MANAGEMENT
By Mary Lee Shalvoy
The Role of Company Culture in Worker Retention Leaders set the tone for long-term workforce development
Deem Structural Services is an employee stock-owned business.
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n the list of the biggest concerns affecting business today, right after finding workers, is how to keep them as employees. It’s tough out there, and worker retention is not just a skilled trades problem. According to a September 2020 survey by the Associated General Contractors and Autodesk, more than 80 percent of contractors say it is difficult to find supervisors or project managers. Further exasperating the issue, 75 percent of U.S. employees across all industries do not stay at their jobs for more than five years, reports staffing agency iHire in its 2019 Talent Retention Report. That’s about as long as it takes to recruit, train, and develop a journey-level craftsperson, who then is no longer in your pipeline to develop for manager positions. To keep workers from leaving, companies must cultivate a culture with a focus on employee engagement. Those that do so achieve 59 percent less turnover, according to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report. Mary Lee Shalvoy, managing partner with Okos Partners LLC, is a business, training, and marketing consultant. She also acts as project manager for TradeUp, a skilled trades workforce development program. For more info visit OkosPartners.com or TradeUpWorks.com.
Successful workforce development strategies plan for the long-term growth and careers of the company’s workers. A clear succession path starts with recruitment and extends through training, with opportunities for both personal and organizational growth. Positive company culture is equally important to recruiting and placement, training, and safety.
Culture is a Leadership Issue Culture often gets overlooked or dismissed because it’s so difficult to define. A company’s culture begins the moment its doors open for business, set by the founders and initial leadership teams. Culture continues through financial and organizational growth, with additional layers of management and leaders resulting in a number of internal subcultures. Culture is developed by the leaders in your company, or anyone who manages anything— from the CEO, VP of finance and director of safety, to the superintendent, supervisor, and foreman. Leaders who understand the significance of workers’ priorities, and who also realize they can encourage performance by creating the conditions for employees to thrive, are far more successful in building a culture of engagement, safety, and growth. If you are a manager of people, you are a creator of culture because you are the boss.
18 | THE STEEL ERECTORS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
A culture of engagement means performance with fulfillment. It can enhance your brand, improve business results and fulfill your organization's purpose. According to Gallup, when leaders and managers create a clear, consistent, aligned culture, it inspires high commitment, and employees believe in and live out the organization's purpose in their daily work. They feel respected, valued, and invested. On the flip side, it’s the unspoken beliefs and ideas, and the steadfast “that’s the way we’ve always done things around here” attitude that causes the most trouble. In another series of studies, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) reported a workplace with a poor culture often suffers from high turnover, disengaged employees, lower production quality, higher incidents of accidents, and has difficulty hiring.
Making Culture about Your People Company culture is paramount, according to David Deem, president of SEAA member company Deem Structural Services, Longview, Texas, which provides large-scale steel erection projects in the education, healthcare, and government markets in the Southwest. Its 175-employee strong company is an employee stock-owned business. There are
