People often think of quality as a project checkpoint, requiring inspections, compliance, jobsite walks, and sign-offs. But at JE Dunn, quality is something bigger — a core tenet of how we build — and its impact on our ESOP is more far-reaching than many employees may realize.
“Simply, we exist to prevent quality issues,” said National Quality Director Jason Wright. “When we’re able to prevent a quality issue on a job, not only does it potentially reduce fee erosion, but also it prevents what is incalculable: the fact that our owner may not use us again if we have a significant quality issue.”
The most direct connection between quality and the ESOP is fee erosion. When something goes wrong on a job, JE Dunn often absorbs the cost and that money comes straight out of profit sharing and bonus pools.
“If we have a high-rise tower and a fire sprinkler line breaks, we may have to pay money out of JE Dunn’s pocket to help with those repairs,” Wright said. “A portion of that money would have gone into the bonus pool. That water pipe break would take money out of our pockets.”
Quality issues can also affect project insurance. The fewer claims we submit, the lower the premiums we may have to pay. Additionally, having fewer quality issues can require JE Dunn to set less money aside to cover risk over time. By preventing defects and catching issues early, teams can limit the severity of potential insurance claims — or avoid them altogether. Over time, this reduces the amount of capital tied up in reserves and allows more of the project’s value to flow through to the bottom line.
Every JE Dunn project follows the Quality team’s Focus 4: constructability and third-party reviews, pre-install meetings, mock-ups, and first-work-in-place observations. By making sure quality is protected before shovels hit the dirt, the team can make its biggest impact.
“If we do mock-ups early, we end up fixing issues with the building envelope almost 100% of the time, preventing leaks, extra costs, and schedule delays,” Wright said. “Spending a small amount of money up front on the mock-up saves hundreds of thousands of dollars, allows the project to stay on schedule, and keeps our clients happy.”
Beyond protecting fees, the Quality team can generate revenue as well. Building envelope commissioning, verification of the building exterior’s requirements, is a service the team can now provide in-house, growing self-perform, rather than outsourcing to third-party consultants.
Some of quality’s most valuable returns don’t show up in the fee structure at all.
Every building JE Dunn delivers without a defect or rework is an investment in the company’s reputation. That reputation drives repeat business, which, Wright said, is where the ESOP really grows.
“If an owner decides to use us again, they might just negotiate with us rather than making us hard-bid a job or they recommend us to one of their peers who’s also building,” Wright said. “It’s incalculable, but prioritizing quality is very important to our brand.”
Wright learned that lesson firsthand on the Saint Luke’s Hospice House project, a high-quality, detail-intensive build earlier in his career as a Senior Project Manager. When it came time to put the skin on the building, the superintendent refused to move forward until the mock-up was fully tested and approved. Wright pushed back. The superintendent held firm, delaying the work by two weeks.
“I was pretty upset,” Wright said. “But then the skin started and it went smooth all the way around — no problems, never a water leak. It made up the schedule.”
Years later, the trust built on that project meant something he never anticipated. When Wright’s grandfather was nearing the end of his life and his family needed a comfortable and supportive end-of-life facility, Wright called the CEO of Saint Luke’s Hospice.
“They came right down and got my grandfather and said, ‘What room do you want him in?'” Wright said. “The whole family came down. We got to show them this building that we had just built and give my grandpa a red-carpet experience while he passed on to the next world.”
That’s what quality looks like when it compounds over time — not just a building delivered without defects, but a relationship strong enough to matter when it counts most.
