Building a Stronger Jobsite Culture Starts With Communication

Culture Is Defined by What Happens Every Day

Ask any construction company about its values, and you will likely hear safety, accountability, teamwork, and respect. Those values are printed in handbooks, built into orientations, posted on jobsite signs, and reinforced in leadership meetings.

The challenge is not defining those values. It is making sure every worker on every site experiences them.

In Eight Steps for Changing Organizational Culture in Companies of All Sizes, published by CMAA and originally appearing in Autodesk's Redshift, author Kimberly Holland examines how organizations can establish and strengthen culture through deliberate action.

The article explains that organizational culture influences how employees interact, how decisions are made, and how a company operates. It also emphasizes that meaningful cultural change requires coordinated effort throughout an organization, not simply the communication of a new set of expectations.

That distinction is especially important in construction.

A project may have a strong safety mission, experienced leadership, and clearly defined expectations. But the culture workers' experience ultimately depends on what happens after those expectations are established. Are they consistently communicated? Are they reinforced in the field? Do workers understand how they apply to the work happening today?

Culture is not simply what leadership says. It is what workers experience throughout the workday.

The Challenge of Building One Culture Across Multiple Companies

One point raised in the CMAA article is that culture can be experienced differently across departments, teams, and organizational levels. Even when an organization has clearly established values, those values may be interpreted or reinforced differently depending on the leader or team.

Now consider that challenge on a large construction project.

A general contractor may oversee hundreds or even thousands of workers representing multiple specialty contractors. Each company brings its own leadership structure, communication practices, and workplace culture.

Yet everyone on the project is expected to follow the same site requirements, understand the same safety expectations, and contribute to the same project environment. That is what makes building a consistent jobsite culture so difficult.

Strong relationships between general contractors, trade partners, and frontline supervisors are essential. But relying on those relationships as the primary means of information reaching the workforce can create inconsistencies.

A message discussed in a leadership meeting may reach different crews at different times. One supervisor may provide more context than another. A worker who speaks Spanish may have to wait for information to be translated or explained. New workers arriving on the project may not have the same context as people who have been there for months.

Over time, those differences influence how workers experience the project and its culture.

For general contractors, creating consistency across those organizational boundaries does not mean replacing trade leadership. It means supporting those leaders with a communication structure that helps ensure every worker receives the critical information, expectations, and context they need to succeed.

Communication Turns Expectations Into Everyday Behaviors

Another central theme in the CMAA article is the importance of communication in driving cultural change. Establishing expectations is only the beginning. Employees need to understand why those expectations matter, how they apply to their work, and what behaviors are expected.

For construction leaders, that principle applies every day.

Safety procedures. Respect for other trades. Reporting hazards. Maintaining clean work areas. Responding to changing site conditions. Recognizing workers who demonstrate positive behaviors.

These expectations are often introduced during orientation and reinforced through toolbox talks and safety meetings.

But culture cannot depend on a single conversation at the beginning of a worker's time on the project. It requires ongoing reinforcement.

Sometimes that reinforcement comes through safety reminders, advance notice of upcoming activities, changes to site conditions, or simply keeping workers informed about what is happening around them.

These may seem like routine communications, but they help establish expectations for how information is shared, how workers are treated, and what they can expect from project leadership.

When workers consistently receive timely, relevant information, communication becomes part of their everyday experience rather than something that happens only during meetings or when problems arise.

The way leadership communicates shapes the culture workers experience.

Leadership Sets the Example, but Workers Shape the Culture

The CMAA article emphasizes that meaningful cultural change requires leadership commitment and employee involvement. Leaders must demonstrate the behaviors they expect, while employees need opportunities to participate, provide feedback, and contribute to improvements.

On a construction project, superintendents, safety professionals, project managers, and trade supervisors all influence the culture workers experience.

But leadership cannot build that culture alone.

On most job sites, frontline workers rarely hear directly from general contractor leadership, aside from an occasional all-hands meeting. Instead, information typically flows through trade supervisors, who are responsible for passing it along to their crews.

That structure is essential to managing construction projects, but it also raises an important question:

If workers rarely hear directly from project leadership, how does leadership build a culture of communication, trust, and engagement across the entire workforce?

Building that connection does not always require major announcements or conversations about company values.

Sometimes it is as simple as giving workers advance notice of upcoming activities, communicating changes to site conditions, sharing safety reminders, or explaining decisions that affect their workday.

