FOCUS Employment and careers
Providing a better life By harnessing its Employee Promise, McConnell Dowell is attracting new people to the construction industry and providing them and its current employees with meaningful, challenging and impactful careers.
“We genuinely believe in providing a better life, whether that’s through building infrastructure or supporting the communities in which we work.”
McConnell Dowell has long been a strongly values-driven organisation, with its purpose – providing a better life – and authenticity on delivering on that purpose underscoring its success. Within this purpose sit five company values: safety and care, working together, honesty and integrity, performance excellence, and customer focus. The words themselves don’t differentiate McConnell Dowell from other companies – many businesses have similar worded values and purposes. It’s the authentic nature of the company’s purpose and values that makes them unique. Steve Collett, executive general manager people and group strategy at McConnell Dowell, started with the company in 2016 as the executive general manager of human resources, before also taking on McConnell Dowell’s group strategy portfolio in 2019. With over 25 years’ experience in human resources, industrial relations and management consulting, Collett has seen first-hand the difference company values, and their commitment to those values, can make on employees, both new and existing. “We genuinely believe in providing a better life, whether that’s through building infrastructure or supporting the communities in which we work,” says Collett. “The Echuca-Moama Bridge Project, a new Murray River crossing connecting Victoria and New South Wales which we finished last year, is but one example.”
McConnell Dowell is providing employees with meaningful, challenging and impactful careers.
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INSIDE CONSTRUCTION October/November 2023
The local Echuca and Moama communities had been calling for a second Murray River crossing for more than 50 years. Delivered by McConnell Dowell, the new crossing has removed around 10,000 vehicles from local roads each day, which has in turn reduced commuting times and provided safer and easier travels between Echuca and Moama for locals and visitors alike. The Level Crossing Removal Projects McConnell Dowell is currently delivering in Melbourne will similarly benefit local communities, improving safety by removing the danger of train and vehicle or user collisions, and reducing congestion and delays by allowing vehicles and users to pass through without having to wait for trains. “The projects we deliver genuinely provide a better life for local and surrounding communities,” says Collett. “We also aim to provide a better life for our employees located around the globe – including Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region – by providing good jobs, good pay, good skills and good opportunities. “Our purpose and values really do underpin what we do and how we do it, in all aspects.” Employee Promise Furthering its commitment to providing a better life, McConnell Dowell recently held a series of workshops with a wide range of people within the organisation and asked them questions around what makes them stay at the business, what makes work enjoyable and what made them join the business. Built upon their many varied answers, McConnell Dowell developed an Employee Promise with four key pillars: join us, be you; build balance; grow together; and make a difference. Join us, be you McConnell Dowell prides itself on promoting a culture low on ego and high on support. “We’re a big, multinational organisation with the capability to deliver complex engineering and infrastructure works, but we’re small enough to be agile and close-knit,” says Collett. “During the hiring process we regularly hear things like, “I would never have had an opportunity to even speak to the chief
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