1 Think creatively when hiring

People are your most important assets in building a team from a consultancy point of view. Finding really good people is challenging, particularly when it’s vital to maintain a diverse team.

You need to have patience. It's so important to look for people who get the culture and understand the business that we're trying to create. You need to hire people who have the values of your organisation – in our case, those are passion and collaboration. You have to be patient finding those people, particularly in a difficult market.

On diversity, we think creatively about how and where we hire, not just going to the standard places and targeting the usual, narrow sources of getting talent.

2 Prevent pigeonholing

The next factor is keeping people in your team. We don't just want engineers involved in the detailed design: we get them involved at project inception, with the architects, looking to get things right the first time. Working across the whole project lifecycle on a diverse portfolio of projects means that people don’t feel pigeonholed.

It's also important that people work with different types of clients; across the developer side, contractors and local authorities. Because different types of organisations bring something different to the job, team members benefit from that broad experience on projects.

We have to be able to offer people development, not just technical skillsets, making sure we’re giving them the time to learn other skills as well, such as business development and how to build relationships, and how to lead and develop parts of the business they are passionate about.

3 Encourage ways to collaborate

We encourage people to share knowledge, at dedicated knowledge-sharing sessions, which ensures we keep building everyone's knowledge and tools. Collaboration is so important and we try to create an atmosphere where that thrives. We encourage healthy working habits, not just sticking to one way of doing things, and building relationships with people, as opposed to just being siloed.

4 Keep clients aligned

We tell potential clients that collaboration is one of our key values, so our teams and the clients that we work with come together in that spirit. But to be honest, I don't know which goes first: whether our clients are aligned to us, or we're aligned to our clients. Either way, that's how we get the most out of our teams – and I think our clients enjoy working in that way, as well.

5 Get the work-life balance right

Salaries are really important, especially as there’s huge pressure on the cost of living. But we also recognise that money only goes so far: the whole package is important. It doesn't matter how much you pay someone, if they don't feel their work-life balance is right.

Derek Griffiths was in conversation with Craig Thomas.

The closing date is fast approaching for CIHT Awards 2023 –  submit your application by Monday 13 March!

Words by Derek Griffiths, director at Momentum Transport Consultancy