Business South March 2021

CIVIL WORKS EARTHWORKS DRAINAGE ROADING GENERAL CONTRACTING TRANSPORT ENVIRONMENTAL TEAM T: 0800 0800 04 E: office@civilconstruction.co.nz W: www.civilconstruction.co.nz Winning the GeoFabrics’ NZ Environmental award at the 2020 Otago Civil Contractors Awards acknowledges Civil Construction Ltd's success in developing its capability to meet the region’s new environmental measures. The award is a new category acknowledging the industry’s concerted effort and success in doing the right thing for the environment, the community and surrounding users. Civil Construction Limited’s award was for its work on phase two of the challenging Northlake bulk earthworks site in Wanaka. “The award is a great affirmation for our team as well as our customers,” says Civil Construction’s proud founder and fifth generation contractor Paul Horrell. “We’re focused on doing things properly so we’ve done a huge amount of work up-skilling and training our team. We also worked with Queenstown Lakes District Council to get the environmental measures to be more acceptable to the market. As a result, we’ve become a game-leader for the region’s construction industry.” Based in Queenstown, the company ‘s roots stem back to 2004, but was not branded as Civil Construction till 2011 and has steadily grown over the last decade with an emphasis on people. Sitting at around 47 employees, Civil Construction’s team is multi-gender and cultural with a diverse range of skill sets. “One of the key drivers in the business is that people are our biggest asset, not the equipment parked out in the yard. We’ve had a goal and a dream to train our people and get them up to senior team leader stage. There’s a massive investment to do that with about half a million dollars a year going into training. We train our people in both trade and professional qualifications. We’ve just reviewed our whole organizational structure and responsibility to allow our people to grow organically into more senior roles.” Cultural transformation is another goal Paul has focused on, fostering a cohesive team spirit. “With the effort and energy people put in they get rewarded both in their remuneration and non-monetary based rewards. That cultural transformation has been successful, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s been a ten-year journey to get where we are now but there’s always continuous improvement. I don’t think you will ever get it 100% right—there will always be ongoing improvement and evolution as generations and community culture changes. That positive team culture is picked up by our customers as well.” With a preference to growing capability and skill sets internally, Paul says if team members are brought in they are on-boarded with the company’s ethics and ethos of honesty, integrity and communication before being assigned to one of the company’s five key business areas— earthworks, roading, drainage, civil works and general contracting. Honesty and integrity, under-promising and over-delivering, the ability to communicate with customers and understand their objectives are at the heart of Civil Construction’s success. With over 90% of the business coming from repeat business and referrals, at present Civil Construction is predominantly working in the private sector. “We understand and know the importance of creating a budget, adhering to the budget and communicating well in advance if there are going to be any changes.” Leading the charge