Canadian Firm Out to Disrupt the Construction Industry

Chandos Builds New Standards by Focusing on Employees and Clients Before Profit

B The Change
B The Change

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By Katy Ibsen

Chandos “builds better together” and keeps that motto ever present in its work across Canada.

The Edmonton, Alberta-headquartered company specializes in construction services for commercial, residential, recreational, health and other sectors. While it may appear to be a traditional firm serving clients across North America, it’s a far more innovative company that puts its employees and clients above all else.

“Yes, profitability is important, but it’s not all about money,” says Tom Redl, CEO. “People want to be proud of where they work, so they want their company to be a good corporate citizen. They want to have good work-life balance. They want to develop as leaders and they want to do a great job for the customers. That’s part of being proud about their organization.”

Ownership Matters

Since its founding in 1980, Chandos’ founders have owned the company. Nine years ago, it expanded the ownership option to every employee in the company. Today it is 100 percent owned by employees and its board. In 2017 the Certified B Corporation recorded $324 million in revenue, from which profit was redistributed among its 173 employee-owners (out of a total of 389 employees).

“It’s a good strategy and it is good business practice. From an employee point of view, they get to share in the profits that they helped to generate; so it creates a positive work environment. It strengthens culture and what we stand for,” says Katie Frost, marketing manager.

Chandos is Best For The World: Workers, which is evaluated based on how a company treats its workers through compensation, benefits, training and ownership opportunities provided to workers, and more. Find all Best For The World honorees and stories.

Chandos offers units (company stock) to any employee who has served the company for at least one year. Built more like a cooperative, if an employee-owner or board member is not involved in the business directly, they are not eligible to own a unit. Employees purchase their unit, and for those who do not have the means to do so, Chandos will assist in financing the purchase of a unit. The company is a closed system; any departing employee-owner is required to sell back their unit. Units are on a single-class voting system, no one unit carries more weight than another in terms of governance.

“My CEO, his one unit is the same value as my unit. The volume of units depends on your position and how long you’ve been with the company,” adds Frost.

According to Redl, an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP model, was important to the founders. They wanted to build a company that’s mission and values would last forever.

“It’s really important that the employee-ownership model supports that because we can build for the long term, we can play the long game, we can make long-term investments,” says Redl. “That’s really what has built our company to what it is today.”

An Innovative Model

Chandos’ business strategy and value for its employees has not only landed the company on the 2018 Best For the World: Workers list and Alberta’s Top 70 Employers 2018 list, it has led them to implement the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) method.

Traditionally, the construction industry is often fraught with conflict among contractors, vendors and clients. Chandos wanted to find a better way to manage that tension in the field, not only for the benefit of their employees but also to best serve their clients.

Room shot from Chandos’ annual Leadership Conference where all of Chandos’ employees (minus hourly field people) gathered in a room for updates, training and networking.

“We invested heavily in looking at ways that other countries do construction and we found out that there was a model called Integrated Project Delivery, and this is one of our differentiators,” says Frost.

Under IPD, a project begins by integrating all parties; in construction that includes the general contractor, the client, the architects, the consultants, and so forth. Within this team, all participants collaborate to optimize results, increase value, reduce waste and maximize efficiency. Together they develop the schedule and budget with input among all parties; with an open dialogue and transparency the client is able to make any adjustments at the forefront.

Chandos executed its first government-funded IPD on its Red Deer, Alberta, school project. The outcomes resulted in delivering the project ahead of schedule, under budget, to client’s specifications (who was also able to add things back in as a result of costs-savings from the budget), and only required one change versus the hundreds commonly seen on traditional projects. The company even filmed a documentary series about the project and IPD to share its successes.

“We just ran with IPD because it’s just a better way to do things. It delivers respect and it delivers a better project at the end of the day,” says Frost.

Chandos’ positive experience with IPD has lead the company to be one of the founding members of the Integrated Project Delivery Alliance (IPDA), a nonprofit that has set out to educate other businesses and corporations in the construction industry on the efficiencies of IPD.

“We want to make sure that the whole industry benefits from our knowledge and what we’ve been able to do so far,” says Frost.

Between its ESOP practices and a shift toward IPD, Chandos distinguishes itself from that of a traditional construction company. At the core of its values, Chandos promotes a community where they build better together. Frost defines it as, “We build structures, but we also build our company, we build our communities, and we build the people — our employees.”

Find all Best For The World honorees and stories on B the Change.

B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.

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