Shawmut employees invested in clients’ needs

ALL IN: From employee ownership to collaborative project management, Shawmut Design and Construction strives to engage clients and staff. Examining a 3D scan of a building the firm is working on at its Providence offices are, from left, Ron Simoneau, vice president for New England, Marianne Monte, chief people officer, Kyle Lloyd, project executive, and Nick Brown, assistant project manager. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
ALL IN: From employee ownership to collaborative project management, Shawmut Design and Construction strives to engage clients and staff. Examining a 3D scan of a building the firm is working on at its Providence offices are, from left, Ron Simoneau, vice president for New England, Marianne Monte, chief people officer, Kyle Lloyd, project executive, and Nick Brown, assistant project manager. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Since its inception 33 years ago, Shawmut Design and Construction has found a winning, if paradoxical, combination for success in the business of construction management: consistency and innovation.

Ron Simoneau, vice president of the firm’s New England Group, explained it simply: “The company really differentiates itself by delivering a level of client services that most of our customers have never experienced before … until they work with us.”

Simoneau has worked with Shawmut for 20 years and in Rhode Island for 15 since he headed up the firm’s expansion into the state, beginning with its first project at Brown University. He said that by consistently focusing on client satisfaction and responding to innovative trends such as sustainability and advances in 3-D modeling (which leads to a “much deeper level” of coordination on projects from the jump, saving time and money, said Simoneau), Shawmut boasts a rate of repeat business at more than 80 percent.

“We’re focused on three strategic pillars: excellent client service, building a talent-driven organization, and becoming a leading-edge organization around innovation and technology,” said Simoneau. “It makes it easy to grow when you’re building off such a base of repeat work.”

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And grow Shawmut has. The company’s overall figures, gathered from its eight offices nationwide, show a revenue growth of 72 percent over the last five years, from $558 million in 2010 to $957 million in 2014. Its projected revenue for 2015 is listed at $1.2 billion in its Business Excellence Awards application materials.

Shawmut has seen a concurrent increase in employee numbers: from 600 in 2010 to 1,271 in 2014. According to Simoneau, the Rhode Island piece of that revenue is “roughly 8-10 percent … about $75 million to $100 million out of this office,” with 75 to 100 full-time employees.

Much of this growth has come from the company’s geographic expansion, Simoneau said, and also from entering into new markets – hotels and sport venues, specifically.

The growth is not by happenstance. The company holds off-site meetings with its board to develop five-year strategic plans. Simoneau pointed to expansion of the public education market in Massachusetts and an expansion into the New York education market as efforts borne from these gatherings.

In Rhode Island, Shawmut’s continued success can be attributed in part to taking the lead in implementing a lean initiative, as well as through alternative project delivery, a contract mechanism that encourages collaboration between parties on a project.

“To put it in perspective, you might have 30 different people working on a project, and they all have their own agenda,” said Simoneau. “In this method, everyone is on the same page – everyone’s fee is at risk if the project doesn’t go well.”

That spirit of collaboration and a sense of investment in every project is a tether that runs through Shawmut as a whole. Simoneau noted that Shawmut is employee owned, which has a hand in promoting the company’s positive morale. It has been honored a number of times by Providence Business News as one of the state’s Best Places To Work, as well as given Shawmut an edge when it comes to recruiting talent.

One example, he said: the company offers retirement benefits in the form of company stock equating to “roughly 10 percent or more of someone’s [annual] salary.”

“When people can see the fruits of their labor translating to the bottom line and impacting the value of their own personal stock, I think it definitely creates greater connection with [their] actions and the success of the company,” Simoneau said. n

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