Symbolically, building entrances represent the beginning of your relationship with a structure, providing a focal point for occupants that plays a significant role in our experience within a given space. An entryway can evoke feelings of excitement, grandeur or even safety and pride.
Enter Portico, an Urban Atelier Group (UAG)-specific initiative designed to provide enhanced welcoming experiences for our onsite project teams and trade contractors.
Humanizing Construction Management
At UAG, we have cultivated a jobsite culture that encourages and rewards safe practices. While these initiatives have been successful, jobsite safety is mainly contingent on the human element of each trade contractor. Critical to our overall identity, we believe human connection is nurtured from the top down. To achieve this, our project teams regularly prioritize safety practices such as kick-offmeetings, monthly reviews and continued education to provide necessary touchpoints for connection. To reinforce our efforts annually, we participate in the industry-wide Safety Week to further familiarize our team with innovative technologies and new equipment and host lunch-and-learn to provide open communication of safety measures to our superintendent partners. Additionally, our firm leaders actively visit the jobsites to build relationships with subcontractors, personally and professionally, further cementing a culture of gratitude and respect that carries over into on-site strategy implementations.
When we consider the human aspect of the collaborators we work with daily, we foster connections, leading to better relationships and more positive outcomes. Our true task lies in challenging industry norms to create an emotional response in the workplace that impacts individual actions. As we work to ensure our employees feel safe at work and return home to their families with peace of mind, the Portico has become a critical initiative.
A Welcoming Entry Experience
Portico was established to subvert a construction site’s traditional look and feel, instead awakening familiar feelings of home and security. This creates a sense of authority on the jobsite, which is crucial for securing long-term engagement from team members to take care of their environment. Each Portico is custom and rooted in relevant local history while reflecting a unique design intent.
Our welcoming walls feature project renderings to inspire pride, a list of critical subcontractors and consultants to thank, UAG’s safety standards protocol to reinforce and critical milestones achieved. These details fuel palpable momentum throughout the project’s life cycle. By keeping our project sites clean, efficient and well-run, we’re raising the standard of operations while boosting morale. We’ve seen our teams latch onto this concept in practice, and we’ve experienced an authentic sense of community, leading to enhanced safety-related outcomes.
In addition to cultivating a strong culture on site, UAG actively engages the community in which we’re constructing. For example, the Portico at Bronx Point features a commissioned mural by local graffiti artist Tats Cru, paying homage to the South Bronx with references to music, dance and the community. Upon completion, the team will sign the mural and donate it to the Universal Hip Hop Museum as part of the project’s legacy.
Proactive Planning and Cutting-Edge Technology
Beyond the Portico, UAG is diligent in ensuring safety is at the forefront of operations. We consistently conduct pre-test plans to ensure trade constructors on site are aware of proper protocols and hazardous tasks. These meetings often involve candid conversations around processes and logistics aimed at mitigating potential risks and adverse outcomes. Our communica- tion is documented and always recorded for reference.
We regularly audit our projects with Safety Stratus, an enterprise environ- mental, health, and safety (EHS) software that can manage programs and data analytics.
Beyond verbal communication, UAG prioritizes hands-on and virtual reality educational programming, workshops, training and discussions. Safety continues to be revolutionized by innovation and as construction-related technology advances, it’s imperative to honor the human aspect without replacing the workforce. We advocate for technology within our culture because these advancements supplement the workforce, ultimately streamlining workflows, reducing human error and providing safer working conditions.
Ongoing Commitment to Safety
Construction safety requirements are merely a foundation to build upon, and we strive to transform the standards of our industry while evolving as a firm. Through Portico, safety pro- grams and technology implementation, as well as prioritizing the human aspect of construction, we’ve seen significant progress in establishing healthy jobsite cultures that relate to the people on site, instill value in team camaraderie and establish channels for continuous communication. Enforcing stringent safety standards and regulations is necessary, but leadership should prioritize proper buy-in to develop the habits that lead to consistently safer job sites. This mentality is the true power of human connection.
At its core, the definitive strength of our practice lies in our commitment to the health and long-term well-being of our people, places and processes, seamlessly integrating culture, safety and operations. At the forefront of changing the landscape of construction management safety, UAG will continue to raise safety standards that produce cutting-edge work and return our people home.