These everyday interactions help establish a culture where workers are kept informed, know what to expect, and see that project leadership is actively communicating with them.

But communication should not flow in only one direction.

Workers also need opportunities to raise concerns, share observations, and be assured that their feedback is taken seriously. A worker who feels comfortable speaking up about a hazard or suggesting an improvement contributes to a stronger, more engaged project culture.

Trenton LeBlanc, General Superintendent at Skanska, has seen how involving workers in everyday jobsite communication can influence that culture.

As LeBlanc explained:

“Getting them involved with the day-to-day communication and what's going on the job, they feel more a part of the job site than… just the workers putting the work in place. And they feel more elevated to bring up issues too.”

His observation highlights an important connection: When workers feel informed and included, they may also feel more comfortable speaking up and contributing to the project's success.

Trade supervisors remain essential to reinforcing expectations and supporting their crews. Direct communication from general contractor leadership can strengthen those relationships by helping workers receive consistent information across the project.

A culture of communication is not built through occasional meetings or leadership statements. It is reinforced by the everyday information workers receive, the opportunities they have to speak up, and how leadership responds.

Building Culture Requires Consistency From Day One

One of the key messages in the CMAA article is that organizational culture does not change overnight. Meaningful change requires patience, continued investment, employee feedback, and consistent reinforcement.

For construction leaders, there is another important reality to consider.

Workers move from jobsite to jobsite, often experiencing very different cultures along the way.

One project may encourage open communication, recognize positive behaviors, and actively involve workers in safety decisions. Another may operate with limited communication, inconsistent expectations, or an environment where workers hesitate to speak up.

When those workers arrive on a new project, they bring their previous experiences and expectations with them.

That makes the first days on a jobsite especially important.

Project leadership has an opportunity to establish what kind of culture workers can expect from the beginning. How will information be communicated? What behaviors are expected? Are workers encouraged to raise concerns? Will leadership listen and respond?

It is much easier to establish a culture of communication, accountability, and trust from day one than to change months of inconsistent practices and behaviors.

And the work does not stop once that foundation is established.

Construction projects are constantly evolving. New workers arrive, crews rotate, schedules change, and different trades move through the project.

Maintaining a strong culture means reinforcing expectations as the workforce changes, keeping workers informed, recognizing positive behaviors, and consistently demonstrating the values established at the beginning.

A strong jobsite culture is not established during orientation and maintained automatically. It is built through the experiences workers have every day.

Every jobsite develops a culture. The question for construction leaders is whether they are intentionally shaping it or allowing it to develop on its own.

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How MindForge Helps Build a More Connected Jobsite Culture

Building a strong jobsite culture takes more than setting expectations. It requires keeping workers informed, involved, and connected throughout the life of a project.

Orientation is often the first opportunity project leadership has to communicate expectations directly to a worker. But that communication shouldn't end when the worker walks out of the orientation trailer.

MindForge helps general contractors establish that connection from day one and maintain it throughout the worker's time on the project. Whether contractors deliver their orientation videos and quizzes through MindForge or use a digital quiz to document completion, the platform creates an opportunity to continue communicating with those same workers long after orientation is complete.

With MindForge, project teams can:

• Keep the connection going after orientation: Continue reaching workers with project updates, safety reminders, upcoming activities, and logistical changes throughout their time on the jobsite.
• Reinforce expectations from day one: Introduce project requirements through digital orientation and continue reinforcing important information as workers settle into the project.
• Communicate in English and Spanish: Automatically translate alerts between English and Spanish based on workers' device language settings, helping workers receive important information in their preferred supported language.
• Encourage workforce engagement: Use two-way communication through the Bulletin Board to give workers opportunities to respond, ask questions, and participate in jobsite conversations.
• Recognize positive behaviors: Highlight workers, celebrate project milestones, and share examples of teamwork that reinforce the culture leadership wants to build.
• Maintain consistency as projects evolve: Keep workers informed as crews rotate, site conditions change, and new trades arrive, with reporting that provides visibility into alert views.

MindForge does not create a project's culture. The people on the jobsite do.

But by turning orientation into the beginning of an ongoing connection, MindForge helps project leadership reinforce expectations, keep workers informed, and build a culture where people feel included throughout their time on the project.

Industry Reference

Kimberly Holland, Eight Steps for Changing Organizational Culture in Companies of All Sizes, originally published by Autodesk Redshift and republished by the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA).

https://www.cmaanet.org/sites/default/files/resource/Changing%20Organizational%20Culture.pd

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