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Martinus Project Director on Leading vs Managing in Construction
105 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Jason & Carlos are joined by Brian Downey, Project Director at Martinus.
The three discuss what sets leaders apart from managers in construction and what early-stage construction professionals should look for when choosing projects to work on.
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Transcript
Podcast Routine Changes by Olu
00:00:00
Speaker
So Carlos, am I starting? Is that what's going on? You should have this routine down pat now, no? Oh, we changed it after, after last year, Olu made up all new rules. And so we just learned the old one and now we've got a new one. He's made some, he's made like an intro. There's only one new thing you need to remember. I'm very simple. I like, I like just remembering.
Introduction to Offsite Podcast
00:00:27
Speaker
You're listening to the Offsite Podcast with Jason and Carlos, where we talk all things construction and technology. Join us for discussions with industry leaders and insights into latest trends in construction. Welcome back to the pod. So this week, I have invited a guest.
Guest Introduction: Brian Downie
00:00:46
Speaker
Carlos is our first Australian-based guest for the year, although maybe Australian is like a stretch. I am pumped to have this conversation, not only for that reason, but
00:00:56
Speaker
Because some of the folk that I really admire in construction say that this chap is one of the best leaders that they've worked with in their career. So Brian Downie has spent much of his career in major infrastructure working at some of the largest contractors here in Australia. Currently, he's a project director at Martinez. And I guess for those that might not know, Martinez is an Australian-owned rail infrastructure construction company, which
00:01:25
Speaker
actually is like a whole amazing success story of its own. So Brian, thank you very much for joining us, mate. How are you? I'm good, Jason. Thank you very much. I think you need a second opinion of me before you go. Trusting the opinions of others, but I'm delighted to be here. No, from interactions that we've had made, I think I concur. I guess the timing of this conversation is really great.
00:01:51
Speaker
You wouldn't have heard it yet. But last week, we spoke to John Chu, who was a PD at Balfour Beatty in the UK. And in that episode, we ended up talking for ages about his journey and about leadership.
Leadership in Construction
00:02:05
Speaker
Which ended up after we recorded, Sparky, a number of conversations off mic that probably were better than what we did record about like building leaders. And given the, like, how much I've built you up, it's really spot on time throughout about leadership and building leaders. No pressure. Um, truth getting away of good story, by the way. Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
But I guess before we go super deep and meta and dive into what is a leader and everything, another conversation point that we got into off mic last week was this idea around does a bad project, you learn more from a bad project than a good project, and a decent argument or discussion should.
00:02:47
Speaker
And then that kind of segued into war stories about tough projects and bad and tough moments that people had on projects.
Learning from Early Career Mistakes
00:02:55
Speaker
So I guess to put you on the spot, everyone's kind of got those sort of moments that when I say that probably come to mind about a project at some point in the past where you either learn a lot or you had a real hard time. Is there something that jumps out in your mind?
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think for the students, one, absolutely you learn more on the challenge and projects. I think that's what gets the best out of people and you learn from your mistakes and if on challenging projects, there are actually mistakes that you can sort of bank and take on to the next one. You think about, I spent a few years on a few light rail projects that are usually very
00:03:30
Speaker
prominent in the media, very challenging, lots of stakeholders, lots of interfaces, lots of, lots of reasons to get in the way of actually getting the, getting the job built. And unfortunately those type of jobs are the ones where sometimes all your best work gets buried. So you don't really get to appreciate the level of toil and effort that people put in. I think in terms of, um, mistakes and, and, you know, tough times, I still remember probably one of my biggest, my earliest mistake as an undergrad, I did, I did a week, sorry, a summer working in California.
00:04:00
Speaker
as a sort of a concrete laborer for Irish concrete company. And being an undergrad engineer, but also trying to earn a bit of money, you were on the tools, but also ordering concrete coordinates, site works, those sorts of things. It was the first time I ever had to cube up concrete and floor slab Friday afternoon. I was one of a few people on site, but it was my job to do the work, but also cube it up. Concrete pumps arrives.
