Our goal is to grow and do very sophisticated stuff for the superhero. So we’re not planning to replace the superhero, but we understand that in five years, there won’t be there won’t be enough superheroes left. So if the project needs five supers, we want to fill the needs of three. And to do that, we need integrations and tech partners. Working with Touchplan is a significant relationship. But 360 Capturing solutions, laser scanning, and other data sources like crane monitoring; are some of the things we hope to develop in-house, and eventually, we want to be the insight machine.

Where can folks find out more about Genda?

The best place to head is our website, https://www.gendatech.com/ to learn more about how we help construction field staff each day on the jobsite. Also, please take a look at our video.

Power the Frontline: Enabling the Eyes and Ears of the Field to Own Safety

By Kevin Gausch, Customer Engagement Manager, SafetyCulture

There’s no better time than Construction Safety Week to stop and take a minute to celebrate the work of the amazing people in the industry who go above and beyond to make safety the foundation of everything they do. These people are often taken for granted, and it’s not until something goes wrong that they are truly valued. But is safety solely up to them?

SafetyCulture has helped some of the world’s largest industries embed a culture of safety and accountability in their organizations. In doing so, we’ve found that democratizing safety is a guaranteed path to operational excellence. Using technology, we believe we can empower every single worker to have a voice and in turn, help create a safer and more efficient workplace. It’s not just up to those with ‘safety manager’ in their job title. It’s the people on the frontline in every industry who have the visibility to own safety practices from the ground up.

From what I’ve seen, most organizations have a ways to go when it comes to giving their workers a voice, particularly those on the frontline. But this largely unheard-of workforce is the key to safer and more efficient workplaces.

Are frontline workers actually being heard?

Recent research conducted by SafetyCulture and YouGov made one thing very clear. The majority of frontline workers feel unheard by upper management. These critical workers want a say in the operations and running of their workplaces. Two-way communication between frontline workers and management is no longer a ‘nice to have,’ it is a business imperative.

Leaders need to be arming their teams with the right tools to allow them to add value, be heard, and keep themselves and those around them safe. Striving for compliance over empowering staff and trusting their insights will only get an organization so far. Let’s examine some of the statistics that stand out.

67% of frontline workers say that they are never, rarely, or only sometimes listened to on topics that matter to them the most. Among those frontline workers with office-based colleagues, nearly two in 10 (18%) feel that office-based workers are more respected than those on the frontline. A staggering 66% of US frontline workers surveyed feel they are sometimes, rarely, or never listened to by management on the topics that matter most within their organization.

Are we actually seeing action when it comes to safety?

For most, lack of action prevents frontline feedback. Close to 1 in 3 workers agree their willingness to provide workplace feedback is impacted by a belief that nothing will be done once reported. 24% of workers, more than 1 in 5, agree that feedback is only one-directional in their organization, from management to employees.

When it comes to driving action, just over 1 in 4 American workers feel empowered to solve issues themselves. Feeling confident they have a valued voice is a top priority or very important for frontline workers, and when considering new jobs or roles – 60% overall.

Most frontline industries have relied on the traditional top-down approach to communication and safety management, including safety practices, where frontline workers are told how and when to adopt processes, with no formal buy-in process.

What’s the key to driving a safety culture?

Empower your frontline to be the eyes and ears in the field. Put the right processes and tools in place to connect teams from a distance, engaging and enabling them to speak up, raise issues, and take action. Deliver results based on their observations to show the frontline their insights are making a difference. When workers have more of a voice, the whole organization benefits.

Open communication with management can potentially provide an opportunity to make processes better, and identify areas of improvement or gaps in safety practices that have gone unnoticed. After all, those who are closest to procedures are best placed with knowledge on how to improve them.

To accomplish this communication between the feedback and the frontline, focus on building out a continuous feedback loop that connects your core initiatives with frontline feedback.

Manage – open up channels for two-way communication, feedback loops and problem-solving.
Plan – Get your teams on board. Initiate collaborative planning and processes with your team.
Improve – Build a holistic picture of your workplace operations with data and feedback. Develop new standards and training programs to match.
Act – Empower the frontline with tools to take action. Foster a culture of accountability and proactivity.

At SafetyCulture, our most successful customers in the construction industry are using technology to make this two-way communication possible. With SafetyCulture’s flagship product iAuditor, teams can quickly capture safety issues anonymously, drive action, and manage operations digitally.

For example, Faith Technology Inc, an organization comprised of construction, engineering, manufacturing, and renewable energy experts, data captured in the field using iAuditor has allowed frontline employees to be more aware of the hazards they’re exposed to, and the safety team to adopt proactive safety mindsets and remain agile to changes in risk such as poor weather conditions. Read more.

