Blakely Construction

BCL is ahead of the class with 100 percent pass rate

Created in 1995 by Woody Blakely, Blakely Construction has grown over the past two decades into a successful and respected civil construction company in Canterbury.

Blakely Construction (BCL) is committed to providing an experienced, adaptive and passionate construction team, led by a strong management team.

Its approximately 80 personnel deliver projects in a safe and cost-effective manner, and sitting behind that work is a heavy company investment in the professional development of all staff. Indeed, every staff member has a training manual which is reviewed on a yearly basis and reviewed by senior management twice yearly in accordance with career path aspirations.

On-the-job training is provided within the teams’ daily work practices and with regular in-house training sessions, with off-site formal training courses with Connexis, Site Safe and other preferred training providers.

Since 2012 BCL has become heavily involved with Connexis. The first year it set internal training charts against unit standards and made modifications where needed. The very next year trainees were on board – starting with 23 staff on the path to reaching their different qualifications. In July 2014 it enrolled 33 staff of which 22 were new enrolments. Thirteen staff were also on training over that period. BCL has since seen 10 staff this year attend a Connexis course.

Due to all these efforts, BCL is seeing much success. Internally, uptake of moving from one course to the next level is 100 percent. The team are also really seeing the benefit of the programme and there is the added incentive of reward in the pay packet when they complete a level.

Moving forward, BCL must also be at the forefront of technological changes and has a staged rollout of taking technology out into the field, particularly for quality work and data capture. While there is some resistance to this, Connexis training is certainly helping smooth this transition.

Ultimately BCL equates company growth with people growth. And, from the 2012-2014 period the company almost tripled in size of staff and quadrupled turnover.

Its current challenge is to find the time to allow for all this staff training, but in-house training is certainly helping to accomplish this. These training events focus around safety and upskilling of the team in a variety of processes, including: concrete cutting, water pipe fitting procedures, thread taping and fire extinguisher use.

BCL takes pride in the fact that no matter where its staff’s employment journeys may take them, if they leave BCL they’ll be better trained – which will help the industry and New Zealand grow. l