00:04:28
Speaker
Sure enough, I was about half a cube short on a Friday afternoon, concrete pump operator shouting and roaring at me going, where's the rest of the concrete? Superintendent called for another job going, I can't believe you screwed this up in your first go. So I think lesson learned is making sure you measure twice before you order your concrete and give yourself a bit for waste. The first time you under order concrete is an important lesson.
00:04:54
Speaker
And then you do the classic over-correction of over-ordering on the next one. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say it's a forecast it, and then you give it a bit of waste. Yeah. The one that sticks in my memory, which is also, I wasn't an undergrad. I was a grad engineer. It was like the first project out of uni.
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, I was put in charge of probably way too much scope and just kind of throw it in the deep end. I'm looking back at that point. Yeah. We had to pour a concrete, like a foundation for a ferry terminal on an island off the coast of Australia. Try not to give away too much about the project. But I thought I'd organize this concrete pour to a tee. This was the first real one that I've done.
00:05:40
Speaker
I had to organize, you know, to get all the rebar and the formwork onto this island, set up in order to do the pour. I had to coordinate a ferry that would like transport the concrete trucks over to the island for the pour. So it was like maybe six or something trucks.
00:05:57
Speaker
and a pump on a barge. I had to organize the barge. I had to do a loading plan for the barge of who was going to park where I had to coordinate the tide time so that there was clearance of people driving on to the barge. So I had planned everything. I had spreadsheets, I had drawings, I had everything.
00:06:16
Speaker
We were loading it at about four o'clock. And we had to design a mix that can last like 90 to two hours travel. So we'd done all this. It was like 4 AM, 3 AM in the morning. I'm standing on the barge ramp. We're loading them all up, ready to go. Everything's turned up perfectly, tested there. I was like, yes, the afternoon before, I'd made 7,000 phone calls, triple confirming everything. And I get this phone call from the client's field engineer or project engineer.
00:06:44
Speaker
at like, yeah, 345, we're about to push off going, hey, I heard you're pouring concrete today. I said, yeah, yeah, it's all on schedule, all going well. We've got everything booked. And he goes, you don't have pre-poor inspection for that. And I said, what's that? I had no idea. So, uh, it's funny now, but at the time we had to get to dump like six trucks of concrete, send the barge away, offload the pump. So that was almost an extremely,
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, almost a very short career construction that was.
Team Dynamics and Challenging Projects
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's a character building, those type of mistakes. But yeah, it does happen. Yeah. I wanted to crawl in the corner. Brian, my background is a quantity spare. So like a bad project is quite a lot more interesting. Like a well-run project is a bit boring. Like you kind of want the fight and the issues. Is it the same for you as an engineer or project manager on a project?
00:07:42
Speaker
the ones that aren't going too well more interesting and fun albeit stressful or is it just not the same? I think the fun piece comes from the people you're working around right because you could be on the most challenging, difficult
00:07:58
Speaker
project, but if you're working with people who are all pulling the same direction, same sort of goal, there's a genuine sort of culture within the team. You can be having the best time of your life as a galvanized team producing work and producing a project. I don't think anybody sets out to have a challenging project, you know, you do
00:08:17
Speaker
risk management you do, you know, you plan, plan, plan and plan, but, you know, things do change as well. You manage it, but I think, yeah, you definitely learn from those type of projects, but it's about, yeah, getting the right people around it. So when challenges do arise, they're clearly understood. You've got to plan around them and, you know,
00:08:34
Speaker
can work your way through it yeah i'd imagine if you put it on like a grid and you had like projects and team you you're better off with like good team bad project then good project bad team it's gonna have a pretty cool time a hundred percent like a bad team will turn a good project pretty sale pretty quickly and a bad team you'll have
00:08:52
Speaker
uh, you know, turnover staff, not enjoyable. You know, you can get stress from the most simple things with a bad team, but you know, some of my, so some of the most challenging projects were, you know, really stressful, high profile, but it was a cracking team. And if it was starting again tomorrow, I'd be first in line, you know, so, um, you know, you'd like to think they're, they're not always going to be difficult, but, um, that's part of the nature of the gig, I suppose. So maybe to like, do a hard, say greater leadership, uh, in construction.
00:09:21
Speaker
There is a conversation, I can't recall who I've had it with, but this idea of nature versus nurture, is there a type of personality that thrives, that is set up to be a good leader on a construction project or is it horses for courses or is it something you learn?
