Part 3: Engaging Project Culture
Project Culture is one of those warm and fuzzy concepts that most numbers-oriented Project Managers think little about. However in today’s ultra-competitive environment for a dwindling skilled labor workforce, Project Culture is a topic that keeps popping up when you research ways to best attract and retain skilled workers. Some Project Managers will go so far as to suggest it is not important, that if you manage the project correctly culture takes care of itself. It is true that culture takes care of itself. When groups of workers congregate daily to accomplish a series of tasks, eventually a culture will form. Project Management can choose to consciously facilitate a safe and productive project culture or allow the culture to manifest on its own. In manufacturing environments, work cultures are established and reinforced over months, years, even decades. People in those environments typically have a long history of working together and with management guidance have formed and nurtured a work culture over the course of time.
Construction Projects are obviously different. First and foremost, capital projects are shorter in nature. Even mega-projects have finite durations. Whatever the culture turns out to be on projects forms relatively quickly. Once a culture forms and begins being reinforced, there generally isn’t much time left to redirect it in a more positive direction. As CII/CURT RT-370 found, the workforce of the next decade are generationally different than the wave of baby boomers retiring across the industry.
From RT-370 research, “The steepest decline in the score occurs between the 18-24 age group and the 25-34 age group. For some reason – perhaps ongoing changes in our culture – the youngest people were less willing than previous generations to tolerate derogatory remarks or being treated unprofessionally.” --- RT370 p.49
Project work presents other challenges. The multi-disciplinary and cross-functional nature of projects create authority and responsibility dilemmas. This begs for alignment between groups followed by clear and concise communication channels to and from Project Management to continuously align the team and get everyone on the same page.
In Part 1 of this series, you were introduced to the Melius Project Labor Management Model. This Venn Diagram has four fundamental pieces. This article is the first from the Culture element.
Figure 1. Melius Project Labor Management Model
The most successful project cultures start with an effective Safety Culture. This is a great place to start because its most basic objective is to get project team members to CARE. If everyone cares about their safety and their co-workers’ safety, it serves as a strong foundation to get them to care about other important parameters of project performance.
At Melius, we subscribe to the work of clinical psychologist Dr. Aubrey Daniels at Aubrey Daniels International (ADI). His work in applying behavioral science in the workplace and learning environments is a perfect fit for consciously driving desired behaviors and creating safe, productive work cultures. His book titled Bringing Out the Best in People is a tremendous resource for driving desired behavior in the workplace. While this article is not intended as a lecture on ADI’s Performance Management, there are a couple of its tenants that are relevant to the specific topic being addressed in this article. How do you create accountability and ownership in a large group of workers?
From the research of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner we have the ABC model. Standing for Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence, it’s the most simplistic characterization of explaining human behavior. An antecedent is a trigger, something that motivates us to act. That action of course is the behavior. The actual behavior we choose is based on the perceived consequences of that behavior. What can be an antecedent? In everyday life literally it can be anything; sounds, sights, even smells can cue us to act a certain way. Looking specifically at creating antecedents for purposes of nurturing project culture a popular tool is visual cues. This usually takes the form of signage or banners communicating project goals and/or performance in relation to those goals.
Figure 2 – Example Project Safe Work Hours Sign
This is a typical example of how projects use visual cues to trigger desired behaviors around safety. Projects with healthy safety cultures typically have these types of visual cues in high traffic areas and break areas. This example included performance feedback. The most effective antecedents also deliver timely performance feedback. Find every opportunity to give the workforce performance feedback not just in safety, but also in productivity, cost and quality. If you want the workforce to care about project performance, it starts by giving them timely accurate performance feedback.
Again, at its heart, the safety culture is trying to get workers to care. What other things do we want workers to care about? Project Management should try to figure out how to create appropriate antecedents around these issues as well.
If you want the workforce to care about project performance, it starts by giving them timely accurate performance feedback.
The primary topic for this article is how to create ownership and accountability through employee engagement. A progressive employee engagement strategy also includes creating antecedents and effective consequences in driving the desired project culture.
Here are the fundamentals of an effective employee engagement strategy.
Here are the fundamentals of an effective employee engagement strategy.
- The process motivates workers to participate on an ongoing basis throughout their project assignment.
- The process documents the positive contributions of workers toward a safer, faster, higher quality or less expensive project. An example could be an electrician finding an opportunity to run cable tray instead of the conduit that is planned. It gets approved through the proper channels and then is documented through this process. This is not a "suggestion box." Rather it is a historical documentation of implemented ideas and their value to the project. It is then sent to an appropriate client representative for validation. They are asked to validate this idea was indeed implemented and that at least the amount estimated as savings was realized as a result.
- The process rewards based on participation, not on the value of their contribution. It is ok to highlight and do something extra for large impact contributions but make the fundamental mechanism for recognition simple participation in the process.
- The owner must be integrated into the process for validating improvements, recognizing project employees, and even participating with their own ideas. A culture of caring MUST be reciprocal in nature. If the workforce doesn’t feel Project Management cares, soon it won’t either.
- Charts and Information such as participation % and effective rate $ should be integrated in the antecedent strategy. Effective Rate is calculated by starting with the average all-in craft rate in $/hr. Subtract from that the total of client-approved savings generated by the employee engagement program divided by the hours burned in that period. This is the effective hourly rate paid by the client after factoring in the conservative value of improvements generated by the employee engagement program.
Figure 3 – Example Participation Chart
Figure 4 – Example Effective Rate Chart
Periodic recognition events are held with the support and participation of all key stakeholders including the contractor, client and any key vendors or subcontractors. Typically, a committee of workers are chartered to come up with items for drawings at different values. The committee is encouraged to solicit ideas from co-workers regarding the types of items at different value levels they would like to see in a drawing. As project participation increases, the value of the prizes that are drawn for also increases.
Take the opportunity to highlight innovative submissions as a way to educate and spawn creative thought. Client and Contractor Project Management should actively participate in these events, demonstrating the importance of the workforce’s ongoing participation.
As participation climbs, a mentoring dynamic emerges with more experienced workers and foremen, who want 100% crew participation, sharing ideas with co-workers and crew members to help them get involved in the process. A well-administered Employee Engagement process like this can drive accountability and ownership among workers and provides benefits to all project stakeholders.
- Workers are recognized and are incentivized to encourage co-workers to participate. Recognition events are fun for all involved and helps create a sense of group purpose and positive work culture.
- Project Management, with little investment, have created a fun place to work that drives cost-consciousness and innovation among all project employees. This helps both with recruiting and retention of key skilled labor resources.
- Owner and Contractor management are able to demonstrate how everyone associated with the project is looking for ways to make it better and can even show the associated savings and effective rate reductions.
- Corporate stakeholders have a project being executed with management tools able to offset/mitigate several of the cost and labor challenges associated with other contemporary projects.
What other types of employee engagement programs that you feel were effective in building the desired project culture? The pros at Melius have decades of experience implementing Employee Engagement programs and can help customize and implement one for your project. Give us a call!
In Part 4 of the Bringing Focus to Project Labor Management series, we will go in depth on one of the key variables of Project Labor Management, Foreman Availability. It was touched on in Part 2 as an important consideration when defining the role of foreman on each project during the initial stages of mobilization. In Part 4 we will share the findings from a study done on the effect of increasing foreman availability on project performance metrics, as well as another way to measure foreman availability as the project is being executed. Stay tuned!