As a civil engineering consultancy, we need many things to be able to successfully deliver our projects; but the key element is our people. From the very beginning we realised that investing in the people and developing the team by growing our own was going to be the key to our success and was going to make us stand out.
We had all worked in large consultancies and seen how people could be treated as numbers, or “a resource”. We were determined that we were going to be different, and with time we’ve realised that, as a small business, we need people who can grow with us and be involved with all aspects of the business.
We wanted to grow the team in an organic way, we had no choice, we couldn’t afford to employ lots of experienced engineers, we had to find a different way. As we approached the end of our first year, we received an e-mail asking if there were any apprenticeships available. We had become members of the High Tide Foundation, a charity supporting local students, and our name had passed to one of their students who had completed a summer placement.
Wayne and Carl had both achieved their degrees through apprenticeships with Atkins, so we had some experience of the process; but this was another challenge for us to understand. The appointment of Tom Hustwitt took the team up to five, but officially he was, and is, staff number 2, and our first “proper employee”. Tom has been with us for 9 years now, he completed a BTEC, HNC, and has, this summer, graduated with a First Class Honours Degree from Teesside University.
Over the years we have continued to take on apprentices as our main growth strategy, and we have supported these apprentices by employing experienced engineers, not only to mange and deliver projects, but to develop the knowledge and experience of our apprentices.
It is one of our proudest achievements that we have taken on nine apprentices over the last 10 years; four of these have completed their degrees; two have achieved IEng status with the ICE, and very recently Stephen Drinkwater has achieved Chartered Status and been promoted to Principal Engineer.
We currently have five apprentices at various stages of their education and development and have recently taken on a Youth Trailblazer. As such, it has been critical that we surround them with the right people; we have developed our values with the team to ensure that we all know what is expected of us and each other.
Perhaps the thing that makes us most proud is seeing the people who joined us at the beginning of their careers now taking responsibility for projects, mentoring the next generation and helping to shape the future of the business. We’ve seen apprentices become engineers, engineers become senior engineers, and now senior engineers taking on leadership roles. That was always the plan, although I’m not sure we quite appreciated ten years ago how rewarding it would be to see it happen.
We’ve also learned that “growing our own” doesn’t mean simply teaching people how to design roads and drainage. It means giving people the opportunity to understand clients, manage projects, deal with problems, make decisions and, importantly, learn from their mistakes. Some of those lessons have been harder than others!
We want to continue to create opportunities for people at the start of their careers, give them the support and responsibility to develop, and build a team where people genuinely enjoy working together.
Our company vision and values were built by our team: Reliability, Integrity, Collaboration, Flexibility and Professionalism. What makes us especially proud is how lucky we are to have such a dedicated team of people who embody all of these qualities.
It’s often said that a company’s greatest asset is its people, and we couldn’t agree more. As we approach our 10-year milestone, we want to take the opportunity to say a genuine thank you to everyone who has been part of our team, past and present. Your hard work, commitment and dedication have been fundamental to our success and have played a huge part in getting us to where we are today.