Is Leadership Inherent or Developed?
00:09:38
Speaker
Depends, I suppose. I think there's a little bit of horses for courses. There's sometimes where
00:09:42
Speaker
you know, and there's certain people that come to mind pretty quickly that, you know, in challenging projects, you need a clear direction, you need a quick, right. And there's others that might, might want more of a collaborative approach and that that itself warrants a different sort of skill set. I think probably the biggest challenge it sees often
00:09:58
Speaker
You look at engineers or quantity surveyors or into commercial managers and project managers. Often you learn the technical skills, ordering concrete, right? Being probably one of the first ones. But you get the technical skills, you get the experience, but that transition from the technical doing into the leading teams.
00:10:19
Speaker
usually around let's say SP or senior QS that type of role into commercial manager, project manager, that's where you start to get that support to make sure that people are prepared to be able to manage a team. And because it's a very different skill set to delegate and lead people around as opposed to just jumping in and doing it yourself. I found on a couple of projects, we had a lot of sort of turnover of project directors.
00:10:45
Speaker
they all kind of had their own sort of theme. So like the beginning of the project you might have like a really strong one who's like great for the client. If you then go into a phase of
00:10:56
Speaker
like a commercial battle you have like a very strong authoritative project director but then like everyone's gets ground down through the fight and then they bring in like a good time project director. Have you sort of experienced that and do you think it's do you think that is done on purpose or do you think maybe that's just like an odd experience that I've sort of thought maybe was the norm?
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't quite heard of that type of turnover just for, you know, definitely not the good time project director having her that role. Yeah. I think it's a bit like, you know, leading people around it. You need to sort of be able to tailor your, tailor your approach for, for the challenge of the people you're dealing with. So.
00:11:34
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with having a particular style that you could adapt for difficult conversations around commercial issues compared to developing the team around you. So yeah, I suspect that's probably a one-off in terms of turnover of project directors for different phases. But that's a big part of it is to be able to just sort of adjust your style for the issue or the challenge in front of you and the people that you're dealing with. Because different people react different to different styles.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And that like the ability to adapt with certain like, yeah, we're starting individuals on like what motivates them or how they like to learn and things like that. It's a typical day for you, like this thing that comes relatively naturally that you've built up over years. Or do you think it's really like every sort of meeting or day you're thinking, right, how can I actually
00:12:24
Speaker
like nail this aspect because that's my issue and I'm going to do this sort of style to achieve that? Or is it a lot more sort of a style that you've built up over years and you know works and it's consistent? Well, I certainly won't be saying I'm the finished article that I put that out for the start. I think you'd love to have the headspace to be able to sit in every meeting and think about how you're going to approach it. Usually things are happening that thick and fast that you're just trying to be as
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, you're back to back nine hours of meetings. It's hard to. Exactly. I'm going to sit with Carlos now. Carlos likes this type of approach. That's probably unlikely. But I think there's, yeah, I think it's more something to build up over time and to get a particular approach to how we respond to different situations and different people, as opposed to, let's say, sitting down strategically and going, I'm going to approach Carlos compared to how you approach Jason, for example. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:13:17
Speaker
So Brian, if we think about someone going into construction, so maybe they're a junior engineer or maybe they're not even an engineer, there are so many people that would give differing advice of how to build the toolset to be a leader in construction. Some people say big jobs, some people say small jobs, some people say big contractors, some people say small contractor. Everyone says a different thing depending on who you ask.
00:13:43
Speaker
I guess starting with probably the most commonly discussed one is like, yeah, do you reckon if you were to start your career again or advise your younger self or someone that was thinking about their career now, would you say go to like a big contractor and big projects, a mid or a small?
Choosing Contractors for Experience
00:14:02
Speaker
Where do you think you learned the most?
00:14:05
Speaker
It has a difficult answer, I suppose. It really depends on what people are after. It depends on what the opportunities are. There's big contractors that offer, if you're to look at grads, great grad programs, there's some big contractors that have grad programs, but they don't do a lot for the grads. There's a program and it's not very
00:14:24
Speaker
Developmentally, you already get much out of it, but have they grab program tick? Is there a brand around it yet? But are they actually getting anything out of it? They advice that somebody would be do better homework, understand, do we know people that are there already?
