Staff Matter W

W M Donald is the largest civil engineering contractor in North-east Scotland. Its head office in Stonehaven is supported by regional offices in Inverness and Perth and it has a skilled and dedicated workforce of 227, with a further 80 subcontractors.

It counts many national and regional housebuilders amongst its clients and undertakes complex enabling and infrastructure works to provide developers with a prepared and serviced site on which to build their properties.

Over the last three years, in particular, the firm has been committed to investing in employee development to ensure it has the workforce to deliver its business growth objectives across a wider geographical area.

There are several strands to W M Donald Ltd’s approach to employee development. A key initiative has been the creation of the W M Donald Ltd Apprenticeship Scheme and it now has 25 apprentices, 12% of the workforce. Each apprentice has a site mentor and is encouraged to engage in extra-curricular activities such as making presentations in schools or mental health training. The company has also recruited a cohort of recently qualified graduates who are continuing their training in areas such as quantity surveying, construction management and purchasing and supply. As a result of these steps and others, the average age of the workforce has dropped from 39 in 2019 to 36 in 2022.

The construction workforce is ageing, technology is changing rapidly, and W M Donald Ltd is growing. W M Donald Ltd is ensuring potential skills shortages are addressed through a combination of training and development and focussed recruitment.

To foster an interest in construction among younger generations, W M Donald Ltd has delivered skills days for S3 and S5 students at local academies. It was invited by The Wood Foundation to contribute to the Excelerate “School Leaver Profile” event to determine the skills, attributes and competencies a young person should develop during their time at school. It was also a major participant in the “Lift Off & Grow” programme created by Aberdeen City Council and DYW North East.

ABERDAM Dutch Fries is an award-winning fast-food takeaway that offers a fusion of high-quality local produce from Aberdeen (ABER) and underrepresented Dutch street food (DAM). They specialise in exclusively imported, triple cooked Dutch fries, sauces, and fried snacks, as well as their now infamous Aberdeen Angus smash burgers and loaded fries.

In April 2021, ABERDAM began as a small fries stall at an outdoor post-CV19 street food event, which they coorganised to give the local street food community a CV19compliant space to rebuild after the loss of events income from the previous year.

After taking £136k in 4 months at Backyard Beach Collective, they realised they needed to take themselves out of the day-to-day and reimagine the entire concept into a delivery-focused takeaway that could also serve in-house and be franchisable.

With ever-growing demand, the owners of ABERDAM located a derelict bricks and mortar unit in the city centre on Shiprow five months later. They completely pivoted their menu and launched on delivery platforms, as well as serving in four neighbouring wet-led bars. ABERDAM has now become one of the fastest-growing food businesses in the North-east, consistently achieving 18k gross revenue weeks.

In just one year, they have used over 50 local suppliers for their staple menu items, packaging, signage, merchandise, and more. ABERDAM feels a great responsibility to support and promote fellow local businesses as much as possible, as this is key to their ethos. Some of their local food suppliers include Tilly Butcher for all meat, Vegan Bay Baker for buns, Fat Batch for desserts, Angus and Oink for seasonings, Amity Fish Co for fish, Fierce Beer for their collab beer LAGERDAM, and many more.

Managing the incredible demand and rapid growth has been the largest challenge for ABERDAM in the year they’ve been trading. ABERDAM was put together in just two weeks and completely self-funded, with the owners reinvesting everything to grow it into what it has become and will be. They have always looked to the future and never thought small.

At the end of their first financial year, they had a gross revenue of £490k.