Aker Construction

A┬ápeople businessAker Construction may be part of a multibillion-dollar global conglomerate, but as Keith Regan learns from two top executives, treating employees like part of a family is a key component in its success. Aker Construction Inc. is the union construction arm of Aker Solutions, which provides a full range of construction, maintenance and renovation services to the North American industrial sector.   Aker Solutions is in turn part of a Norway-based industrial giant with interests in drilling and exploration, power plant construction, shipping and other industries. That multibillion-dollar corporation gives Aker Construction advantages when it comes to managing the supply chainÔÇöan important consideration given that its work on large-scale refineries and industrial plants relies heavily on steel and concrete. But the company believes its real success lies in its people and the small-company approach it takes to finding and keeping the best possible employees. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs our people that set us apart,ÔÇØ says senior vice president Bart McCartin. ÔÇ£The culture we work under is to look at it as a business that weÔÇÖre part of a multibillion-dollar corporation but operate on the employee side like a family-held business, with everything we do centered around our people.ÔÇØThose people give the company the continuity and expertise it has gained through working on numerous large-scale, complex projects in the North American industrial space. Aker is currently in the early stages of a project outside Toronto for TransCanada and is in the midst of structural steel work for a $1.6 billion pulverized-coal-fired boiler facility in Monongalia County, West Virginia, being built for GenPower. Last year, it completed a $300 million project at MidAmerican EnergyÔÇÖs Council Bluffs, Iowa, power plant in partnership with Hitachi America, Ltd. In addition to the new construction, Aker is active in retrofitting and upgrading industrial facilities, such as plants owned by DuPont, US Steel and Esso. Depending upon the project, Aker often provides direct-hire union construction such as prime contracting, electrical work, equipment setting, heavy mechanical contracting, steel erection and piping, as well as construction management. Senior vice president of operations Chuck Schropp says customers turn to Aker not only because it can bring the resources of its parent company to bear on a project but also for the experience and expertise of its people. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs our employees who carry with them the expertise when it comes to supervising the construction of a refinery or a gas plant. You canÔÇÖt just go out and recruit that skill set with the experience right out of school. ItÔÇÖs something you have to focus on and nurture all the time.ÔÇØ McCartin says the company does that with an intense focus on making employees feel valued. A key component is its companyÔÇÖs award-winning Health, Safety and Environment program. ÔÇ£One of our guiding precepts is that we want to make sure we send everyone home to their families at the end of a project,ÔÇØ he says. ÔÇ£We invest a lot of time and money in ensuring that everyone knows thatÔÇÖs the first mission. We work in very arduous environments such as steel mills and chemical plants and refineries. These are some pretty dynamic places, so we had to make sure we do that much more, and that means having a culture that breeds safety.ÔÇØ Aker also strives to make employees feel part of the companyÔÇÖs success, with programs in place to mark hiring-date anniversaries as well as birthdays of employees and their family members. ÔÇ£This is a people business weÔÇÖre in, and what weÔÇÖre doing is all centered on the relationships we have, whether itÔÇÖs with the unions we deal with, the supervisors in the field or back in the offices. ThereÔÇÖs a hands-on approach to those relationships from the senior management all the way through the company, and our people feel it from the very open communication we employ. We are very much focused on being an employer of choice.ÔÇØAkerÔÇÖs reputation is evidenced by the fact that many of its employees have long tenures with the company, and some current employees are second or even third generations of the same family to become part of the Aker workforce. ÔÇ£Finding good people is vexing for everyone in the construction industry, and we continue to do a lot of succession planning to make sure we have the next generation of workforce coming through the pipeline, gaining that experience and building that same expertise that our customers are relying on us for,ÔÇØ Schropp says. The construction division employs about 400 people on a full-time basis and can add as many as 5,000 temporary workers depending upon the projects it has under way. Many of its projects have time frames that run two years or more, and because of its reliance on steel and concrete, cost escalations can be a challenge. Prices used to bid work can change dramatically before actual construction gets under way. Schropp says more customers are willing to negotiate price-escalation clauses into contracts given the volatility of the marketplace. The construction division can also lean on its parent company for help with global sourcing and large-scale volume buying contracts to help keep prices under control. Despite the economic turbulence, the company is seeing demand for its services from across its customer base, with the power industry heavily engaged in bringing new refineries and other facilities on board as well as investing in upgrading existing plants to meet environmental regulations. Meanwhile, even in the steel industry, work remains plentiful as upgrades and modernization take place on a steady basis, and Aker is poised to capitalize on the new work that could be created if the political landscape enables new investment in nuclear plants. ÔÇ£We have a dynamic mix in our customer base, and given the need to generate more power out to 2030, we donÔÇÖt see that changing,ÔÇØ says Schropp. ÔÇ£From what we can see, thereÔÇÖs no slowdown in the amount of new generation capacity being built.ÔÇØ