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Twenty-five-year RPD veteran Jack Poindexter says working with the company’s merchants is “a privilege.”
As the leader of the Redwood City, Calif.-based company’s Northwest Region Self-Enforcement Task Force, Poindexter recently helped pilot an effort to create more respect and dignity for those in the workplace through a simple measure: cleaner and more comfortable bathrooms.
Whether trailers or installations attached to an existing service line, Poindexter says the new stations have made a big difference for DPR employees on the job every day.
DPR shares may also represent a trend. Starting this month in British Columbia, a new law requires workplaces with more than 25 workers to use flush toilets instead of urinalsaccording to the Vancouver Sun.
Here, Poindexter talks to Construction Dive about the impact of new bathrooms, the value to specific groups and the cost-benefit analysis of eliminating potty holders.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Construction Immersion: What has been the impact of installing new, cleaner toilets at some DPR workplaces?
JACK POINDEXTER: Of course, people appreciate it. If I asked you to go to an office every day and your toilets were in the parking lot and were porta-johns, you probably wouldn’t come to the office as much and it wouldn’t look cool. It wouldn’t look like a facility.
So we decided to take the plunge. About a year ago we said, “Hey in the Northwest, this is what we want to have as a standard for all of our projects.”
Jack Poindexter
Permission granted by DPR Construction.
There are many options that didn’t exist before, whether it’s bathrooms that can be placed in a high-rise building and tied to its utilities, or large trailers that you can sit on the ground in a larger place or even some . modular solutions that have a complete bathroom with hand washing facilities. There are people who have religious needs to wash their hands during the day, and we have to respect that: maybe a pump bottle full of foam is not the right thing.
The intention is not only the toilet, however. Everyone needs a place to go and take a break out of the sun. We should have some sort of ventilation to make sure it stays reasonably cool or reasonably warm in the winter.
The jobs where we have already done this, the craft are happier. I try to make sure I’m engaging with the workers on site and just say, “How are you?” And it’s overwhelming when people say “This is great. I really prefer this. This is a workplace I’d rather go to than other workplaces.”
Some people have reported leaving the workplace to use a public restroom elsewhere. Was saving that time a factor in the decision?
I don’t know if it saves time. It’s just a human aspect. Like, can you imagine having to go across the road to use a restroom? Because it doesn’t seem like the right place for you? Do you feel unsafe or unappreciated, or are the facilities in terrible condition?
I did residential construction nearby and spent my college summers as an electrician at a residential. It’s horrible. Why do we ask human beings to do this? It’s a bit degrading.
I think there really is a perception problem with people and craft. Sometimes they are perceived as “less than”. Even simple things like coffee. If you go to a work site trailer, there is a coffee machine or two. Why wouldn’t we have coffee and water readily available for everyone in the workplace? Not just the people sitting in the office, the administrative people.
The industry somehow created this differentiation between salaried administrative employees and hourly employees. And that just doesn’t feel right to me.
We’re trying to level the playing field so that people feel valued, feel appreciated, feel like they’re working in an environment that’s really built for them. And we’ve seen it happen a lot of times where when people raise issues, they raise quality issues before they become a big problem.
So there is also a business case for this, where more and more people are dedicated to the success of the project rather than just doing a job.
This seems to have been an added value in many ways. What was the impact on budget or planning?
I think it really depends. Every job is unique. We did a study on a job in South San Francisco where we had the ability to set up bathroom trailers and hook them up to permanent utilities. We have verified that over time we have paid it off. It was actually a cost neutral move to deliver a much better standard to the site.
Not all workplaces are like this, however. So at some point you might be making an investment in a project. But we firmly believe that the investment pays off on the other side.
People are more productive when they are happy in their environment. You’ve probably had jobs over the years where you say, “I’m not really excited to go to work today.” Think about your productivity when you feel this way. And think about your productivity when you are satisfied.
There are many more bathroom options than there used to be. When you put a porta-john on site, someone has to come pump it, clean it, carry it back and forth. I think people’s minds jump to the idea that newer options have to be more expensive, but there are times when dollar to dollar it’s the same, but there’s all the value in the bottom line I honestly believe which pays quite well.
Portable toilets have a reputation for vulgar graffiti as well as being an unpleasant environment. Was this a factor in the decision to upgrade? Is it easier to control on newer installations?
It’s a little easier to monitor and control, perhaps. I think we thought of it as if you raise the level of where people live, they also tend to take better care of it. And that’s what we’ve seen time and time again.
If you give people a better place to work, they also take better care of it. Environment contributes to attitude.
Now, at the same time, we were also making sure that we had some workplace harassment and violence prevention programs and hotlines and those kinds of things where we say, “Whether it’s graffiti in the toilets as if they are verbal, it is not acceptable in our workplaces.
I think construction has historically not had a great reputation for this, but we want all of our people and our business partners who work with us to have the same experience that you would have in our offices. So getting these anti-harassment posters out, having a hotline that you can reach helps, but at the same time providing a higher standard of living in a workplace, people really see it as if there’s a different expectation
