Shawmut’s Connecticut office was recently named the Best Place to Work in the state by Hartford Business Journal. Following on the heels of being named one of the nation’s 100 Best Workplaces by Fortune Magazine for the third consecutive year, this marks the 56th time Shawmut has been honored regionally.
The annual awards program identifies, recognizes, and honors the best employers in Connecticut who contribute to the state's economy and workforce.
Excerpt from Hartford Business Journal
Talking with Ken Procino, who oversees Connecticut operations for Shawmut Design and Construction, it's clear the construction-management company's core values are more than words on paper — they're a way of life.
Shawmut's seven core values — including delivering "world-class client service above all else," and growing and developing its people to be the best — define the organization, the company's website says, noting its people "are the reason for our success."
Those people and Shawmut's culture impress Procino.
"Everybody works together, everybody's a family, everybody helps each other out," Procino said. "It kind of ties back to the culture of Shawmut, where we're all in this together, we all work hard together, we all work for the common goal and we all support each other."
Being an employee-owned company helps fuel that common interest, said Procino, who joined Shawmut seven years ago and heads the 35-person Connecticut office as regional director in North Haven, one of nine U.S. offices for Shawmut. Private education projects, including buildings at universities like Yale, Fairfield and Hartford, are a key segment for the Connecticut office. It has a 50,000-square-foot, 1,000-seat auditorium nearing completion at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford.
Shawmut's Employee Stock Ownership Program provides each employee annual contributions averaging 12 percent of their salary toward retirement, above and beyond 401(k) contributions.
"We all have the same vested interest … of working hard together, doing a good job together, completing our projects so our clients are happy, so they come back to us," Procino said.
Another company attribute is encouraging employee growth, he said.
"They really help their people grow and grow quickly and give them the opportunities to be able to show our talents and to support us," he said.
Shawmut also contributed to a program to help develop new construction-management talent out of local high schools through what's called Construction Management Enhanced Training, or COMET. Shawmut was among construction managers asked to help design and teach the free, six-month program provided by the Meriden nonprofit, Construction Workforce Initiative 2 Inc.
Two COMET graduates from the inaugural class of 2018 are working locally at Shawmut.
"It was definitely a life-changing event, not only for the students, but also for the folks at Shawmut that helped this program," Procino said.