Employ kind people and let them be kind

It was seminal. I didn’t know anyone who had been to university until a mate’s brother went as a mature student. Having left school five years before, I had the site experience to get on the HND.

I did the BSc as a correspondence course whilst climbing the ladder with tier 1 UK contractor Tilbury Douglas. Academically, I didn’t learn a huge amount more than I had while doing the HND and don’t recall much emphasis on sustainability, which was in its infancy back then. The degree was the catalyst for my going overseas.

The people and the systems; Tilbury Douglas were a great employer. I got to work in all departments. It is where I got to grips with large-scale project management. I have been fortunate to work with some amazing managers, leaders and mentors throughout my career.

Culture shock would be selling it short. It was a culture explosion. We used directly employed, semi-skilled labour, many of whom came from the ghetto. It was borderline lawless, we lived in gated communities and running sites could be daunting. Having come from a labouring background and a relatively rough city and, not least, being younger, I took it in my stride and enjoyed the ex-pat lifestyle. If I could turn the clock back, I would be a little more culturally sensitive. At the time, my attitude was that I was there to get a job done, which I regret now. I could have got a lot more out of it.

I met my wife in the Bahamas. She had lived in Jersey for ten years prior to moving there. We came to see some of her friends here and I loved it straight away. Dandara gave me my first local opportunity. They had a direct-labour/self-delivery model for much of their work, which I vastly prefer. My career changed in that I shifted focus to staying in Jersey, which is a different path to managing projects of ever-increasing size.

I’d clarify that the move to Geomarine, being civil engineering as opposed to construction, was me deliberately leaving the construction industry. Quality and risk are dealt with very differently. Geomarine controls more of the process by having engineers and geologists with design capacity, as well as direct labour and owned plant. I have always got out of bed to produce a quality product, work in a team and have a bit of a laugh. I loved the construction industry, but for large-scale projects, it has lost its way on the first two, which makes it no fun.

There are some great schemes to support, such as Primary Engineer. We provide work placements for academic and non-academic students, a bursary and apprenticeships. We go to as many careers and school events as we can find out about. We’ve done prison talks to male and female inmates, we’re involved with charities such as Caring Cooks and Brighter Futures, and generally just spend a lot of time understanding local issues. There are no short-cuts. I am passionate about social mobility. It is too large a subject to do any justice to here other than to call out to anyone reading this to get in touch if they are similarly interested or know of someone who needs a hand up.

Skills development: As with all things Geomarine, we strip it down to what is needed and what works, and then get on with it. Whilst we check in with regular PDRs, we are constantly talking to everyone in the team about what they need to get where they want to be. This then becomes iterative alongside what the long-term company needs are.

Wellbeing (cheese alarm…) is dealt with by genuinely caring about everyone in the team. I am fortunate to work with a board and fellow shareholders who are happy to put ethical considerations alongside, and often above, commercial ones. One of our first actions on purchasing the company last year was to extend private medical insurance to all employees; it is still standard elsewhere in the sector that white-collar workers get such benefits and blue-collar do not, which has always rankled. We have long embraced OH, counselling, gym membership and the easy stuff, as well as pension provision for all, but back to my original point, nothing can touch just genuinely caring; employ kind people (most are) and let them be kind. The productivity benefits are so obvious we don’t try and measure them, we have no intention of doing anything other than improving in this area anyway.

Concentrate on the pipeline. It's imperative we continue to get into schools. We always try to ensure that a primary school student’s first impression of an engineer is that they are a she. It is imperative to break down stigmas at an early age. Gender is a non-issue at management level at Geomarine. We are more concerned with less obvious or more challenging underrepresentation, as well as the physicality still required for more operational roles. Improving that will make the trades more attractive to a wider cross section of the community, as well as being safer.  

In relation to the Sub-Committee, Alex made me, I’m a bit scared of her. I also enjoy representing engineering and the more practical industries.

I love the mentoring scheme. I have met some fabulous folk who I have kept in touch with afterwards; as the cliché goes, we have learnt from each other.