The future of work is heavily dependent on improved communication with frontline employees, and the construction industry is no exception.

Simply put, employees who feel valued and appreciated are more likely to stay with the company, be more productive, and generally have greater morale. Don’t overlook the power of engagement when it comes to construction employees as it can be the deciding factor between a successful project and one that falls short.

We joined LEAP HR: Construction, an event that gives opportunities for HR leaders to exchange best practices in the construction industry, along with our highly valued customer Swinerton. As a US-based commercial construction company, Swinerton is focusing on improving communication and engagement between construction employees and HQ. Hint: They’ve just started rolling out a branded employee communication app across the company. Here’s their story.

Why Improving Communication Matters

Swinerton recognizes that construction employees are on the front lines of the job and can either make or break a project. That's why they find it crucial to build an environment of communication and collaboration within the workforce. To do this, they strive to improve communication, easily connect with all their frontline employees, and build engagement. And in doing so, they’re able to create a safer and more productive work environment for their construction employees.

The Challenge: Lack of Effective Communication 

Swinerton was facing a communication challenge across the company, and saw that their workforce was unaware of, or had incorrect information regarding important company changes, updates, opportunities, and news. This was especially the case for construction employees in field roles.

And the communication challenge had a ripple effect, reducing:

• Implementation speed of key company changes or initiatives
• Employee awareness and adoption of key tools, products, or benefits
• Employee equity in being able to capitalize on career or benefit opportunities
• Employee connection and engagement
• Increased employee turnover
• Relaying of misinformation to business partners
• Inability to achieve desired ROI and business results

In order to fill the gaps and improve communication across the company – especially with construction employees who tend to be furthest away from HQ – they tried to use different modes of communication.

Here’s what they attempted, and why it didn’t solve the problem:

• Email: Important information gets lost in the overwhelming quantity that employees already receive.
• Intranet: Key communication gets lost in the quantity of information that already exists on their intranet.
• News feeds: Not targeted, which means it’s not always applicable. Can be deprioritized during the day-to-day rush of business.
• Word-of-mouth: Unreliable and not stored. Information is not always communicated correctly or effectively as it trickles down.
• Text messages: No confirmation that the message was opened and read. 

The biggest challenge? None of these modes of communication were readily accessible to their craft and field-based construction employees. In fact, most of these mediums were focused on a ‘push’ approach, in contrast to the ‘pull’ approach they desired and did not improve communication.

The Solution: Reaching Construction Employees on a Mobile App

With a branded employee communication app, Swinerton will be able to reach their construction employees directly on their mobile devices and make information readily available to everyone. It’s also a good use of the ‘pull’ factor, allowing employees to absorb news when they’re ready and when appropriate. This is especially useful for part-time construction employees who generally miss out on news and important information. They opted for Speakap's employee app to improve communication with a familiar interface and engaging user experience. With its simplicity and ease of use, there's a higher chance that employees will immediately embrace it. 

However, determining how to roll out a new solution to construction employees can be a daunting task. Defining the scope of initial phases and what to leave for a future state can be a challenge in itself.  By partnering with Speakap’s experts, Swinerton is able to make decisions and prioritize key elements for the business. This is heavily based on Speakap’s insights having worked with dozens of other construction companies. A highly consultative approach has helped Swinerton create a launch plan based on priorities, while leveraging Speakap’s extensive industry expertise to avoid common pitfalls.  

The Future: Analyze, Optimize, Improve

Like any internal communications project, change management and optimization is an important component, especially when starting with an entirely new way of engaging construction employees.

Swinerton has adopted an iterative, phased approach to avoid changing too much too quickly, but also leveraging early insights to optimize the program over time. Here are a number of items on their agenda to ensure improved communication with their construction employees:

• Work out technical difficulties, and ensure ease of download and setup for employees before launching
• Develop communication plan for rollout
• Ensure resource availability to support launch
• Start small and specific (ex. benefits announcements and open enrollment)
• Limit security and administrators initially – expand slowly over time
• Limit functionality initially – expand slowly over time
• Develop a timeline of use-cases up front (ex. content calendar)
• Track adoption and utilization

As Swinerton’s construction employees’ adoption of Speakap expands over time, they’ll work closely with internal stakeholders and Speakap experts to introduce new functionality, a decentralized communications strategy, and integrations with other systems. This will help with improving the experience and driving consistent adoption. The vision? Making Speakap an essential communications tool for the construction employees they rely on daily.