TZL 1409 (web)

BUSINESS NEWS FLUOR BREAKS GROUND ON OAK HILL PARKWAY INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT IN AUSTIN, TEXAS Fluor Corporation announced its joint venture with Balfour Beatty has broken ground on the Oak Hill Parkway. Fluor was awarded the infrastructure project in April 2020 by the Texas Department of Transportation to widen and improve U.S. 290 and State Highway 71 through Oak Hill, serving as a gateway to the Texas Hill Country. “This is a great example of our continued strategic focus on infrastructure projects in Texas,” said Terry Towle, group president of Fluor’s Urban Solutions business. “When completed, widening the corridor will improve mobility, operating efficiency and safety by easing gridlock in the area, enabling emergency vehicles to respond to accidents quickly.” Oak Hill Parkway Infrastructure Project: ❚ ❚ The seven-mile design-build project includes the reconstruction and widening of

U.S. 290 from approximately the east end of Circle Drive to Loop 1 and State Highway 71 to Silvermine Drive in Travis County, west of downtown Austin, Texas. ❚ ❚ It will serve as a key route to Austin for the residents of Oak Hill, Lakeway, Bee Cave, Dripping Springs and other growing communities west of Austin. ❚ ❚ The project will widen from two to three main lanes for through traffic in each direction as well as add two to three frontage road lanes in each direction. An overpass for the U.S. 290 main lanes over William Cannon Drive will be built, along with direct-connect flyovers between U.S. 290 and State Highway 71. ❚ ❚ Bicycle and pedestrian accommodations will be built along the entire corridor, including 14 miles of shared-use path, one-and-a-half miles of sidewalks, new landscaping, tree plantings and corridor aesthetics.

❚ ❚ Construction is scheduled to be completed in late 2025 with up to 600 craft workers and subcontractors working at peak. Fluor has been continuously designing and building infrastructure projects in Texas for nearly 20 years and is currently delivering the I-635 LBJ East Project and the Southern Gateway Project in Dallas. Fluor recently reopened the 183 South project corridor to tolling traffic in Austin. Fluor Corporation is building a better world by applying world-class expertise to solve its clients’ greatest challenges. Fluor’s 44,000 employees provide professional and technical solutions that deliver safe, well-executed, capital-efficient projects to clients around the world. Fluor had revenue of $14.2 billion in 2020 and is ranked 196 among the Fortune 500 companies. With headquarters in Irving, Texas, Fluor has been providing engineering, procurement and construction services for more than 100 years.

MARK ZWEIG, from page 11

rumblings of firms in this business that either have now, or are planning to issue mandates that everyone come back to the office just like we did before COVID. I think hard and fast rules like this will backfire on you. You will lose people that you otherwise may not lose if you don’t give everyone you can the flexibility to work from wherever they like – especially those who proved they could be productive working that way. I know many may disagree with me, so ignore me at your own peril! 6)Your personal interaction style is beyond critical. Do you frequently interrupt other people when they are talking? Do you make people feel inferior when they ask questions? Are you subtly sexist in any way that you treat members of the opposite sex? Are you always looking at your phone in meetings? Do you accept all phone calls no matter what you are doing? I have committed ALL of these crimes myself in the past, but have hopefully learned something over the last 63 years and am trying to do better. If you do any of these things, you had better change or you are going to lose some of the good people who work for and with you. 7)Being secretive works against you. There are some people in AEC firms who work at the principal level and who just love knowing things that they keep from the very people who will be affected by those things. Why do that? It weakens trust with everyone else. Don’t do it. Share everything you can about your business, and your plans, and what is happening with your clients honestly and openly with everyone you can. No one likes surprises, and secrets lead to surprises. None of these seven points may seem that profound in and of themselves. But doing all of them will improve your chances of keeping your best people – those who have proved themselves as valuable contributors over time, those who have a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge, and those who would be costly and difficult to replace. MARK ZWEIG is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.

marketing communications and social media? Or do you go way down into your ranks to look for accomplishments of other people that you can tout. Doing the latter has a lot more value than you think. 3)People want feedback, so give it to them! I am on the record plenty of places as someone who is no fan of the typical performance appraisal processes that are considered good management practice for firms in this business. That said, your people desperately want feedback on how they are doing. So give it to them! Use positive reinforcement every chance you can. And for your best people who can take it (real honesty, that is), also be willing to tell them what they may not want to hear but need to hear if they are doing something that is holding them back. Your ability to deliver negative feedback and not destroy the other person’s self esteem but rather have them think you truly care about them is critical to keeping really great people working there. That was done for me many times by my bosses and I am grateful for the feedback I no doubt needed to hear at the time I got it. “None of these seven points may seem that profound in and of themselves. But doing all of them will improve your chances of keeping your best people.” 4)Promises you make have got to be kept. I’m talking about promises to sell someone ownership – and promises to promote someone – and promises to meet or call someone that you may make. Not keeping any promise you make, whether intentional or unintentional, will really hurt you. It leads to people thinking you don’t care about them. This happens too often in our business. I have heard countless tales of good people who quit because promises made to them weren’t kept. 5)How flexible you are is crucial. I’m already hearing

THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 20, 2021, ISSUE 1409

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