Smart Growth: How Hensel Phelps Is Choosing Where to Play or Not

In this episode of FMI’s Built-In podcast, Scott Winsted talked with Brian Skipper, corporate director of project development at Hensel Phelps, about how the $9 billion contractor navigates rapid technology change, disciplined growth and creating a national client experience without losing its entrepreneurial core.

Here are seven takeaways from the conversation.

• Adopt technology with discipline. It’s important to take a measured approach and make sure that technology creates efficiencies and helps people, especially those in the field, do their jobs. That means implementing technology by having communications and systems in place to strategically roll it out. “We’re trying to make sure we’re doing it smartly, but we’re also making sure we’re communicating wisely to everyone, that it’s not going to slow down,” Skipper said.
   
• Collaborate to improve the industry. When it comes to vetting and implementing technology, sometimes your competitors can be your best collaborators. Hensel Phelps and several similar-sized general contractors have a cohort to vet new technologies, pilot them and then roll them out to the industry. “We're competitive mates because there's an industry thing going on right now to properly roll out this technology,” Skipper said. “And if all of us are supporting certain ones or understanding where the misalignment is happening and lessons learned is happening along the way, it makes us all a little bit more efficient.”
   
• Use practical filters for innovation bets. When the request queue is long, Hensel Phelps prioritizes by: (a) how many people the change will positively impact, (b) speed to deploy and (c) build vs. buy logic. If a nine month internal build risks irrelevance, they’ll look for an external vendor or another option to improve efficiency.
   
• Translate enterprise strategy to the job site. As headcount tops 5,000 and revenue nears $10 billion Hensel Phelps is focused on retaining core aspects of the culture, while also ensuring that they have the right corporate resources to ensure consistency.
   
• Have the discipline to say no, even to good work. Hensel Phelps differentiates itself in the market by having checks and balances and good business processes to determine what work to take, Skipper said. “Ultimately we’re trying to win good work, but we’re trying to perform good work as well because to do something one time is not a good recipe for our business,” Skipper says.
   
• Diversify by sector and by client. Hensel Phelps operates across 13 sectors and aims to keep any single one to 25–30% of the portfolio. Diversification also means not concentrating too heavily with one customer within a surging sector (e.g., data centers). And in today’s market, labor is the critical constraint: many owners want the same trades in the same geographies at the same time; smart partners help trade partners avoid overextension.
   
• Pick new markets with adjacent strengths and real demand. Growth sectors include energy/power, water/wastewater and onshoring/reshoring of advanced manufacturing. When entering a new space, the team looks for parallels to proven capabilities (e.g., logistics and systems rigor from its aviation track record) and invests at the pace people and process can support.
  
  To ensure consistency across 10 business units, Hensel Phelps is rolling out a national client-experience program built on structured listening and shared documentation—so a customer sees the same “culture of care” whether they build in Virginia or California. Every project is one of one, but expectations should travel with the brand.

Listen to the full conversation

If you lead strategy, growth or major programs and you’re balancing innovation, risk and capacity then this episode is a playbook for you. Listen to the full episode of FMI Built-In with Brian Skipper for industry insights and practical advice to help your company grow strategically.