Our biannual staff meeting was held on 11 December in Cardinal House.
Thanks for a successful 2018
Executive chairman Sean Fitzpatrick thanked everyone for their work this year, particularly those who achieved in extreme weather.
Sean welcomed twelve new members of staff, most of them in newly created posts, a sign of how well VGC is growing. He congratulated Sudarshan, Ellie and Jimmy on their promotions. Congratulations to members of staff who have had babies in the last six months, and to Rob Burke on his marriage to Charlene.
Sean also thanked those who had been involved in some industry-leading initiatives, including Ciara Pryce, who was named one of the UK’s top 100 modern slavery influencers, and Kimberley McGinty, one of only two London enterprise advisers invited to join the national advisory group.
Group services director Ciara Pryce congratulated those who had successfully completed apprenticeships, and listed awards which VGC has won recently. These include:
- Two Network Rail stars
- Skanska ‘Act Ethically and Transparently’ award
- Shortlisted for REC IRP award for corporate and social responsibility practitioners of the year
- Women into Construction supporters’ award
- Shortlisted for West London Business responsible workplace award
- A14 ILT Innovation award
She thanked members of staff who have outperformed, several of them particularly commended by our clients. Congratulations to Catalin Hapau, Darren Oxley, Les Molyneux, Colin Southam, Lee Cavill, Anthony Simon, Lee Pearce, Macdonald Onwona, and Solomon Peters. A particular thank you to the teams at Goodmayes who received a Crossrail Anglia SHE award, working on the M6 junctions 2 – 4 who received a ‘250 club’ award, and on the A14 where the integrated labour team won an Innovation award.
Looking ahead
Managing director Laurence Mckidd listed VGC’s strengths, including our competent people and culture of respect. He listed some of the successes in the divisions, including the strong multi-disciplinary team delivering project contracts. We are well positioned to cope with the risks ahead, including Brexit and the delays and cancellations of infrastructure investment. 2019 will be challenging for our industry, but we are well positioned to adapt to new client requirements and use technology to best effect.
Chris Ryan, operations director, described some of the plans for our labour business for 2019, and welcomed new director Richard Palin.
Go Beyond
Ciara then introduced our new brand strategy, Go Beyond, including the ‘Go Beyond’ video. The new brand moves us on from outperforming the competition, to leading key conversations within our industry, on diversity, inclusion, legacy, standards, empowerment and collaboration.
She also described the new volunteering programme for office staff.
Our new corporate charity for 2019 will be State of Mind Sport.
Long service awards
Finally, Sean presented Laura Perry, Eddie Long, Ben Wallis, Fiona Dowling and Jacques Kriel with long service awards.
Download a pdf (1.4MB) of the PowerPoint presentation from the meeting.