00:14:39
Speaker
What's the intel on the organization? Is it actually somewhere that's going to give you good opportunities, give you an opportunity to grow, good experience? I think you made a reference earlier about too much responsibility too early. I can recall a number of times talking to young engineers and construction professionals around
00:15:01
Speaker
you want to go somewhere or you want to be in a situation where you're getting as much experience as quickly as possible. I had it drawn to me and I've drawn to other people of if you were to draw experience on a y-axis against time on the x-axis, you really want to be getting that as steep as possible. Obviously, it needs to be steep enough that it's safe and you're not dumping loads of concrete that, you know, because you got the the barrage timing wrong or you didn't do your pre-pour.
00:15:26
Speaker
And yeah, but you want to be, you want to be in a situation where you can make those mistakes and you're actually given responsibility and accountability. But at the same time, I suppose you're, you're being supported to make sure that, you know, if your head does fall below the water, you get, you get picked up again. Right. And as a culture around that type of environment. And when I was, I was a grad and we were on a grad program and very well-regarded my project manager at the time said,
00:15:56
Speaker
which was common enough. It's great you're on the grad program, you're not going on other rotations, you're staying as an engineer. So after two years, you know, two years of being an engineer as opposed to let's say two years of design management or QS and that sort of variety.
00:16:12
Speaker
That was my journey. I think there's lots of people who've benefited from the rotations as well. But I think it's ultimately the place that you're going, and are they giving you the opportunity, and are you going to be getting that steep experience as opposed to doing QA for a project engineer who doesn't want to do QA? That type of experience. So beware of the brand. Sometimes these things can be very well
00:16:35
Speaker
LinkedIn can do wonders, do a bit of homework, understand where you're going to try and find out people who are there. Are they happy? That type of thing. Yeah, as someone that lasted all of nine months on a grad program, I know exactly what you're talking about. We spoke to a project director from a Balfour BTO from the UK pretty recently and was literally one company through his career, which is quite unusual. You've been at four or five different tier one contractors.
00:17:04
Speaker
How much does that culture and environment change for each one? So like a lot of people here will say same shit, different label or same shit, different logo kind of thing. Do they really differ from your point of view in terms of the culture? Yeah, I think, um, yeah, they can differ. I think, you know, uh, I've worked for family owned tier ones who, you know, there, there was a real.
00:17:26
Speaker
the connection to the, to the ownership, there was a clear, let's say message, there was a clear direction. And that was pretty prominent all the way through. And there was, there was a culture of people being long term at the organization as well, worked at, you know, publicly listed and foreign owned as well, that they have their own culture, again, you know,
00:17:44
Speaker
long-termers that are there. I suppose you can get a company that might have a particular and come back to brand as well. There might be a business culture or brand that they're putting out there, but if you're on a project and you've got a disgruntled project manager or a disgruntled SDE, it doesn't matter what's happening at a head office. That person is going to make your life an absolute pain in the backside. That's a big impact on people and people get to
00:18:13
Speaker
proverbial and then they might look to go elsewhere. So yeah, different organizations have different approaches. I think where we are now, like you do see it where of the benefit being a smaller organization, we'd see ourselves being anti-tier one. You know, there's not that hierarchical approach. There's not forms upon forms be filled out. It's very much.
00:18:32
Speaker
you know a team of teams approach you know is good access to the right people and decisions made quickly and you're given that opportunity to to sort of involve yourself and not you know stay in your swim lane until somebody asks you a question if that makes sense so you can really get that that's i suppose contrast and and it's it's a particularly nice contrast i have to say
00:18:52
Speaker
And so what, like just picking up on the contrast that you're drawing for like a grad that's considering that tier one or someone where like you are Brian, what's the pitch that you like, what's the pitch for Martinez for grads to go there instead of like the tier ones?
00:19:09
Speaker
I think for me, I think it comes back to the people that you'll be working with. Is it in a job place to work? And at the same time, is it somewhere that's going to give you that experience over time? So will you be able to put your shoulder to the wheel, get your experience?