About SafetyCulture

SafetyCulture is the operational heartbeat of working teams around the world. Its mobile-first operations platform leverages the power of human observation to identify issues and opportunities for businesses to improve every day.

More than 28,000 organizations use its flagship products, iAuditor, and EdApp, to perform checks, train staff, report issues, automate tasks and communicate fluidly. SafetyCulture powers over 600 million checks per year, approximately 50,000 lessons per day, and millions of corrective actions, giving leaders visibility and workers a voice in driving safety, quality, and efficiency improvements.

The Five Minute Fix: Increased Construction Site Safety

Load the gang box, lace up the steel-tipped boots, pack the lunch and fill the thermos with hot coffee to help get you through the day. Breath in, breath out, repeat. Drive bleary-eyed to the site, headlights guiding the way through traffic as other early risers make their way to their place of work. Stomp the breaks, spill the coffee, curse, change the station, breath in, breath out, repeat.

This isn’t American Idol, being in the top five isn’t going to lead to fame and fortune. When Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hands down the rankings for most dangerous professions, being in the top five is a devastating designation. 43.3 of every 100,000 construction workers are subjected to worksite injuries that lead to death each year. Their workday will end and never begin again. We know the dangers, and yet convince ourselves that cutting a corner in the interest of expediency won’t make a difference this one time, or the next, or the one after that, but it does. Bad judgment abounds when we are tired, irritable, suffering from the stresses of a pandemic, conflicting demands for safety and speed, the breakdown of relationships on-site or at home put safety in jeopardy.

There are so many things that we are tasked with doing in a day which could help to mitigate construction site safety risks, that frankly, we can lose track of all these protocols. Like forgetting that one piece of equipment necessary to complete the job, one might understandably get distracted and forget to check for live wires, reach just a little further than recommended, trip, or any number of issues that might be avoided if we weren’t suffering from brain fog.

17,000 – 30,000 times a day. That’s how many times we breathe and we do it spontaneously, automatically, so how can something that we do without thinking provide an answer to our safety predicament? If you want to do anything well, you must practice it. Which will require you to think about it. I understand that this feels entirely contradictory to the very notion of automatic. It’s supposed to just happen. We have enough to think about without adding to our seemingly endless list of responsibilities, something that is supposed to happen without our need to participate.

I understand your frustration but bear with me here. Five minutes of breathing exercises in the morning have so many benefits that you’ll be crossing out items on your To-Do List because they will be TA DA – Done. Among the benefits of a daily breathing practice are:

Reduced stress – increased ability to cope and manage emotions,
Increased energy – one less trip to the coffee shop,
A strengthened immune system – lost time puts you behind, good health gets you ahead,
Improved mental clarity which leads to better decision making,
Better sleep – better relationships,
Lowered Blood Pressure – fewer visits to the doctor,
Body relaxation – fewer pulled muscles and strains, and
Oxygenated muscles which are stronger – who doesn’t like feeling powerful.

If breathing feels like some new-age hoax let me assure you it is not. Rooted in ancient Buddhist tradition, accessed by First Responders, and Trauma Counselors as a means of restoring calm, the effects of deep breathing are both immediate, and when practiced daily, provide measurable benefits that could have our industry increasing our safety ranking. Now that’s something to breathe a sigh of relief over.

How Women Can Maximize Project Certainty and Transform the Construction Industry: A Webinar Recap

As part of its Women in Construction Week celebration, Touchplan recently hosted a webinar featuring MOCA/Touchplan CEO Sandy Hamby and President of the National Association of Women in Construction, Doreen Bartoldus.

Hosted by NAWIC member and podcast host Angela Highland, Sandy and Doreen had an engaging conversation about their experience and insights into how women can change the construction industry and advice for younger women in construction and how they can best grow their careers.

Some of the key takeaways from the event include:

As a woman in construction, don’t be afraid to speak up. If you have something to say, say it. If people dismiss it, it will come back around later, and they’ll know you were right. Put yourself out there and respect yourself and all the talented people around you. You deserve to be in this profession just as everyone else, so don’t be afraid to be direct and who you are.
For women to tap into construction, we must be able to both have and receive support for our work. Construction is just as important as anything else out there, and it’s not a default career. Especially for women, we have to find a way to show it’s an honorable, profitable line of work where a trade is as equally valuable as working in the office.
As a woman, when someone underestimates your ability, you don’t need to explain yourself, your experience, or your background. In other words, you don’t need to read them your resume or credentials. They will figure it out; the best thing to do is move on because you know you belong there. Stay calm and let it blow itself off. Remaining calm and listening is critical but also understanding that everybody wants each other to succeed- so communicate that. If they are willing to listen, you can both learn from each other and get something out of the conversation.

