Every company has a culture. When it comes to commercial construction work, combining tight deadlines and high-pressure projects with a commitment to safety and quality can create some fairly complex situations. A strong, healthy company culture makes a big difference in how those situations are handled—and how employees, stakeholders, trade partners, and owners are treated as a result.
How Crain’s Company Culture Improves Project Outcomes
At Crain, we recognize that our culture creates ripple effects across every project. After 90 years in the industry, we’ve seen how investing in culture—and embodying our core values in every project—makes a tangible difference in the way our team shows up for work each day.
What does it mean to get along like a big family in the commercial construction industry? Here are a few intentional ways we’ve worked to cultivate a culture where every employee feels supported, and people want to spend the rest of their career as part of our team:
1. We treat each other with respect and communicate with candor.
Communication is a critical factor in every commercial construction project. And while having an effective framework for communication is key, the way we interact is just as important. At Crain, we’ve worked hard to create a collaborative environment that fosters open communication. Internally, we hold each other accountable and believe that everyone has a voice in the conversation. Externally, we listen to our project owners, architects, and trade partners in a way that identifies solutions and removes barriers rather than insisting on our particular idea or point of view.
Believing that every relationship matters is one of the timeless construction principles that has shaped our work for the past 90 years. And the way we talk to people is a foundational pillar in building strong relationships.
2. We intentionally celebrate together.
Completing a construction project takes a significant amount of time, effort, and coordination. Most projects involve a wide range of stakeholders, including project owners, architects, pre-construction engineers, foremen, project managers, and trade partners. At Crain, we host regular Kudos Events to celebrate milestones along the way. These intentional gatherings are our way of recognizing the hard work that’s being done during a project. Here’s a recent example from our topping-out celebration during our BNA project.
In addition to celebrating project milestones, we also find creative ways to gather the entire company together throughout the year. Whether it’s volunteering together, family picnics at the Sounds game, bourbon tastings, or crawfish boils, we enjoy spending time together and talking about things other than work.
3. We care about team members as human beings, not just employees.
At Crain, we realize that work is just one part of our employees’ lives. We’ve intentionally worked to create a culture where everyone is approachable and willing to help one another. We care about our employees personally, not just professionally, and we invest in the overall health and well-being of our team. For example, we offer a chaplain and other resources to help our employees navigate difficult seasons of life. We don’t just want our employees to succeed in their jobs, we want them to thrive personally.
Interested in Joining Crain?
If you were to ask most people at Crain about our culture, the first word that you’d probably hear is “family.” As Senior Project Manager James Williams put it, “The team members at Crain aren’t just my co-workers—they’re my friends. We all get along like a big family, and we treat our clients like they’re family, too.”
Because of our commitment to culture, we take our hiring process seriously. You can explore what it’s like to work at Crain or learn more about our commitment to the next generation of construction talent. If you’re looking for a new job in construction, and you’re interested in joining our team, you can reach out to our team to learn more about the positions we have available.