00:19:27
Speaker
have opportunities to grow but also do it in a place where I suppose you got you got the backing and support of people around you and if that's in a smaller and I'm not saying it's smaller business for everybody you're not saying tier ones for everybody it's about what are the characteristics of a good place to work and that may be you know the advice of somebody who's going to make that decision.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, definitely like in our job, you get to interact with lots of people on different projects from lots of different contractors around the world. And there definitely does seem to be a pretty consistently like energetic, positive and dynamic culture from the teams that like I've interacted with from Martinez.
00:20:04
Speaker
There must be something in the water. There is, and I think it's something, you know, you know, it makes me be aware of the brand. It's something that's quite tangible. You can see it when you get around the offices and the projects. I think it's a business that's
00:20:20
Speaker
relied heavily on referrals. There's not like a whole external recruitment section that, you know, it's very much, who do you know? Who's, who's, who's, who's the line culture? Who's going to be equal to fit? Let's get them in. And it's definitely set the business up for, uh, the growth that it's had. So, um, yeah, there's a lot to be said for getting the right people in and give them the opportunity. You mentioned, um, the way the company sort of structured is, it's not like a traditional tier one and you've got sort of less forms and less red tape and everything. Surely that's like the engineer's dream.
00:20:50
Speaker
which is less paperwork out on site and doing other things more. So does that help the recruitment? Yeah, obviously we have to mop up all the issues. That sounds great. So surely that's like quite a desirable thing for engineers. Does that make recruiting easier because you have that style or that approach?
00:21:09
Speaker
I think the recruitment is sort of directly linked to the people that we would be referring to. So if we know engineers or QS's or safety environment professionals that we think would be a good fit, it makes the recruitment a lot easier. Unfortunately, when it comes to paperwork and engineering, it's usually
00:21:28
Speaker
and stipulated more by the client and the specification. So we're not getting away from quality checklists and ITPs and that type of stuff, but it's more around, I suppose, business processes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A lot more. Which could still be a huge pain, right? So if we're easing it on that front, it's still an improvement on a lot of organizations.
00:21:50
Speaker
You talk about productivity and efficiencies. The less time your meandering through red tape, the better. So Brian, let's say we've got a scenario. You've got someone that wants to go get Tier 1 experience. They're out of Tier 1 now on a project that's finishing. There's a couple of jobs for them to go to that might be maybe they're on a road job. There's a couple more road jobs or something. But then there's this, I don't know, a suburban rail loop. But their contractor's got no scope on it yet.
00:22:19
Speaker
Is it about getting that like, do you think that there's the wisdom in getting the broad experience of types of projects? And if so, would you emphasize the right projects versus staying with the right contractor? I suppose first of all, if they're in a situation where they're getting those opportunities and they've been well looked after by the business and
Value of Diverse Experience in Construction
00:22:46
Speaker
It's a lot to be said for sticking around in the same organisation. You don't need to keep jumping around. If somebody's being looked after, getting good opportunities, getting those chances to step up and take on more responsibility, stick with it. I think in terms of the experience that people are getting, the
00:23:06
Speaker
there's a lot to be said, in my opinion, around those that get that diverse, different experience types. They're not just a drainage. And this is the challenge with some of these major projects. Jason, you're the drainage engineer. Carlos, you're the parliament engineer. They're all corbels for the next three years. Exactly right. And as good as corbels are, there's more to life. And I think where I've seen
00:23:32
Speaker
engineers and QS and others enjoy their roles when there's, they're almost responsible for an area and they're doing, there's a bit of utilities. They've got to manage stakeholders. There's a bit of pavement works. There's a bit of earthworks. There's a bit of, and they get better exposure and there's more accountability as well because you put somebody in a silo and you're the drainage person or you're the piling person and you get linkers for that particular scope. You could spend a couple of years on it and then all of a sudden maybe you're missing out on some opportunities.
00:24:00
Speaker
There are people that specialize in that and all credit to them, I suppose it's more if for the main contractor uses it, there's diverse scopes around and that type of structure where you're looking after a package and there's multiple aspects to it. I think that's a great opportunity for engineers in particular.
