Engaging Construction Teams: 3 ways to empower the people who build our world

Culture doesn’t (and shouldn’t) exist only as a mission statement in the boardroom or office wall. Of course, in historically corporate environments, more consistent structure around values and engagement is expected. But in Construction, culture has to carry a different shape. It can’t rely on PowerPoint decks or monthly Town Halls, but instead must be grounded in behaviour, accountability, acknowledgement – and colleagues feeling that their contributions matter.

Which is why culture isn’t something only to be seen – it’s something that needs to be felt, wherever colleagues are based. And that’s exactly the challenge: the everyday progress of distributed Construction teams often goes unseen and unrecognised in the disconnect between Head Office and on-site.

Culture is not only personifying company values through behaviours, recognition and rewards, but also how the business empowers its people’s wellbeing, delivers its commitments through actions rather than words, and stays true to its mission. For Construction workers, on top of the natural deskless disconnect, the sector can often shy away from fostering an environment built upon recognition and feedback. Within its traditionally results-driven culture, less emphasis is placed on recognising everyday wins or rewarding long-term contributions which then in turn fuels disengagement in teams who already operate in high-pressure environments but often feel out of sight, and out of mind.

An authentic recognition framework alongside timely and incentivising rewards not only bridges this disconnect by fostering a sense of community and belonging, but ensures employees feel seen, heard and valued for the wins big and small in their everyday work.

Construction workforces often span a wide range of ages, backgrounds and skills. While this diversity brings valuable perspective, it can also create complexity for employers to align their employee experience to changing expectations. To meaningfully achieve this, businesses need to implement inclusive strategies that balance the needs of colleagues on an individual level with the fact a large majority of their workforce won’t have access to corporate devices or logins to view their rewards and benefits on the company intranet.

Not only do Construction employees need to feel they are offered perks that really address what they need, they also need to easily access these. And for employers support the needs of a multi-generational workforce, they first need to get under the skin of truly understanding these.