Marian Garfield, Head of Sustainability

Upskilling our employees at all levels across the business is important to us – everyone from the senior teams to site-based staff. We wanted to see accountability, changes in behaviour and changes in the culture of the business. So, we’ve worked with Darren on two things.

He’s delivered project management workshops for us and was the lead on helping us to understand the overarching principles of project management. And, because he has a safety background, it was a good combination of skill sets.

He’s also carried out a cultural review with our ready-mixed concrete division. We wanted him to identify areas we could improve on. Darren carried out a series of site visits and presented his findings to the senior team – along with an improvement strategy. We realise that any improvement relies heavily on the local management teams and working with Darren has opened us up to those all-important health and safety conversations. He’s opened up our senior managers thinking, in terms of ‘are we doing things right – or are we doing them wrong’. What we have now is a live reference document – something we can refer back to. He’s given us a structure we can look at, use and implement. He’s set us a standard.

We work with Darren because he’s authentic. He’s doesn’t sugar coat anything. He says what he sees – ‘this is what you need to be doing’. It’s clear he’s worked in the industry and has the confidence and knowledge – you know he’s seen all the tricks of the trade.