All employees work differently. Some need to be home early to be with their children. Others ride their bikes to work and then need a morning shower. Others like to hit the gym midday when it’s less crowded. So instead of mandating that employees be at their desks for the same eight hours everyday, Shawmut Design and Construction focuses on results.
Employees are encouraged to get up, stretch their legs and play a game of pool at 2 p.m. They receive a gym discount and have in-office showers. They’re brought fresh fruit, which is a biweekly social event, said Shawmut’s New England Vice President Francis X. Hayes.
“We’re really focusing on the output, rather than seat time,” he said, adding, “Our belief is that people are truly more productive when their head is in the right place. And getting your head in the right place is allowing for you to get away from the [work] stuff.”
And employees are given the technology – laptop and cell phone satellite cards and VoIP telephony – that allows them to stay in the firm’s virtual private network wherever they are. With manager approval, some employees work at home occasionally, others work compressed workweeks.
Even with that flexibility, the construction and design market requires Shawmut to operate a high-energy, hard-working business, said Ron Simoneau, managing director of operations in Providence. “It’s not uncommon to see people working in our office until late in the evening and our workday starts exceptionally early – there [are] people in that office at 5:30 a.m.”
But just because employees are given the option to not be at their desks, it doesn’t mean that client interactions or the company’s quality of work is suffering, he said. “We’ve got great culture and environments in our office and most folks want to come in and be a part of that.”
That community-centered atmosphere is an important asset to the workplace culture at Shawmut, Simoneau said. “Especially in these uncertain times, you want to feel a sense of security. You especially want to see that there’s an appreciation from the entity that’s benefiting from the fruits of your labor.”
It seems to be working, too, Hayes said. Employees are sticking with the company, several have been there more than 20 years, which is impressive since Shawmut was founded in 1982. At an annual meeting, longtime employees hitting milestones – 10-, 15- and 20-year anniversaries – are given cash awards. The company also recognizes staffers who have excelled by giving Client Service Awards and on-site safety awards.
And the company is still growing, Simoneau said. “In today’s economy, there aren’t a lot of firms” doing as well as Shawmut, he said.
During the last few years, the company has restructured its leadership, identifying the “next leaders,” who are now in training to handle more responsibilities. That group of young leaders, part of the Action Learning Program, is paired with senior employees and taught to work through each step of a project.
The company is employee-owned, which means each employee is a stockholder and is awarded a bonus based on the company’s year-end revenues. And education is a part of bettering employee performance, which is a way to increase those revenues, Hayes said. The firm offers classes at the in-house “Shawmut University” and annually will reimburse up to $10,000 for outside tuition expenses, both of which are popular.
The company requires at least 16 hours of education a year. “What we try to do is get folks to hit on a curriculum that’s mandatory for their position over a certain amount of years,” Hayes said. But employees are also encouraged to take courses that interest them, including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification courses, which are popular now.
That coursework can also be found at job sites, where “some of the younger folks” are on hand to witness some of the more “technical” aspects of building, Hayes said. Entry-level employees are given a three-year Construction Management Skills Training course, which is designed for a “360-degree view” of project management, supervision and estimating.
The firm employs a total of more than 900 employees. About 35 employees work in-office at the Providence Davol Square location with another 5 to 10 working at job sites around the Providence metro, Simoneau said.
Providence is one of five satellite offices that include New York City, Atlantic City, N.J., and New Haven, Conn. The company’s New England group, to which the Providence office belongs, focuses on academic, commercial, health care and cultural and preservation projects, Hayes said. The company is headquartered in Boston.
Aside from stockholder bonuses, the company also provides health care insurance free to its employees and families. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a single person or you have 10 kids,” Simoneau said. “Everyone’s covered and you don’t have to contribute.” And each employee can enroll in a flexible-spending account, with up to $5,000 pretax each year for medical care costs.
The company also offers up one personal day each year for every employee that wants to volunteer for any community service efforts that they choose. There are other community-service efforts, too. In November 2007, employees traveled to Waveland, Miss., to help with the reconstruction of houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina as part of the Rebuild 1,000 initiative.
Overall, the company’s culture is about bringing employees together and creating a comfortable work environment. The fruit delivered biweekly is the healthy way to do that, but other food is sometimes just as effective, Hayes said. “We certainly do, less frequently, have an ice cream social,” he said. •
