HITT hands out COVID-19 bonuses of up to $10,000

Dive Brief:

• A Virginia contractor is diving into its revenue to display its employees appreciation for their commitment through the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• HITT Contracting, primarily based in Falls Church, Virginia, is distributing $4 million to workers on a sliding scale, setting up with bonuses of $1,000 and reaching as large as $10,000, according to HITT Co-President Jeremy Bardin. About 60% of the firm’s 1,300 employees received the bonuses, Bardin informed Construction Dive.
• Although the bulk of the cash went to the frontline staff on jobsites, the business also recognized its human assets department, IT industry experts and other departments in the enterprise for their operate during the pandemic, according to a push release.

Dive Insight:

Bardin mentioned that he hesitated to get in touch with the funds “hazard spend,” and rather referred to the bonuses as “appreciation pay.” When COVID-19 gripped the U.S. last 12 months, construction workers at corporations throughout the place became role products in how to mitigate the effects of the world pandemic. Despite the threats to them selves and their families, contractors observed strategies to continue to keep doing the job even as other corporations shut down. 

Even in difficult-strike spots, most building perform was considered “vital,” necessary to the perform of society. Bardin mentioned the firm’s reward plan seeks to thank workers for their bravery and perseverance.

“When you deal in the development marketplace, our superintendents and our website marshals and our protection workforce members, they wished to be out there, they needed to be implementing these new policies [and] procedures that we have on our initiatives, and they would not stay dwelling. And so it’s extra of an appreciation for their really hard perform,” Bardin claimed.

Bardin explained the web page marshal is a new situation, created for the duration of the pandemic, that serves as an impartial watchdog to make certain that all the company’s protection and overall health protocols are staying followed. 

“We also needed it sort of as a independent chain of custody or chain of command for us so there would be no outside the house affect or other influences, like ‘Oh, wait around a minute, we have to get the career performed and we obtained to perform late so I can’t necessarily cleanse the Porta Johns or question the 5 inquiries at the gate.’ We needed to have a pretty targeted, laser-centered energy, and so we arrived up with the expression ‘site marshal,'” Bardin stated.

HITT Contracting had a revenue of $2.5 billion in 2020, high plenty of to make No. 32 on Engineering Information Record’s record of the leading 400 contractors of the yr.

The appreciation fork out is a concrete way the corporation can unfold the wealth close to to its staff members. HITT CEO Kim Roy credited frontline employees with holding the business chugging along as the pandemic tightened its grip on the financial state.

“These team customers designed us more robust, exemplified perseverance and grit, and retained American construction working. The achievements of our company in the most challenging occasions is thanks to our frontline personnel,” Roy stated