View from the top: An update on the Teckal Advisory Group

This week, I had the pleasure of Chairing the second meeting of the new Teckal Advisory Group.

The Group consist of 4 highway Teckal companies who all have a considerable workforce and cover a range of services from capital projects to traditional highway maintenance. The companies include NY Highways (represented by Jamie Crumlish Managing Director and myself as Chairman), Norse Highways (represented by Jason Glasspoole Operations Director), Cormac (represented by Dominic Bostock Managing Director) and Via EM (represented by Dan Maher Managing Director and Matthew Lugg as Chairman).

We originally formed this group to share best practice on day-to-day activities, innovative processes and materials and to look at cross trading opportunities between the companies.

In all of my 40+ years in highways, I have not witnessed 4-likeminded companies openly sharing data on performance, salary, employment benefits and other HR metrics. It was so encouraging to see how much alike they all were in terms of the statistics but each one had some unique elements about their operations due to local circumstances.

The Group discussed growth potential and in particular the opportunities right on their doorstep. Such opportunities included S278 and S38 Agreements and the level of service they can offer to developers in their own areas. Like all discussion points some had more experience than others which meant the learning could be vastly accelerated for some.

All participants are absolutely set on getting more from this collaboration and have agreed to put members of their own Senior Leadership Teams in touch with their counterparts to further learning opportunities. I have no doubt that the 4 organisations will become more efficient and resilient through participating in the Group.