When a former teacher - and now successful construction business boss - faced a shortage of good staff, he decided to start his own school.
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Entrepreneur: Ian Anderson, Managing Director
Company: Boss Corporation (including Boss Homes)
Business type: Home design and construction
Founded: 2001
Employees: 45 full-time; 6 casual
Turnover: (2004 - 2005) About $20M
Head office: Robina, Queensland; The Boss Institute: Burleigh Heads, Queensland
Contact details: +61 7 5559 1277
The Boss Corporation Story
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Key learning points:
- Staff loyalty - Are you giving your staff reasons to stay with your business?
- Training - Your business has valuable industry skills - can they be taught to others, helping them and helping you?
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The labour shortage is forcing businesses such as the Queensland construction company Boss Homes to take leaps of faith with staff - and it is paying off. Boss Homes, a division of Boss Corporation, turns over more than $10 million annually and its Accounts Manager, Samantha Ingham, is a 20-year-old in her first full-time job.
Boss’s Managing Director, Ian Anderson, employed Samantha as a trainee three years ago, fresh from her part-time job at McDonald’s. Boss is assisting her to undertake accounting studies at university. Anderson says: “For the company to go to the future, I’ve got to look at people, regardless of age and qualifications.”
Boss Corporation, the parent company of Boss Homes, was founded in 2001. Within five years, the company has reached an annual turnover of $20 million and has a voracious appetite for staff. Anderson says: “We have $25,000 to $30,000 wages bills each week, which wasn’t there four years ago.” Anderson believes for Boss to grow successfully, it needs committed staff and - in return - staff need long-term career-paths at the company.
The Challenge
Anderson believes the building industry skills shortage is partly because construction is not seen as glamorous or stable. That perception has not changed much since the 1970s, when Anderson was a teacher in Melbourne. Many people looked down on students who were practical rather than academic. He says: “Guys who excelled at woodwork were considered non-academics and were termed blue-collar workers. You were considered a failure before you even started.”
Now, Anderson runs a construction business and that dismissive attitude affects him personally and financially. He believes that students who do not excel at English and are drawn to a trade should be able to look forward to a long-term career in the building industry. If the construction industry could offer a career path and recognise such students’ talents, it could tap a valuable pool of labour. But how to do this?
The Solution
Anderson’s practical solution was to set up his own school, applying the knowledge gained from more than 30 years in the construction business. In April 2005, Boss Corporation revamped the former Billabong Surfwear building at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast and opened the Boss Institute of Advanced Technology. The Institute has 25 students in all construction trades and plans to educate 80 students a year.
In 2006, under an initiative with the Queensland Education Department, the Institute will run a pilot program with eight secondary schools on the Gold Coast. Students will study at the Institute for a term. All subjects including maths and English will be integrated into the learning environment.
Boss plans to employ many of the graduates either directly or through its network. It receives the usual government apprentice training incentives to help cover costs. Students from outside the Boss network pay their own way. Anderson says: “We have two worksites where we are going to build two houses with the kids. They will rotate through all the trades.” The homes will be auctioned off, with all profits - about $40,000 - going to charity.
Anderson has even bigger plans for 2007. “We’ll put 20 kids through a cadet programme with us over two years. The idea is they will be the best entrepreneurial cadets the building industry has produced and every one of those kids will get a job.” The program will cost about $1 million over two years.
The Result
Trainees who graduate are capable of four level-one tasks on site (such as preparing tools and equipment). From there, they pick up on site four level-two tasks, freeing up experienced carpenters to focus on value-added tasks that require much higher skill levels. The benefit runs both ways: trainees are ready to learn on the job and they are useful on the job site from day one. Anderson forecasts that the Boss Institute will significantly help his business by raising productivity, providing trained labour for new projects, and, of course, increasing employee retention by providing better career paths. He says “We expect that it will help our bottom line by more than 20%.”