00:24:19
Speaker
As a project manager or a project director, if you're thinking about structuring that project in a way where it's packages or areas that give people multidisciplinary scopes, you are trading off a little bit the
00:24:36
Speaker
the learning curve of someone gets really good doing corbels and for the next three years they're just pumping corbels out. And having worked for a couple of project managers and directors that were just like maniacally focused on production rate of the corbels or whatever it was and watching and you know building charts of our ramp up and production rate. How do you think about that? Is it yeah what's the which one's more important and how do you trade that off?
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like any of those. It depends. You could have a job that warrants SMEs that just pump out a particular scope. Because by the time they learn all the lessons, they need to be high production. And you can't be having Jason in one area doing one thing and Carlos doing something else for the same type of scope. So there's a risk assessment, I suppose.
00:25:27
Speaker
You know, some jobs might be geographically spread out where there's in one particular area, there's lots of scope on top of each other. Right. So there's a, there's a safety interface, a quality interface that will actually, instead of having, you know, multiple people, you'll see it in your staging process. If you see multiple people working on the same spot, that's, that's alarm bells. Maybe you're better off having less people, but maybe more accountability for one person, if that makes sense. Is there sometimes a bit of a conflict in terms of like, uh, if we take the example of like the drainage person.
00:25:57
Speaker
for you as a leader. Someone listening to this will be the draining person as well, Carl. So be careful what you say. Nothing wrong with being the drain guy. I don't think you call him the drain guy. Just be clear. So you as a leader, if you have one person doing something repetitively, you're going to get better at it. You're going to get quicker at it. Like it's experience that's beneficial to the performance of the project. But for that individual, for their own development, having a section where they see everything and learn everything,
00:26:28
Speaker
like being on a small project has a lot of value. Do you have to balance like those sorts of things because there's clear sort of benefits each side? Yeah, look, I think, you know, so let's come back to drainage, right? There are some jobs that warrant that type of a SMA, like there could be, you know, over the water foundations, there's hundreds of them that need to be pumped out, so you want to make sure that they're secure properly, they're consistent, all the rest of it. There are other jobs that are more
00:26:54
Speaker
particularly when we do Brownfield projects that are more, it's more like small productions in certain areas that need to be staged a lot closer. I think to come back to your question around, you know, people who might be on pilot or
00:27:10
Speaker
drainage to come back to that one. It's about conversations with your boss. I've been doing this for 12, 18 months. There's an opportunity elsewhere. How can that be facilitated? It's also about awareness of what people are doing and what's important to them. So that's where things like
00:27:27
Speaker
discussions with your team, what they're doing, where they want to be. You might find somebody who's absolutely passionate about the scope that they're doing, or you might have somebody that wants to change and wants to do something a bit different. So I think it's just about setting the project up and then working with your team around what's needed at a particular time.
00:27:50
Speaker
Right. And if there's, um, in your role as like, uh, in, in your role now, do you ever wish that in your past you did another role, uh, in construction, whether it be planning QA, like, is there some, is, you know, is, is there benefit to someone doing another, to getting that broader skillset that really is important once you cross a certain, you know, threshold?
Understanding Roles for Construction Success
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah. Look, I think, um, I don't know.
00:28:18
Speaker
don't recall personally having that and sort of want to be a planner or a QS, but I think what is really important is to be able to understand, yeah, but I think what really is important is to be able to understand what a planner does, what they need, what the, I suppose the challenge that they might face, the importance of how we interact with them, same with the QS, right? What's the QS focused on? What's the commercial manager focused on? What's the, you know, the enviro, the safety, you need to be able to understand people's perspectives and what's,
00:28:47
Speaker
what the area of importance is to them. And if you don't appreciate what a planner is doing, and you're feeding them poor information, and you can't realize that what you give them as a director has a real importance elsewhere, then that's an issue. So I think that could be through the grad program where you get the opportunity to step around, or it could be just having the initiative and the interest to be able to engage the rest of your team and go, hey, Carol,
00:29:16
Speaker
are you doing or as you're doing a monthly update you start to start to pick up the different aspects of the job I suppose so it's you know whether you want to do the role or you want to work with that person just generally I think um course for courses yeah it works at flipside as well like probably like if we use the planner example it's not just about like giving them the right info and stuff probably there's a bit of um
00:29:36
Speaker
learning how to get the most out of them because these people are there usually to help you and whether it's a planner or a commercial manager or someone, you get a massive amount of leverage if you know how to use them in the engineer or PM role. Yeah, 100%.
