This week we celebrate the inaugural Construction Inclusion Week. We are proud of our colleagues at Clark Construction, DPR, Gilbane, Mortenson, McCarthy, and Turner Construction who came together in 2020 to create a Time for a Change movement in our industry. One result of their efforts is an entire week when contractors across the world come together to build upon our daily diversity, equity, and inclusion work and bring greater awareness to diversity in our industry.
At PC, we are about 18 months into our reinvigorated DEI mindset, and I have to say I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and the change we continue to make. We’ve asked a lot of hard questions and we’ve challenged practices, polices, and belief systems that have been in place even since our founding years. We have a long way to go – there’s no question about that – but we’ve made tremendous progress to date.
What I am most excited about are the doors this journey has opened. Just in the last month alone, we have made significant progress on two age-old scenarios.
First, we opened the channels of communication across the company, providing PC email and electronic devices to craft employees for the first time in the company’s history. This one action closes the communications gap and ensures all employees – regardless of position or location – have access to the same information at the same time.
We also brought to fruition an equitable benefits package for our craft employees that resulted in more paid time off, additional disability and life insurance benefits, and increased eligibility opportunities. Every person on our team plays a vital role in our success, and they have the right to be rewarded equitably for doing so.
So why did it take so long to make these changes, and so many others? Because that’s the way it always was. We simply didn’t pay attention and didn’t question where, why, and when those decisions originated. It took one person – George Floyd – to bring it all into perspective. And we aren’t turning back.
So, let’s take this week to celebrate how far we’ve come and to continue our efforts to do better and be better every single day.