Welcome to the next issue of Skills For Life where we will regularly share information on the department’s programs to build a highly qualified, skilled workforce. If you’re interested in finding out about getting a qualification and building your skills, go to www.skills.gov.au or free call 13 31 96.

Left: Hutchinson staff in training. Top right: A younger tradie learning the ropes on the job.
Bottom right: Hutchies are skilled in all aspects of their work. View more photos in our gallery

Celebrating 100 years with a win at the Australian Training Awards

For Hutchinson Builders, just being considered for the title of the Australian Training Awards 2011 Employer of the Year was a big win.

But as Training Manager Alan Waldron says, to win the award is a boost to the whole company.

It’s been a big year for the century-old company. Alan said it was a huge honour to be named as the Queensland Employer of the Year, and to move on to the next level was, at the very least, a great opportunity to get together with other businesses that are passionate about training—and of course to celebrate the hard work.

“The staff should be especially proud—they’ve helped us to achieve this,” Alan said.

“Hutchinson Builders is not interested in giving people jobs; we want to give them careers.

“We approach it in much the same way as other organisations.

“Our training consists of breaking down complicated things into smaller components and teaching those components.

“Occasionally we joke about it and call it ‘Hutchifying’—we want our staff to understand Hutchinson Builders, to know the systems and know our business.”

One of Australia’s largest privately-owned building and construction companies, Hutchinson Builders employs more than 1100 people, including 160 Australian Apprentices, and spends more than $3.7 million annually on education and training.

The holistic Workforce Development Program encompasses school-based training, apprenticeship development, future leaders and personal development programs and cadetships.

“The key thing for us is to grow the company and our people—that’s what’s important,” Alan said.

“Against the industry standard of about 60 per cent completion rate for apprentices, our 95 per cent looks really good.

“But the thing for us is the retention rate after they complete their training, which is around 75 per cent.

“People learn from us and stay with us. They can connect with the ‘real’ work and they can bring it back and use it straight away,” Alan said.

“The other thing that helps us is that we tend to carefully pick our apprentices, and we pay them more because they have the advanced skills we expect.

“Our apprentices are our future leaders and we call them that; we train them for that and they look forward to it.”

Alan said the company’s presentation to the Australian Training Awards judging panel  included a focus on four of the company’s future leaders: Jesse Alroe, a Master Builders Apprentice of the Year who works under the leading-hand carpenter in Toowoomba; Sean Beauchamp, an apprentice to a subcontracted plasterer; Giancarlo Pozzebon, a Construction Skills Queensland and Master Builders Australia Apprentice of the Year to leading-hand carpenter in Townsville; and Matt Stenner, an apprentice to a contracts administrator in Mackay.

“They’ve all gone on to work for us in different offices or as subcontractors,” Alan said.

“We respect them. They respect us. At the end of the day we’re all tradies—we look after each other.

“We’re moving into our next phase of education now. We’ll be trying to get a common understanding between our cadets and our future leaders.

“The cadets come to us from uni with the theory, but no hands-on experience—and the future leaders have all the practice and not as much higher level theory.

“We are aiming for that middle ground, where all our staff are ‘Hutchified’ and know what’s expected.”
Alan says Hutchinson’s Gold Coast School of Construction, which is deeply involved in training recruits for the company and other industry partners, has just become a registered training organisation.

“So we’re continuing to work with local high schools to identify talented students with the potential to be future leaders in our industry,” he said.

“These kids can train with us for six months and have the chance to work with us, one of our subcontractors or someone else we have connections with.

“Our graduates are in great demand as they know how we work and they are very productive from their first day of full-time work.”

Hutchinson Builders is a great example of how collaboration between the Australian Government, a business, a registered training organisation and local schools can benefit the community and the local economy.

Do you need more skills or to become qualified?

The Australian Government recognises the importance of skills and training in building Australia’s future workforce and delivering sustainable economic growth into the future.

Nationally, the Government has awarded more than $1 billion in funding for 288 Trade Training Centre projects, benefiting over 900 schools across Australia, with more than 131 TTCs already built. It has also spent $1.1 billion supporting apprentices and trainees, and found job placements for more than one million people—many of whom are young, Indigenous or have disability.

• Have you thought about your skills?
• Interested in a career change to make more money?
• Are you interested in getting a qualification?
• Why not take advantage of the Government’s investment in a highly-qualified skills economy?

For more information about Building Australia’s Future Workforce, go to www.skills.gov.au or free call 13 31 96.

To read more about the Australian Government’s investment in skills and training, go to www.deewr.gov.au/ezines.