Erica Berg – Welty Building Company Diversity
Coordinator
As an HR professional, Erica Berg has been involved with inclusion and diversity throughout her career. Now, as Diversity Coordinator for the Welty Building Company, she works to ensure that minorities, women, veterans and small, local businesses are included on the source lists for solicitations for products and services they are capable of providing to the many construction projects Welty manages throughout Central and Northeast Ohio.
Prior to joining Welty, Berg worked for Testa Companies and became versed in the unique needs and opportunities of construction HR. With Welty, she is responsible for promoting company-wide policy initiatives that demonstrate Welty’s commitment to awarding subcontracts to qualified local, small, minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses.
Specifically, she focuses on reaching diversity goals of 8.5% minority hires set by Welty client, FirstEnergy, on its construction projects. However, Welty goes above and beyond, promoting diversity by pushing for higher and higher inclusion rates. When asked to what she attributes her and Welty’s success in this area, Berg replied, “Communication and teamwork.”
A key factor in Welty’s success has been hosting outreach events that allow interested parties to meet subcontractors and learn more about projects in which they and their company may get involved. “It’s about finding and creating opportunities for people,” says Berg. “The minority businesses I work with aren’t looking for handouts, nor do they want to take on projects that don’t match up with their abilities. They are interested in providing quality work and contributing real value to projects.”
With the help of OhioMBE, a Welty outreach event for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village project attracted 150 people. Though a smaller project, the outreach event for the reconstruction of the Cleveland Athletic Club facility brought in 50 interested attendees. Not only do these events allow Welty to meet and recruit qualified and diverse hires, but they also help create relationships with internal teams.
Says Welty President and CEO Don Taylor: “We’ve always been committed to diversity, but Erica has turned our commitment into real results by enhancing our relationships with minority businesses, helping us package bids that are better suited to their strengths and assisting them in understanding how to work with us to achieve our goals and theirs.”
Erica received her Master of Arts (MA) in Human Resources Management and Services from Walden University in 2015. She also has a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Mass Communication and Public Relations/Image Management from the University of Akron (2010).
Published in OhioMBE – March 15, 2018 – pdf
