Taking care of business

By - , Build 165

A combination of technical and business skills at the helm might be the reason for Planit Construction’s winning ways. Build spoke to one of the partners for insights into its success and broader thoughts about the industry today.

Q. When was Planit Construction established and what type of work does it do?

Planit Construction was established in 2007 when two smaller companies merged. There are two main business partners, one with solely a building background and one with an engineering/management background. The two skill sets work nicely together, and the business has grown steadily over the past 10 years to have 23 employees. Planit specialises in bespoke residential work, mostly higher-end projects, with the majority being complex alterations and additions.

Q. Planit has won several Registered Master Builders awards over the years and been praised for the quality of its work. What’s behind this?

We strive to make every part of the business professional, from the sales and marketing to pricing to building and the contract administration and accounts. Our attention to detail on the job is second to none, and we hold ourselves and our subcontractors and suppliers to the highest standard possible.

Q. What are the advantages of having an apprenticeship programme? How do you retain your experienced staff and the apprentices you have trained?

We find if we get someone that hasn’t learned any bad habits, it is much easier to teach them what we expect in terms of quality and site expectations. It doesn’t take long and they are contributing to the projects and the company. It is not possible to retain all apprentices, but we don’t worry about that too much. Each one has their own personal goals and objectives, and we have to respect that. However, we have apprentices that have been with us since the beginning, and we have some that have left for a short time and then returned.

Q. Do you have problems getting enough workers to meet your requirements given the acknowledged shortage of building industry workers?

Employing apprentices is our main way of growing our staff pool. While at present, we could easily employ several more carpenters, they aren’t easy to find, especially ones with the capability of doing projects with many complexities, demanding details and often tricky sites. We are also not trying to be the biggest company but the best, so focusing on this is our primary goal and organic growth is quite acceptable to us anyway.

Q. On your website, it talks about your innovative problem solving of challenging construction projects. Could you mention examples of difficult projects and how the difficulties were addressed?

We have many examples of jobs with complexities, but a couple would be around the solution to tanking retaining walls when there is no room between the bank and the new retaining wall. In one job, we used a torch-on product and balloon-tanked the site and supported the tanking up the bank before installing precast tilt-up panels against the tanking. The tanking was then attached where accessible, and this has proven successful.

On another project, the client wanted polished precast panels, and when we sat down with the engineer and the client, we were able to suggest changes that meant saving nearly $100,000 and still achieving the look the client wanted.

Q. The construction industry’s facing high demand, quality issues and worker shortage. Do you have any answers?

There are no quick ways of fixing a worker shortage, but if every company employed at least one or two apprentices, they would see it pays dividends down the track. It would also go a long way to quickly increasing the worker pool. Currently, 10% of companies employ 90% of the apprentices.

More focus should be on business training. Maybe BCITO could play a part, offering small construction business owners a course around business management. This is often an overlooked part of many smaller construction companies in particular. The focus is all on building, but 80% of a business’s success is the background things like pricing, accounts, HR, administration and processes. If these are working as they should, companies will be successful and quality will be a part of this.

Q. What are your thoughts about prefabricated construction?

We have partnered with a start-up company in this regard and completed our first prototype, which has been delivered to site. This initial project has gone quite well, and we have learned plenty of ways to improve as we have gone through, which is the purpose of a prototype. It will be interesting to see where this progresses for us.

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