00:29:57
Speaker
you know, that type of sort of two way engagement with a planner or a QS or, you know, if that's what builds relationships, that's where you get, you know, you take a step back or actually, you know, whether it's the benefit of their experience and their perspective of a, of an issue or a, or a challenge or, you know, it's, it's incredibly important.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I get, I'm looking at the clock as well and getting the wind up from Olu. So I think if I was to give you like the challenging final question, you know, we've probably had a few indirect chops at the old grad programs that look good, but they're kind of, they don't live up to expectations. If you were a senior executive, like a large contractor,
00:30:41
Speaker
How would you think about structuring programs, whether it's a grad program or otherwise, does it have to be specifically grads, to build future leaders, stop the issues around people that do four or five years, six years, seven years in construction, then try to veer out because it doesn't fit?
Structuring Graduate Programs
00:31:00
Speaker
It's a hard question, but... It's a long question.
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's difficult. I think you probably want to be able to understand what are you trying to achieve, right? I would be the first, you know, you want to be sure you're engaged with the people you're trying to address, right? There's nothing worse than, you know,
00:31:19
Speaker
It's like any sort of a plan, work it open yourself in a head office and then roll out and be not engaging with it. So it's, what are you trying to achieve? Does it actually suit what, what grads or engineers or QS's or construction professionals actually want out of it? Where are people leaving in the first place? You know, that's probably the, you need to be able to understand that particular challenge so you can structure any program around that. I think what, what good looks like is usually.
00:31:46
Speaker
giving people that opportunity, but also having that sort of connection with the organization that there's, you know, whether it's project management, senior management, they're engaged in the process, they continue to be engaged in the process, they connect with the people that are involved in it. So if you're a grad into a
00:32:05
Speaker
QS or an engineer to senior to whatever, there's consistency the whole way through the organization and there's that sort of buy-in. I suppose there's nothing worse than something being rolled out and then people turn around and walking away from it. So it's got to be for the right approach, for the right reasons and to be followed through.
00:32:25
Speaker
You see people like things like especially those family run ones contractors where like rewarding tenure, holding up people that have been with the business for a long time as great role models and stuff in the business. Those things surely have a really important place in it as well.
00:32:43
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like, you know, we see at Martinez, there's people there that have been 10 years close to the 17 years and they're the fabric of the organization. And then that stands out. We see that.
00:32:57
Speaker
other family owned tier one contractors were where I've been in the past. And, you know, there is that sort of there's a history to the organizations is that, you know, tangible culture where, you know, that these people have been on the whole journey. They've ridden the waves. They've gone through the highs and the lows. And that's, you know, it's in support for people around. I have to be able to see it.
00:33:15
Speaker
I was at one company where they gave you one day's extra annual leave per five years of service, but we're talking about it like it was the most generous thing you've ever heard. Contractors are getting good though, even here, like a couple of big like Langs, Skanska and a few others, they even do like six months full pay paternity for
00:33:34
Speaker
schemes like that. So they're definitely shifting in a way of like, let's hold on to our staff, because there's so much turnover.
Flexibility in Post-COVID Construction
00:33:42
Speaker
And look, you look at flexibility post COVID, right? And there's there's organizations that are shutting that down. And you know, there's organizations that are embracing it. And
00:33:50
Speaker
you know, as a dad with two young kids, flexibility is important, you know, to be fortunate enough to have that sort of flexibility. It is important, it's important for people to be able to stick around in places of people to stay in the industry. It's what, you know, particularly younger professionals and younger families need, you know, software development. They go into all sorts of, you know, different industries. And yeah, it's a tough market. So you need to be doing what you can to keep people.
00:34:16
Speaker
Awesome. Brian, thank you very much for taking the time for staying up for talking to us. Um, yeah, it was a really, really genuinely good conversation. Thank you. Thanks, man.