Team

How We Connect Our Workforce to Deliver Better Outcomes

Author

John Fitzgerald

Director - Operations

As the pandemic begins to ease, many companies – both in and out of our industry – are planning what the future of their workforce looks like. Many professional services are considering hybrid working models for the first time, where part of the team works in the office, and part remotely.

As engineers, this is something we’ve done for years given the nature of our work; work takes place on a construction site, and also in the office behind a computer screen. While there’s some great perks to hybrid work, it’s important to understand the challenges it poses – including the impacts it may have on social cohesion, culture and trust that delivering successful projects relies upon.

While we’ll continue to refine what our own hybrid model looks like, we’re also very focused on connecting the people in our business and the various divisions they’re part of. Because we work across sectors, our team draws upon knowledge from a diverse range of projects, bringing a fresh perspective to each project we work on.

Sharing cross-divisional expertise and knowledge

We work in partnership with government and private sector clients to plan, execute, operate and maintain small to large transport, energy, environmental remediation, mining, utilities and water projects.

However, what we believe to be our biggest strength sometimes our clients aren’t aware of. Our infrastructure, project delivery, engineering, environmental and design teams all work alongside each other.

As a result of the way FSC is structured, our team can often spot red flags, see opportunities and propose options or solutions which can save our clients a bunch of time and money.

Image: Here’s some of our skill sets at FSC. We’re excited to keep adding to the ways in which we can service our clients.

We’re continually adding to our skillset, and the combination of ways we can assist our clients is ever increasing. Sharing knowledge across our divisions is important to us. Ultimately, the way we share knowledge is what allows us to push forward with better ways of working. It’s also what drives the efficiencies that make our working lives more rewarding.

A connected workforce in action

We see examples where this cross-divisional knowledge benefits our clients every day.

For example, a recent client was having to put up safety scaffolding. Nathan, the Director of our design division – FSC Range – was going to do computations for temporary works for this. Instead, Nathan had an idea for an alternate solution which wouldn’t require temporary works. He called our construction engineers in our infrastructure team and with their input was able to give the client a different option which saved them a bunch of money. The client was shocked we were able to deliver in this way.

Another example would be the design of NDD systems. For this client, our team was able to design a system and then our project team were able to project manage and provide installation. Given the design and implementation teams could communicate early on in the piece, we were able to provide very practical designs. As a result, we often experience less delays given there’s a reduction in the amount of third parties coming together.

Interested in learning more about NDD solutions? Discover how to treat NDD waste on your project here.

Connecting a hybrid workforce

We plan, execute, and closeout large, and sometimes small, infrastructure projects over a wide range of disciplines. Working in and out of the office, interstate or on secondment is nothing new to many engineers – for the most part, we’ve always worked in a hybrid way.

Regardless, we want all our engineers to have access to everyone’s knowledge. And we want a workplace culture that is built upon trust-based relationships above all else. We are so passionate about this because these relationships mean we care deeply for each other, which enables us to do great work for one another and in turn, our clients too. It also makes getting out of bed each morning a hell of a lot easier!

We’ve started holding regular Blue Sky Thinking sessions on Friday’s at FSC HQ to share knowledge across our business and teams. We love it when people from outside FSC join us to give their perspectives. If you’d like to attend please let us know.

Later this year, we’re also launching the FSC graduate program. Grads will rotate through the different divisions of the business, so whether they take a liking to design, environmental, infrastructure or something else entirely, we’ll be able to help them launch their career. The benefit of this is our people will further be able to draw upon knowledge from other sectors to deliver better outcomes for our clients.

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