CULTURE IS THE STRATEGY
By Jim Rhodes, Senior Vice President
Every company needs a strategy to grow the business. But you also need a strategy to grow your culture. Otherwise, you’re just chasing it.
At Wayne Brothers, we’ve learned that building a strong culture takes just as much intention as scaling a business. That’s why we’ve created a model that puts people at the center and turns culture into something we grow on purpose.
We’ve found that culture isn’t just something you define once. It has to be built daily, modeled at every level, and backed by investment. So, we developed a culture model that starts at the individual level and scales through the organization.
“It starts with me.”
With the right mindset, an individual lives out the right behaviors, which support our shared values. That alignment powers our purpose—Building Together in Pursuit of Excellence. When both the individual and the company invest in this cycle, morale improves, engagement grows, and business results follow.
From Theory to Field-Proven Practice
A few years ago, we hit a wall on a major job. Weather delays, equipment issues, and crew burnout, everything was heading in the wrong direction. The turning point? We stopped focusing on what was going wrong and started focusing on what was going right and what we could control. We:
– Recognized wins in morning meetings
– Asked the crew how they’d hit the target
– Turned goals into team challenges
The results flipped. Morale improved, communication picked up, and production soared. That job went from frustration to success.
Field Lessons That Changed Everything
Another time, we noticed idle time on equipment. Our response wasn’t to yell louder, it was to coach smarter. A supervisor spent 45 minutes helping one operator reduce truck load time from 4 minutes to 90 seconds.
That one investment? It lit up the whole crew. They started tracking loads, racing records, asking how to get better. Engagement exploded.
Then there was the project where we made the hard call to remove a disengaged crew member that was not exhibiting our fundamental behaviors or living out our core values. The next day? The team came back energized. Sometimes subtracting is the best investment you can make in culture.
Big Picture
These stories reflect a consistent truth: Culture becomes your lowest acceptable behavior. If you tolerate disengagement or misalignment with values, it defines your culture. But when you invest in people, recognize your desired behaviors and enforce standards that reflect your purpose, the results multiply.
Investments we made
To move beyond talk and into action, we’ve made significant organizational investments:
– Initiated a search for and hired a Chief Human Resources Officer with extensive experience
– Launched a 12-month Business Leadership Program to grow business-minded leaders from within.
– Created a Director of Learning + Development position to lead structured training initiatives.
– Invested significant sums into leadership curriculum development
– Added HR Specialists for field groups, ensuring support reaches every corner of the company.
– Taken training to the field with our roving craft training instructors
We’re not done. New initiatives underway include:
– A Knowledge Management System
– A Foreman Training Program
– A Pre-Leadership Track to identify and nurture future talent.
– A revamped Onboarding Experience that connects new hires to our culture from day one.
None of these moves generate revenue directly but they are ways that we live out our core values and they’re creating engagement which fuels: retention, safety, quality, and performance.
Why This Matters
The construction industry is facing a crunch: aging workforce, low engagement, and rising costs. But engaged teams solve all three. We’ve seen it firsthand:
Either you’re training your culture or it’s training you
Let’s make sure it’s the right one.
See Jim talking about this at a conference
