Career Development Programs Boost Retention And Win Local Companies Awards

by Genoa Sibold-Cohn and Lucy Bodilly

Career development programs that encourage trades people to take on increasing levels of responsibility help with employee retention at local companies.

Contractors have been searching for solutions to a shrinking workforce, exacerbated by baby-boomer retirement for over 10 years now. A strong construction market makes the labor supply even tighter.

PCL Constructors, Bellevue, Wash. and Walsh Construction, Portland, developed strong mentoring programs to help encourage career development. For that, and other strong employee support programs, both have been named “Best companies to work for” in national and local surveys. Sparling, Seattle and Golder and Associates, Redmond, Wash. have also made some of the latest lists.

Seven is Walsh Construction Co.’s lucky number.

In March, Oregon Business Magazine named the general contractor’s Portland branch among the 100 best companies to work for, specifically number seven.

It also was the seventh time since 1998 that Walsh Construction was included in the magazine’s annual best employers list.

Its Seattle office has been recognized as an outstanding employer, too. Washington CEO Magazine named Walsh one of the best companies to work for in 2003.

Fortune Magazine named PCL Constr-uctors one of the best employers in the U.S. twice.

Walsh executives attribute the company’s repeated recognition as a top employer to its success with retaining employees, fostering career paths and celebrating excellent work.

Nearly 30% of Walsh employees have worked for the Pacific Northwest contractor more than a decade. The average employee spends 7-10 years at Walsh, says Patti Murphy, the company’s human resources director.

Walsh has a total of 470 employees, which includes 200 full-time workers in its Portland and Seattle offices. PCL has 3,500 workers in the field nationwide.

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When Walsh losing some of its most valuable long-term employees to retirement a year ago, the company adopted a leadership development program to bring in new talent, Murphy says. “It’s sort of our way of making sure that knowledge gets passed on.”

Through the leadership development program, full-time employees meet one-on-one with chief development officer Chet Klock and work on a leadership development plan that evaluates skills, sets career goals and determines the career path needed to meet those goals.

PCL uses a more defined program, assigning skill sets and goals for every job description. “Raises aren’t directly tied to meeting the goal, but certainly being assigned bigger projects is,” says Brett Dolan, Human Resources Director.

At Walsh, Brian Johnson, a project manager who has worked for Walsh for a decade, was the program’s “guinea pig.” A year and a half into Johnson’s work as a laborer, the company gave the program an informal try with him.

“It was mentoring, but it was mostly having goals at the beginning of every job,” Johnson says. Johnson still meets with his superiors to set goals on every job, but it’s now every six months.

He says that without the program he’d “feel a little more adrift” about his career path.

Johnson also credits Walsh’s “field first” philosophy with helping him focus on his career goals. The “field first” philosophy focuses on the importance of learning how a structure is built before starting to plan for a building, Murphy says. This philosophy also caters to building relationships an important piece to client relations.

Employees get hands-on experience on a jobsite, witnessing the different phases of construction. The field experience helps recent college graduates make a more educated decision about whether they are more inclined to work in the field or in the office as a project engineer, Murphy says.

Many contractors will put employees in the project engineer position without the hands-on experience, but Walsh feels field experience helps build more successful careers, Murphy adds.

Career opportunities start as early as high school for students who are interested in the industry. Walsh’s apprenticeship program provides students with experience in developing trade skills like painting, carpentry and equipment operation. Internships also are offered to help students determine if construction is the career for them.

Other Northwest AEC companies that have made a “Best Place” to work list include Sparling and Golder and Associates.

Sparling has made the list of the "100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon" for 2008 by Oregon Business magazine.

"We are especially proud to be receiving this award for the 2nd year in a row!" said Kimberly Krull, Principal.

The Oregon Business magazine survey rates employee satisfaction in 50 workplace qualities such as benefits and compensation, work environment, decision-making and trust, performance management and career development and learning. Another aspect in ranking companies comes from answers to employer benefits surveys where company representatives were polled on benefits such as health and wellness plans, time off, family-friendly policies, work scheduling, incentives, retirement plans and corporate culture.

For the sixth year in a row, Golder Associates Inc., has been named a top firm to work for by CE News Magazine, scoring 8th in the large company category.