Something amazing is happening at McKissack & McKissack. We have been re-inspired by where we work,how we work and most importantly, how we care. The McKissack team is living our purpose to enrich peoples’ lives by continuing to design a corporate culture powered by a circular economy of care. In short, we are becoming healthier, building resilience into our culture and caring for ourselves, each other, our clients and our company.
A Circular Economy of Care Is Designed to Regenerate
This system of care builds on our people investments. We hire smart problem-solvers who connect us in powerful ways to our co-workers,customers, the AEC industry and our community. As Martin Luther King said,“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?” Ultimately, we are accountable for how much and how deeply we care about humankind. The global magnitude of human suffering in this singular pandemic calls us to renew our commitments to one another.
Care starts with us truly embracing diversity—not just race,gender or sexual orientation but also cultures, perspectives and skills. Before I started this company, I worked at a place where I never had a seat at the table. I was supposed to just keep my head down and not ask questions. That was the industry standard at that time for women, especially minority women. Here we want everyone to have a seat at the table.
Inclusion Enables a Healthy, Holistic Corporate Culture
This standpoint—inclusion—has enabled us to attract and recruit remarkable people and accomplish remarkable things. Our innovation and creativity won us landmark architecture, engineering and construction management projects like the George H.W. Bush Library Center, the Obama Presidential Center, the Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson Memorials, the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture,the MGM National Harbor, Nationals Park (home to Washington Nationals baseball team) and Navy Pier Centennial Vision redevelopment projects in Chicago—and many more scattered across our nation.
With our inclusive corporate culture, we invite the “work”self to the table—and also the complete self. We are committed to building employees’ emotional, physical, financial and professional well-being—even remotely. During COVID-19, working from our homes forced us to communicate more, not less, to achieve the same ends.
Disruptive Moments Power Positive Change
Thanks to the experience of sheltering in place, we’ve created a powerful corporate culture that puts our purpose and values first.It’s designed to enable our employees to focus on strengthening their well-being, ensuring they come out stronger post-COVID-19. We are striving to create healthier employees, a healthier organization, healthier clients and healthier communities—no excuses and no setbacks.
Through this entire period, we’ve embraced the circular economy of care wholeheartedly and holistically—and it’s been nothing short of inspirational. It has proven its restorative power as we refocus our efforts and renew our commitment to be humble, hungry and smart.
It is precisely during disruptive moments like COVID-19 when we need to invite everyone to the table, encourage them to raise their voice and renew our values. Times of disruption, when fueled by care and purpose, power originality that can yield ingenious innovation in architecture, engineering and construction management.
