Growing and Developing Your Employees
Growing, developing, and keeping employees safe is a challenge every company faces. In this issue of the GroundBreak Corner we address practices for developing project management talent, strategies for empowering employees, and leading through safety.
Cultivating Unicorns
For many ABC Carolinas member firms, good project management is a critical to their success. Finding professionals with the expertise, skills, and abilities to lead projects effectively is an ongoing struggle. These ideal candidates, often referred to as “unicorns,” are elusive but crucial to a firm’s success. While attracting, engaging, and retaining the right project managers is essential, many organizations are not adequately developing these professionals internally. In Cultivating Unicorns, Justin Smith, P.E., an advisor with Zweig Group shares insights on how investing in developing talent within your firm can be a key to success.
Empowering Employees to be The Best in the Industry
An organization’s success and growth are often directly attributed to how well the organization empowers its employees. Andre Harris, Business Unit Leader with ABC Carolinas member firm AM King shares his personal philosophy for developing people in How We Empower Employees to be the Best in Our Industry. He was inspired to write the article after listening to a podcast that talked about how industry is moving away from “using people to do work” to “using work to develop people.”
Leading Through Safety
Superior safety performance is something the ABC Carolinas Chapter promotes through its programs. Recently, ABC released its 2023 Safety Performance Report. The report shows that ABC member companies that follow the STEP Safety Management System, a proven system that provides the framework to measure, strengthen and build industry-leading safety programs achieved incident rates 688% safer than the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics construction industry average.
“ABC’s safety report is the road map and how-to guide for contractors to achieve world-class safety and health,” said Greg Sizemore, ABC vice president of health, safety, environment and workforce development. “STEP participation can lower incident rates and create safer jobsites so that employees can return home to families and loved ones every day. STEP Diamond members are nearly seven times safer than the industry average, achieving an 85% reduction in Total Recordable Incident Rates.”
The report specifically identified proactive injury and hazard elimination best practices including: new hire safety orientation, substance abuse prevention programs, toolbox talks, and top management engagement.
The annual safety study is unveiled to coincide with Construction Safety Week, May 1-5.
2023 GroundBreak Nominations are Now Open
People make the construction industry what it is today. That’s why we are seeking your input for the 2023 GroundBreakers Awards. The GroundBreak Carolinas team is interested in identifying and featuring those individuals who are influencing construction and having a significant impact on the industry. During the last four years, several ABC Carolinas members have been recognized as GroundBreakers. Nominations for the 5th annual GroundBreakers Awards is now open.
