IN A climate such as this, whether you have had to make cut backs or not, you need a skilled and motivated body of workers, invest in them.

Investing in relevant training for your staff sends a powerful message to them that you value them and trust them to steer the company through these troubled times.

With 68% of respondents to a recent CIOB survey expecting further job cuts in the industry in 2010, sending your valued staff members this message now, is important. With this in mind Construction Study Centre have identified four key training areas that with continued investment will benefit businesses:

Getting contracts right
Those working in the construction industry are required to be able to communicate effectively and correctly in order to administer contracts, manage the construction process and satisfy their own responsibilities or those for whom they work.

As the recession continues it is as important as ever that contracts should be robust documents that properly and fully set out the rights and obligations of the parties. Further it is vital that staff at all levels within businesses operating in the industry, including employers, consultants, contractors and sub-contractors understand the processes embodied with the contracts entered into. Providing comprehensive training via Construction Study Centre’s range of courses is a key way of satisfying this requirement and will quickly show a return on investment.

Michael Rowlinson, director of Alway Associates, who regularly assists companies who have disputes, says:

“A common factor in disputes is that one or both of the parties or their representatives have failed to understand what a contract requires. Good training is the only way to prevent such failures from being repeated.”

As someone who regularly presents such training courses Rowlinson adds:

“Where clients invest in training the frequency of disputes reduces and when they do arise those companies who have invested in training are usually in a stronger position than those who have not.”

There are plenty of courses in the market place from general contract administration to courses that delve deep into specific parts of the NEC or JCT suites. Pick the right course and if you have a team to train, get the experts to come to you and they can tailor the training to be relevant to your project or programme of work. Making the right training choices now will pay dividends in the long run.

Planning and Governance
Embarking on a new construction project need not be a trip into the unknown, proper planning and making use of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) can go a long way.

You may not be surprised to hear that less than 50% of construction projects are delivered on time and 15% of projects experience cost escalation of more than 10%. More surprising (and encouraging) however, is that client satisfaction performance indicators return an average client satisfaction score of eight out of 10.

Kevin McKee, director of Brunswickis , believes he knows the secret to unlocking successful project delivery. He says, “Greater pre-planning is the key; you must ensure that the client’s requirements are clearly defined and that risks are properly identified and effectively managed.”

Your team are likely to have the required aptitudes to run your project successfully and training can help focus these skills and give them simple techniques to deliver client satisfaction. McKee agrees:

“A simple short training course is a relatively minor cost, but the techniques developed can be invaluable in achieving successful project delivery.”

Finance
Despite its importance of finance it is surprising how many professionals fail to appreciate the effect that their actions will have on the cash position of their business.

In the current economic climate companies are suffering through poor payment times and the difficulties of securing funding. This problem is likely to increase as we start the move out of recession.

Effective training, enabling teams to realistically work through the cash flows, as well as the profits, of new projects is critical. The ability to prepare comprehensive cash flow forecasts (or project funding requests) taking into account project plans, contract terms and payment times are vital to ensure that businesses can accurately manage their working capital requirements.

Similarly project teams are often expected to vet the suitability of contractors and suppliers. A critical part of this should be an ability to appreciate the financial strength of the businesses that they deal with. Simply looking at the turnover and profit may not give a true reflection of the resilience of a business. Training your teams so that they can analyse accounts sufficiently to be able to read the real story behind a company’s performance (or at least know enough to be able to ask the appropriate questions) can save a project team from the crisis of having a key supplier unexpectedly fail at a critical moment in a construction project.

Know your regulations
Working in the construction industry can be dangerous, for that reason there are plenty of regulations for us to keep up with. The Construction Design Management (CDM) regulations changed as recently as April 2007, while there have been numerous changes to building and fire regulations over recent years.

Many companies will have resident experts, or employ consultants to help to ensure work is done within the guidelines set. Sending teams on general awareness courses however can increase synergy and efficiency on projects and help to avoid wasted time and money. These courses are relatively cheap and can pay for themselves over the duration of a project. It is also cheaper and easier than you might think to train a member of your team to become a CDM co-ordinator. The cost of a course is more often than not less than price of brining in a consultant for your project, and as every notable project needs a CDM co-ordinator, you could end up saving thousands in the long run.

Courses are held all round the country and anyone with the right amount of construction or project based experience can become a CDM co-ordinator, it is well worth investigating. So, we have identified four areas in which any construction organisation must be knowledgeable and up to speed. The current recession heightens the importance of these areas.

We, as an industry, made mistakes during the last recession that we cannot afford to repeat. Training and investing in our workforce is the only way we can make sure that we do not repeat the mistakes which the CIOB claim left us with a skills shortage we have never fully recovered from.

Training can help your workforce win you business, deliver successful projects and programmes and increase your market share. Experts predict we will begin to climb out of recession as early as 2010 or 2011 that increased market share will translate into a healthier bottom line when that happens.

Advice and training on all of the above areas is available at: www.constructionstudycentre.co.uk