Top-scoring in on-the-job training
ONE Dubbo company is quietly offering opportunities to unskilled workers who’ve struggled with drugs and alcohol, have missed educational and training windows or who have run up against the criminal justice system.
Complete Asset Management (CAM) provides service, labour hire and rail construction service across Australia, supplying to companies like ARTC, John Holland, the major corridor owners plus companies like Laing O’rourke as far afield as South Australia, Queensland and Victoria as well as New South Wales.
The company runs its own fleet, with light vehicles, plant and crane trucks as well as buses to move the teams around to, often, remote worksites
“We manage projects and do it ourselves or we supply labour to the companies that are doing subcontracting – we’re the full package, we give them everything they want including having our own protection officers which are integral to the rail, they protect the worksites on the rail,” CAM’ director Alan Herbert told Dubbo Photo News.
Mr Herbert worked as a 240volt electrician for the western area in the rail and says that experience taught him a lot about the industry including how tracks were constructed.
What started out in 2008 as a labour hire company changed focus in 2014 when the industry changed from big companies having their own big crews.
“In 2014 our direction changed, and we decided to go further into the rail construction and by doing that and building the company up, we’re now winning major jobs across NSW. We just won a major job for a grain loop at Coonamble, we’re also in some major construction sites in the Inland Rail project here plus we do a lot a of major projects down in the Hunter Valley,” Mr Herbert said.
“At the moment and probably for the last two years we’ve had 16 fulltime staff and we run generally at 80 people per fortnight, that’s what we pay per fortnight, we’ve been up to 140 but our average is between 70 and 80.
“We don’t look at per centages but we’re probably running 85 per cent Indigenous and Islander when it comes to employees.”
That success story had its beginnings in 2010 when Mr Herbert was approached by Clive Hunter who worked for Laing O’rourke.
“He was really interested in creating Indigenous participation in the rail industry and he said what about putting together an entirely Indigenous re-sleepering team for a job between Dubbo and Stuart Town,” Mr Herbert said.
“It was amazing, we gathered 30 odd blokes and we put them through a little bit of training, they had no idea about the rail, they were raw, everybody was just learning, and we put them out there and away they went.
“The feedback after that three months, one of the supervisors told me it was the best crew he’d ever had, that they were happy to be out there working. It worked, whatever it was it worked.”
Mr Herbert said that became a new mantra for the company and from that time on he said it hasn’t mattered who walks through the CAM gates, everyone is given the same chance.
“We’ve had guys that have had drug problems and they’re clean now, we’ve had guys who’ve been in jail, many times, a lot of blokes, but they always get a chance – you walk through that door you’ve got an opportunity,” he said.
“I’m brutally honest about what happens here, how the system works, how the company works, what we expect out of you and if those guys can respond to that, Indigenous, non-indigenous, whoever walks through the door, it puts it back onto them to say that if you can fulfill these rules, or stick to these rules for me and have this work ethic that I want, that the company wants you to have and the rest of the workers need you to have, then you’re welcome to stay here.
“We’ve had guys who’ve walked in here, now I’ve got their brothers working for me, cousins, and they all come and all work here and they like it and I speak to them all the time and I’ve said everybody’s treated the same.”
CAM models itself on the analogy of a big family which includes assistance in how to manage money and save for the future.
Partnering with Regional Australia Bank, they have financial support advice for all the workers.
“We’ve got blokes who’ve come
here three years ago and now they’ve got their own houses and that to me is massive, you know,” Mr Herbert said proudly.
“To see their wives being happy, the girlfriends being happy, the kids being happy.
“The blokes are proud of what they’ve done because they’ve worked very, very hard, they work hard here, it’s not easy, you work hard but you’ll get the results if you stick to it and I think that’s why a lot of the stuff we do, the word of mouth, they get treated fairly, everybody gets treated the same and we give a sh*t about the people who walk through our door.”
Mr Herbert said it’s important for businesses to look past the short term for the most qualified employees on paper and try and build up a home-grown workforce – a bit like a footy team that has a nursery system and pathways for juniors as opposed to the team which just gets out the chequebook
“You never know what the skills of a bloke are until you see how he works so in the rail industry you can have an opportunity very quickly,” he said.
“Some people are a bit hesitant sometimes but when they step up they go, oh, that wasn’t too bad, they get a bit more money for the extra responsibility and it gives them a bit of respect about what they’re doing and they think this is pretty good and then they want
to do more and it’s pretty easy in the railway to go forward.”
Now the company is looking for the rail giants to work with them to upskill the next, home-grown generation of rail workers, offering to help them subsidise three or four extra workers on every 20-person crew so they can learn on the job while not being part of the actual contract.
“On the job training is the best thing you can possibly get, you can have all the skills you like but being out on the rail and learning where everything fits together, how it all works, the safety aspects of the work,” Mr Herbert said, pointing out that the best way to help people is to create the opportunities and structure so they can pull their boots on every morning and go to work in a protective and nurturing environment.
“We give them all the tools, we teach them everything they need to know, we give them the back-up support and the boys in the crew will help them out,” he said.
“Don’t eat Mcdonalds every night mate, there’s a barbeque here, we cook, thrown in a bit of money, we cook veges every night, so we make sure you’re right to go the next day.
“At the end of the fortnight they get a really good decent rate of pay and think if I keep doing that’s the difference, that respect they win for themselves and that respect and standing and that flows through the community.”