J&R Consulting

J&R proves education comes from within

Acutely aware that the construction industry is in short supply of skilled and experienced workers, directors of J&R Contracting Peter Goldsmith and Jonno Weber take training seriously.

Wellington and Penrose-based J&R Contracting, which incorporated in 1997, is a mid-sized directional drilling and trenching company. It boasts an enviable reputation for doing excellent work, up-skilling workers and pushing staff on in their careers with the company.

Much of this success has to do with a focused internal culture for lifelong learning and innovative teaching methods.

“We’re lucky to have a good mix of age and youth, with training being a key responsibility of the experienced team members,” says company director Peter Goldsmith.

“Our skilled team is developed predominantly from within. We’ve strong values around quality in everything we do and we’ve mindfully focused on developing the staff to reach their potential.

“We see these training costs as an investment in the future of our staff and the company.”

J&R currently employs close to 52 employees, six of whom are presently completing the National Certificate in Water Reticulation (Planned & Reactive Maintenance Technician), and another two are completing the National Certificate in Infrastructure Works Supervision (Level 4) with a strand in civil works and utilities.

Additionally, over the past three years approximately 24 staff have completed certificates through Connexis in Civil Construction and HDD Drilling.

“We encourage everyone to be involved in training whether it be a nationally recognised certificate or in-house,” Peter says.

One education initiative that is particularly innovative is J&R’s ‘Codesafe’ programme – a QR code based system with embedded safety training videos. The programme is viewed by all new employees as well as at internal meetings.

How it works is that each piece of plant and machinery has a QR code sticker on it so the training videos can be viewed at any time. Sitting in the backend of the software is a sophisticated database which keeps a log on how often and who views these videos.

J&R’s other in-house training is done on a regular basis and covers topics such as incident reporting, hazard management, manual handling, working around mobile plant and working around underground services.

Modules are internally developed and team leaders take new staff under their wing to teach them all aspects of the business, depending on their skill set and interest level.

Ask Peter what he’s most proud about in terms of training, however, and he’ll tell you it’s literacy training, which J&R implemented in conjunction with Skills 4 Work.

“We put six employees through this course. The guys either didn’t finish high school or English is their second language,” he says. “Four of these employees are team leaders and foremen. This has helped them out immensely with filling out our site paperwork both electronically and manually. Their confidence levels with both written and oral communication have gone sky high. This has also helped three of them complete their HDD training with Connexis.”

All in all, J&R’s approach to training shows up the faults of the old maxim that says ‘a little education is a dangerous thing’. Rather, in J&R’s case at least, it’s a profitable and rewarding one. l