Jay Thanki, Principal Engineer – Local Government Discipline at WSP – highlights the importance of collaboration and why dissemination of new ideas is key to driving change in the sector.
Q. What are the biggest challenges facing the highways sector?
A. “One of the biggest challenges faced within the highway sector is collaborative working and this issue has been compounded by the pandemic.
“This is an industry wide challenge, however the Local Government Project Management Office (PMO) at WSP thrived by creating a fully remote technical team. The team overcame barriers by adapting innovative technological solutions that benefited everyone’s home environment, which also helped the team to collaborate with our overseas resources in South Africa and India and create better partnerships.
“In the fast-paced highways industry, with challenging demands, it has become difficult to strike the right balance between training colleagues and providing deliverables. WSP supports the development of all staff and the training for professional qualification, including real-life experiences, giving the opportunity for more junior colleagues to tackle technical issues and gain a better understanding of the highway industry.
Q. How is WSP working with councils to help them deliver highway services?
A. “WSP have a cohort of champions who successfully improve the value and quality of outputs. There are champions dedicated to each of the commissions we currently have within the Local Government discipline, following the WSP initiatives of Net Zero, BIM and Digital, Continuous Improvement Lean and Future Ready.
“Future Ready (proactively accommodating with changing environments) is important to the whole project life cycle, focusing more on design and maintenance. The Future Ready champions within the Local Government Discipline at WSP have held several virtual workshops, concentrating on either the project as a whole in the Concept Design phase or a particular aspect of the design in the Detailed Design phase, which is defined in the scope definition stage. They facilitate this with specialist designers to discuss items relating to Climate, Society, Technology, and Resources, identifying what the next steps are on the project to address the future trend.
“Knowledge Management is a very new initiative within the Local Government service, derived from Continuous Improvement Lean (improving business functions) and follows a philosophy of acquiring, application, retention, and handling knowledge. WSP has employees all over the world who have tackled issues and constraints with unique ideas and the focus of this initiative is to ensure that these ideas are documented for reuse by all colleagues within WSP.
“As the Local Government PMO team works across several different commissions alongside several different disciplines, they are in a very good position to share lessons learned from specialist designers and different councils.”
Q. How has your team adapted to the challenges brought about by Covid-19?
A. “All companies within the highways sector had to quickly adapt to the challenges faced by the pandemic, which I am sure no one will doubt has been a learning curve. WSP has quickly made adjustments within the business, introducing several wellbeing initiatives. WSP My Hour is a unique initiative whereby colleagues can be flexible for up to an hour every day, encouraging self-care, whether they are working from home or working within the office. There are platforms to share what they have utilised their time with, some of which include volunteering, spending time with loved ones, working on hobbies, or taking the dog on a nice long walk.
“My team has members scattered throughout the UK and India. Working from home has the obvious downsides of not having a commute which allows people to leave the house and exercise. To tackle this, the team has introduced a yearly wellbeing pledge that is shared amongst colleagues and monitored throughout the year. This pledge has individual goals to be attained within each quarter of the year, which is encouraged by all colleagues and exercising is the most common.
“In the monthly team meeting there is a dedicated segment focussing on a particular member of the team which is titled “Two Truths and a Lie”. This comprises a short introduction of the team member, identifying hobbies, culture, and interesting facts, followed by three statements, one of which is a lie. Not only do we gain a better understanding of the individual member, but it also gives us the opportunity to embrace different cultures and be respectful to each other.”
Q. How much importance is put on innovation within your business and in what ways can it enable change?
A. “My team has a strong presence in a working group called the Technical Leadership Group and this is a forum within WSP where innovative ideas are shared with colleagues and then disseminated down to all colleagues within the highway industry. With a platform provided by the Continuous Improvement Lean champions, we are always looking to not only have innovative solutions but share these solutions throughout the company.
“Innovation in buildability is what I believe we should be moving towards. Buildability is something that comes with experience, and in order to gain that experience, it is essential for early career professionals to have the opportunity to work on-site, alongside the contractors to understand the practical side of the industry. This is where I believe innovation can prosper.
“I’d like to share this quote by Charles Darwin, which I heard in a WSP Digital presentation that really resonates with me: “it’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change”.”
Q. In what ways do you collaborate with local authorities and the wider supply chain?
A. “Whilst I was working on a project within the Hertfordshire commission, new cycling design guidance, titled LTN 1/20, was released. A colleague took it upon himself to educate the wider team on how to utilise the standards with 16 short sessions.These were not limited to WSP staff but also for external professionals working alongside WSP, the client team, and also the supply chain partner. Not only did this educate the engineers on how to deliver a project utilising these standards, but it also enlightened both clients and contractors on the issues surrounding the design of a cycleway.
“There are several local authorities that have declared a climate emergency and the WSP Net Zero champions have been working hard to generate a baseline for 2021 with regard to carbon footprints. Net Zero and Digital have since joined forces to create an automated system to output the carbon footprints of different types of schemes, varying from carriageway maintenance to major projects.”
Q. How important is the role of LCRIG in driving change within the sector?
A. “There is a vast representation of several different local authorities within LCRIG that massively influence the highway industry. There are several forms of communication held within the group ranging from webinars, blogs, shared websites and conferences. WSP have a great appreciation of what LCRIG offers as well and this is shown by the long-standing supporting role Matthew Lugg, Director of Local Transport has undertaken, from its inception.”