If you want to listen to the entire webinar, you can find it on our website. Additionally, be sure to tune into Build.Lead.Succeed., the official podcast of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC).

Guest Blog Post – Lee Kennedy Company Discusses Envision Equity

(By Lee Kennedy Company & Strategy Matters)

In 2021, Lee Kennedy Company (LKCo) undertook an initiative to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of our company’s operations. We did not know, at that time, all that initiative would entail, and we continue to learn and grow through this work. One thing, however, has become immediately apparent: we cannot achieve equity without developing the ability to envision it. What does equity actually look like in action?

We hired a consulting team from Strategy Matters to assist in this effort, and they started with definitions. Strategy Matters defines equity as follows: “A system is operating equitably when all people receive fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement through addressing the varying barriers experienced by different groups. A system is equitable when it produces a proportional distribution of benefits and burdens across groups.”

We know who the “all people” in our company are – every one of our employees is mission-critical, and we care about their treatment. What, however, are the “barriers,” “burdens,” and the “benefits” referenced here?

We can see both benefits and burdens when we look closely at our practices in the areas of hiring, promotion, and retention. We can also see benefits and burdens in the areas of salary structures, office locations, access to “perks,” and personal leave policies. Informally, we can see benefits of social interactions and opportunities for employees and leadership – the proverbial golf games or going out for beers together yield access and build network capital.

To ensure an equitable workplace, we have to examine the impact on all of these things – both formal and informal – on each of our employees and our employees as a group. Do women get paid equally to men for the performance of the same or equivalent jobs? Do our Black employees have the same opportunities and advance at the same rates as our white employees? Even asking these questions, let alone acting on any data gathered, is a radical act in our industry. And yet, if we shy away from asking these questions, we cannot possibly envision equity.

LKCo is committed to ensuring that we both attract and retain a diverse workforce. We know that investing in equitable practices is essential to meeting that goal. Consequently, we are opening these dialogues and also investing in a more inclusive culture to enable any employee, whether in the field or in HQ, to raise a concern, voice a suggestion, or offer an idea for improving our practices.

How do we build an inclusive culture?

We believe that an inclusive culture is one where everyone feels valued, welcomed, and inspired to share their opinions and views. To create such an environment, we are investing in training for both our managers and our future managers, specifically in these areas:

Managing Unconscious Bias. We are all hardwired for bias – it is our evolutionary way of taking shortcuts in our thinking. Shortcuts are sometimes helpful but can also lead to decisions made on incomplete information. When we lack the ability to overcome our innate tendency toward mental shortcuts, we amplify the likelihood of creating inequities and diminishing inclusivity in the company. Both of these problems can also undermine our efforts to diversify our team.
Building “healthy conflict” into teams. Healthy conflict is present when teams can disagree about what is right while avoiding fighting over who is right. We have to train our teams to solicit divergent opinions, respect them when they arise, and work through them for the sake of better decisions down the line. When people can’t do this, we say that they live in “artificial harmony” – which is no fun and also no good for the company. We aim to use healthy conflict to build relationships and also kick the tires on decisions before we take them live. Healthy conflict is a skill which can also help teams manage their own biases; when we challenge each other, we all come out with better, sharper, more well-grounded decisions.
Training our leaders to be both “warm” and “competent.” We know that great team leaders are like great coaches: they care deeply about their staff and they also have the capacity to execute on difficult decisions. Think of Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights – that is how we hope our managers can lead their teams!

As we build these skills and competencies across the company, we expect to expand equity – and we also anticipate that we’ll be increasing our own ability to envision a truly equitable company. Envisioning equity means that we can share our hopes for a company that offers fair opportunities to everyone, and in which everyone who works here is valued primarily for who they are and what they bring,

We know that this work is a way that we can bring the courage of our core values to everything we do. Whether re-thinking our decision-making processes, our organizational chart, or our pay scales, using a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens is making LKCo a stronger company day by day.

How will we know?

One thing too often overlooked in DEI plans is tracking and long-term accountability. We’ve started with our baseline analysis of how diverse (who works here, in what positions?), equitable (pay equity, fairness in policies about perks, performance reviews, and promotions), and inclusive (how valued and respected do our employees feel?). Having this baseline data will help us over the coming years to track our progress, make course corrections, and continue to invest in being best-in-class in the construction industry when it comes to being a great place to work.

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