Established in 1989, Instalcom Ltd. has established itself as a leading infrastructure and utility “design and build” contractor, providing a wide range of civil engineering services.
Acquisition in 2002 by O’Connor Utilities Group created a national, multi-utility group supplying civil engineering and utility services from multiple locations throughout the United Kingdom.
Firmly based on years of experience overcoming a range of challenging situations and successfully
delivering a variety of projects for numerous clients, Instalcom’s robust and growing reputation for excelling in challenging urban and open environments gives their clients confidence that their project demands will be delivered with sound engineering solutions, technical excellence, and a “can-do” attitude.
Active in multiple utility sectors including telecommunications, electric, water, gas, and directional drilling, Instalcom’s five divisions seamlessly integrate where appropriate with multi-skilled professional personnel providing transferable skills, offering substantial benefits to customers. The organization readily acknowledges that its strength lies in its people and that their skills and significant experience are the primary assets in delivering to their clients.
With a workforce of 2,350 operatives supported by a Head Office and management team of 130, the company turnover has increased year on year and will exceed £60 million in 2020/21. An in-house plant and transport fleet, designed and equipped to perform all the relevant tasks on any project, gives Instalcom great flexibility to react to changing project requirements and manage workload to ensure timely completion.
Instalcom and the wider O’Connor Utilities Group recognize the need to recruit, train, and provide ongoing development of their people to ensure that they continue to provide a highly qualified and multi-skilled workforce that repeatedly delivers projects successfully on time. Instalcom’s approach to business gives ample evidence that, as an organization, they live by its ethos to exceed the customer’s expectations and assure delivery right the first time, on time, and safely.
In 2016, Instalcom, and its parent company, O’Connor Utilities Group, identified two specific challenges that the business must resolve if they are to continue to make the progress they have established.
Firstly, the organization has been managed day-to-day by a small group of experienced and highly committed directors who know their industry well, understand the minutia of operating the business, and give good, strong leadership, but, as they look into their organization to identify high potential individuals who could progress into similar roles, they struggled to identify potential new leaders. Further growth in their business depends, in part, upon the available capacity for leadership and management. As their preference is to promote to senior positions from within rather than to recruit externally, they have identified that positive action is needed to provide personal development for team members who were doing well in their current roles and might be suitable for further progress.
Secondly, they acknowledged that the basis for progress in the business was the senior management's view of an individual’s ability to do their current job well. As an organization focused on civil engineering, that meant that individuals who were hands-on, with excellent technical skills, good at solving problems, and good at fire-fighting in challenging situations were most likely to have more work delegated to them and to be promoted. Inevitably, those individuals, while good at succeeding in dynamic, reactive, and, sometimes, chaotic situations, were less skilled at planning, communicating, delegating, motivating colleagues, and relying on wider managerial and leadership qualities.
Instalcom had looked at a range of possible training and development, including degree-level courses in business administration with a leading university, but identified a number of issues including cost and time away from the usual day-to-day business activities. LMI’s personal development material was identified by them as an excellent match to the requirement with the ability to deliver in an affordable way, flexibly, and with minimal disruption to their usual working arrangements.
Paul Alderton, Communications Director at Instalcom, attended a local introductory session being presented by LMI Director Karl Gasson. Impressed both with the ideas imparted and the way in which Karl delivered the workshop, Paul invited Karl to Instalcom to discuss in more detail the help LMI could offer the business to support its ambitious growth strategy.
Instalcom recognized that while it had developed a talented and committed workforce, many individuals had been promoted to roles that required management and leadership skills they had not specifically acquired in their earlier, more hands-on jobs.
After the launch of the EPP program to the team, Paul reports a beneficial impact on personal performance in many areas. Managers who before the program had difficulty organizing their day are now taking the time to understand the priorities for each day and plan before they start work and have a much more structured approach. They are combining that new, less reactive, planned approach with LMI’s conference planner template to minimize disruption for them and for the people they communicate with. Having earned promotion for their exceptional results, additional support was required to ensure a successful transition to new managerial roles. Appropriate coaching and learning were essential for Instalcom to continue to promote internally.
The Instalcom team had experienced a series of intensive team-building courses and short-term skills development coaching sessions in the past, but there had not been any sustained support focused on helping its managers learn how to become more efficient within their roles and achieve senior positions within the organization