Fatherhood doesn’t look like it did 40 years ago. Today’s dads take a much more active role in parenting. Trends in fathering show that dads spend two to three times more time with child-care tasks than they did in 1985. Child-care tasks include picking up the kids from school or activities and putting the kids to bed. That means dads today need the reliability of a schedule that gives them the ability to fulfill these essential parental roles. It also means dads will search for employers who are cognizant of the need to be there for their families.
Construction and field services companies alike should create a workplace culture that celebrates dads by offering flexibility and predictability and keeps them safe.
What is Company Culture?
Company culture is a set of shared values and beliefs about appropriate and inappropriate behavior for an organization and its employees. Company culture keeps your employees motivated and engaged. One in five employees have left a job due to workplace culture or lack thereof. Company culture is more than just fun activities or perks, it’s about having values that support your employees.
Culture of Flexibility
Creating a culture of flexibility means giving workers tools that allow for flexibility during the working day. The COVID-19 pandemic taught the entire world that a typical workday doesn’t have to take place in an office or at a desk. Software companies offer solutions specifically for construction that allow managers to manage their workers and projects from their mobile devices. These apps, like ExakTime’s digital time clock and its partners, let site managers approve time sheets, set schedules and track projects from anywhere. Authorized users can use their downtime to their advantage. They can quickly access online documents while waiting for school pick-up or at the doctor’s office. Or workers and managers can leave work early to catch a ball game and finish up digital paperwork at home.
Providing a culture of flexibility gives your employees the ability to adjust their schedule to meet family obligations and try to bring some balance to their work and home lives.
Culture of Predictability
A culture of predictability means that your workers can accurately predict where and when they’ll be working. Construction work doesn’t always happen between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., but in most cases, managers do have an idea of what it will take to complete a project. If a project will require early days, late nights or weekends, let workers know ahead of time. Crews will appreciate knowing if their work schedule will affect their personal lives. Investing in a good scheduling app can help both managers and workers plan their days. For example, ExakTime’s time clock app includes a scheduling feature that keeps everyone on the same page. Drop-down features allow managers to add or remove workers from shifts. Recurring or repeating shifts can easily be created as well as adding multiple workers to one shift or a series, and workers can view their schedule anytime. Workers can receive SMS texts, emails, or both, about an upcoming shift up to an hour beforehand.
Offering a culture of predictability gives your employees the ability to plan their work lives around their home lives. For example, knowing about a big project ahead of time means vacations and appointments can be scheduled around it – benefiting the worker, their family and your company.
Culture of Safety
Having a culture of safety means you put your workers’ health and wellbeing above all else. According to MetLife, almost three-quarters of all employees—regardless of where they work—are now concerned about their own safety and the safety of their family. And most feel their employer should do more to enhance that protection.
Training programs that focus on safety means worksites have reduced accidents and are more productive. Training can be done online and on-site. Crew members go through online classes, like those provided by ClickSafety through the Arcoro Learning Management System (LMS), then they go out to the job site and get hands-on training with either the site superintendent or the supervisor foreman. The one-on-one training, in addition to online courses, ensures employees get the training right, which could mean the difference between a safe job site and one riddled with accidents. According to OSHA, workers in transportation and material moving occupations and construction and extraction occupations accounted for nearly half of all fatal occupational injuries in 2021, representing 1,282 and 976 workplace deaths, respectively.
Create a company culture that benefits working dads can be achieved with the right approach, the right mindset and the right software. ExakTime, along with partner solutions, can help construction companies provide a workplace that is welcoming to dads as well as all your other workers.
Contact us to learn more.
