At Skanska, people are our most valuable assets. And in Southern California, we know that valuing the experiences of our diverse team is key to not only the success of our projects but to building a better society.
Within the company, Skanska understands the value diverse backgrounds bring to our projects and how an inclusive culture allows those perspectives to be shared and heard. That is why we recruit individuals from a variety of backgrounds who can contribute value to our work. We look for talent within our communities by expanding our recruiting efforts to community colleges, technical schools, and construction management university programs – in addition to partnering with university chapters of the Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Associated General Contractors, and more.
To promote and support an inclusive work environment, Skanska created the Diversity & Inclusion Steering Council to guide D&I efforts through learning from the Lived Experience Project. Skanska also created the Women’s Network, the first Employee Resource Group (ERG), to advance allyship for women in the construction industry. It has advocated for enhanced benefits like paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and caregiving support for all employees.
Skanska is a global construction company with over $7 billion in US revenue for 2023 and 6,500 employees nationwide. That has given us an opportunity to have a major impact on the communities where we build our projects.
In Los Angeles, we have recently completed the Sixth Street Bridge and LA Metro’s Regional Connector. Both projects have been recognized for their technical challenges and new, innovative construction methods, but what also stands out is how they both connect parts of LA that have never been connected before. This has allowed the movement of arts, food, and culture from Boyle Heights to the Arts District downtown and connects the expansive Metro system from Azuza to Long Beach and everywhere in between.
Beyond the projects themselves, Skanska employees, labor partners, and diverse suppliers are from the community.
On the Regional Connector project alone, there were 136 disadvantaged and local businesses on the project and $261.2 million in contracts awarded. The project created over 15,400 jobs and created $2.4 billion in economic activity. It also had over 5.2 million Project Labor Agreements and union work hours. The Sixth St. Bridge project in downtown Los Angeles had an unprecedented number of women working on a civil project.
And as the need for people to connect and have access to jobs, greater education opportunities and basic needs, Skanska is continuing to build these large civil infrastructure projects across LA County and the greater Southern California region. We are working to revamp LAX, expand the Metro including the Purple Line, increase access to the Port of Los Angeles, and alleviate congestion for commuters.
These projects take a large network of partners outside of Skanska employees. In LA, we have a long history of collaborating with diverse underrepresented companies and our commitment to supplier diversity helps further local economic growth, workforce development- ment and competition within the construction industry.
In Los Angeles, Skanska runs a Small Business Bootcamp designed to equip diverse firms with tools and resources to become successful contractors on local projects. These programs provide opportunities for participants to network, gain experience, and at times, bid for subcontracting jobs with Skanska.
But to engage more people, you have to have fun! Over the past few years, Skanska’s Los Angeles DBE compliance team has created outreach events that reach a broader, more diverse group of small, local contractors. Like our recent Pitching with the Stars, an outreach event that paired small, local, and minority contractors with “stars” – Skanska project leaders – as they learned about the project and best practices to win work on large construction projects.
Events like these showcase the importance of education, opportunity, and mentorship especially when it comes to the development of small, diverse businesses.
While we are just in the beginning of our D&I journey, our Los Angeles team is intentional about what we do and how we do it because we are passionate about our shared commitment to people, culture, and community.
Teresa M. Maxwell is the DBE compliance officer & outreach manager for Skanska USA Civil. For more information, visit Skanska.com.
