Spec Finish

www.thefis.org 3 Voice of the industry BILLY’S STORY FINDING SUCCESS IN FAILURE I T is a story many will recognise. Billy recently got his apprenticeship and was sent back to a job on his own to tidy up a couple of bits of fire-stopping now that the follow-on trades were done. Billy did the work, headed back to the new site, and cracked on. His supervisor caught up with him and asked him how it had gone and Billy proudly reported: “Sorted”. The supervisor had a concern though; Billy was good, but he was still a bit green and certainly not the fastest fire-stopper in the west – even the best of the best would have struggled to complete the work in that time! The supervisor decided to swing by to check Billy’s handiwork. Needless to say, once he had exposed the work he was not impressed. The next day he called into the office and went straight to see the HR manager. “We have a problem with Billy, his work isn’t up to scratch and I think we need to get rid of him, at least start the process.” He then showed photographs of the sub- standard work – Exhibit A – cut and dry, Billy was not up to the job. Before whipping out a P45 for Billy the HR manager asked a couple of simple questions about the set-up of the job – what instructions had Billy been given? Had sufficient time been allowed for the work? The long and short of it is that Billy had been asked to “head over there, sort it and get back here asap” – nobody had really factored in that Billy had little to no chance of getting across town in traffic, doing a half decent job and reporting back to carry on his work. Billy was not blameless, but he was under pressure to get the job done, people who should have known better didn’t afford him the time and Billy was set up to fail. You have probably guessed by now that this is not really a story of failure, it is quite the opposite. The work was put right, the analysis started by the HR manager means Billy has been empowered to speak out if he needs more time to do the job properly, Billy understands where he went wrong and is going from strength-to-strength. Billy is not incompetent but he needed help – competence is not a binary thing, it can be undermined simply by setting the wrong expectation, not creating the right environment/allowing the right time to do the work. The company too has taken a step back and looked at their processes to ensure that they do consider how they task individuals and consider carefully the time required and time allowed to complete a task. They have also learned lessons about signing off work – what would have happened though if that supervisor hadn’t followed through? Construction is fast, especially in the finishes and interiors sector, a clash of complicated detailing in an environment where programmes are commonly accelerated, and there is always a rush to get the job done. Perhaps the only thing quicker than how fast everything is needed to be done is how quickly we start the blame game. Sadly, once the blame game starts, the fragile and disposable relationships that blight parts of the sector are exposed. Sack the contractor, sack the individual, we’ve dealt with the problem, it wasn’t my fault – move on. Relationships have been far too disposable and accountability not fully considered. For us to deliver the cultural change specified in the Building Safety Act we need to create relationships that look beyond task and project and allow a supply chain to learn lessons and work better together, not simply to apportion blame and start again – the difference between accountability and responsibility. I read the column by Rudi Klein in this edition (page 16) with a heavy heart. There is so much good in the Building Safety Act and I am optimistic that in the inevitable changes we are already starting to see better supply chain relationships. My hope is that these evolve further and enable open interrogation of failure between the jobs, helping to drive the improvements in instruction and process that this will afford. But when I look back at the past, the retrospective aspects that are set in a framework of heavy-handed contracts, disposable relationships and risk dumping, Billy’s story rings a concerning bell in my head. Billy was not blameless, he has responsibility, but equally, he was not set up to succeed and he must not be a scapegoat for the number of failings in accountability that led to the bad execution of the job. IAIN MCILWEE Chief executive Finishes and Interiors Sector I heard a thought-provoking story this week of failure and blame and, ultimately, one that signposts a better future for construction, but which also serves as a warning.