WELL CONSIDERED. WELL DELIVERED.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:
CO
Ge disc
CONSTRUCTING A POSITIVE
OMPANY CULTURE
eneral Manager - New Business, Joel Martin cusses the company culture and core values that set Pensar Construction Group apart Written by: Sasha Orman Produced by: Vince Kielty
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PENSAR CONSTRUCTION GROUP
K
arl Yunker has always had a passion for construction, but as he developed his career, he saw the potential to apply a different approach to the industry. The result of that vision is Pensar Construction Group, founded by Yunker at the age of 28 and based on a concept of creating quality work in a highly positive work environment. It’s an idealistic ambition that has become a proven success: in the past three years alone, Pensar has doubled its staff numbers and Head Office - Staff
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revenue. Today, even more growth is on the horizon, as Pensar shows that good work and good company culture go hand in hand. BUILDING A POSITIVE MINDSET From the outset, Pensar Construction Group was created with the intention of fostering a constructive environment to work, as well as collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships with subcontractors, suppliers and clients to develop repeat work across the board. “Our core values are pretty oldfashioned,” says Joel Martin, GM of New Business at Pensar. To be accountable, respectful, patient, flexible, and focused—it’s actually fairly simple and straightforward.” But those simple values represent the culture of the company. “We’re not really a company that has an arrogance or ego attached to it,” says Martin. “We’re very down to earth, focused on doing good quality work. That’s seen us grow over the last 16 years from one person in a sublease office to 120-
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Brisbane Head Office
plus staff now, all for believing in the brand and buying into the ethos of the company.” BUILDING A BETTER WORKFORCE A positive environment does not mean a lax environment. Pensar has high expectations for staff from the start, but the expectations are balanced, with Pensar placing a high priority on giving employees the tools and resources they need to flourish.
“We have a very rigorous recruitment process, to ensure that we’re getting the right calibre of people, but we also don’t restrict them or pigeonhole them. Where they start is not always where they finish,” says Martin. By stressing the right fit, a strong work-life balance, and well-being activities ranging from community outreach to fitness lessons at its onsite boxing gym, Pensar strives to make its employees feel valued. For these efforts up front, Pensar w w w . p e n s a r. c o m . a u
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Sustainable Returns to Service Life through Rehabilitation of Concrete Infrastructure National Concrete Solutions have a range of capabilities that assist in providing Sustainable Returns to Service Life of Concrete Infrastructure. By utilising a number of specialised products and systems, we provide quality solutions that deliver and assist in the rehabilitation of Commercial and Civil Infrastructure. Our services continue to deliver high quality solutions to our clientele that will assist in not only extending the service life of our Clients’ Assets, we provide extensive cost savings in the reduction of future maintenance costs, through to maintenance scheduling and planning.
76 Merkel Street, Thurgoona NSW 2640 PO Box 255, Lavington NSW 2641 Phone: 02 6049 4848 Email: info@ncsaustralia.com.au
www.ncsaustralia.com.au
SUPPLIER PROFILE
National Concrete Solutions is a specialist, Contracting Organisation that has been incorporated since 1991. (NCS) prides themselves on their wealth of experience and knowledge in concrete solutions for the Commercial, Industrial and Civil sectors. Through continued investment, we build brand loyalty and address Environmental, Social and Economic factors, showing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to assist in lessening the effects on the community. This investment not only addresses global factors, it further provides technical education and development of our people. NCS provides a high quality service delivering sustainable solutions in Concrete Repair (Structural and Non Structural), Durability Solutions, Crack Injection, Structural strengthening, Joint repair systems, Water Ingress Prevention, Surface Coatings, through to restoration of heritage buildings and structures that results in Return to Service Planning, promoting Long Term Sustainable Benefits. National Concrete Solutions (NCS) does not view Corporate Social Responsibility as a regulatory cost, but an investment towards assisting in gaining a more sustainable future, in extending the life of Commercial and Civil Infrastructure. With passion being at the forefront of the Why we do it, together our team of committed people can work towards creating a sustainable future. Built on Loyalty, Honesty, Respect and Innovation, NCS continue to achieve providing Sustainable Solutions resulting in Rehabilitation of Concrete Infrastructure. Website: www.ncsaustralia.com.au
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is rewarded with a hard working and loyal staff—and that is something that the company does not take for granted, especially with its burgeoning growth. “Our short term and long term staff retention far exceeds the industry norms, because we don’t just hire people for projects and let them go when the project finishes. We’re looking to provide
safe, secure and stable long-term employment,” notes Martin. “The amount of people who have worked here for five to 10 years is quite outstanding, and we have initiated endeavours to identify these people and talk about their stories. We appreciate the long tenure they’ve brought to the organization, and the ideas they’ve brought in the time they’ve worked here.”
Mudgeeraba Water Treatment Plant
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WRB is one of Australia’s largest concrete sleeper retaining wall builders, specialising in concrete sleeper retaining walls, boulder walls, acoustic and timber fencing.
Phone: (07) 3245 1925 | Email: admin@wrbconstruction.com.au www.wrbconstruction.com.au
Solid thinking. Grounded results.
Morrison Geotechnic specialises in providing Geotechnical Engineering, Construction Materials Testing, and Engineering Geology to the civil, engineering, construction and mining industries.
A P E W
Unit 1, 35 Limestone Street, Darra QLD 4076 (07) 3279 0900 // F (07) 3279 0955 mickmorrison@morrisongeo.com.au www.morrisongeo.com.au
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BUILDING COMMUNIT Y TH ROUGH OUTR E ACH Philanthropy is a core value close to Pensar, displayed through its commitment to its community and such charitable organizations as Traction and White Ribbon. Along with monetary donations, the company also commits time and resources to the causes it supports. In the case of White Ribbon, this involves Pensar building awareness through its actions and social media management. For Traction, it’s
dedicating office and warehouse space to the youth organization to help it scale up and more comprehensively foster its growth through coaching and mentoring. “This comes back to that human element. We like to think and care about the community and charitable organizations,” says Martin. “Rather than just spending money on these things, we prefer to be hands-on and actually involved, and our staff find that empowering, because they can have more of a tangible impact.”
Boxing Team Building
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PENSAR CONSTRUCTION GROUP
Brisbane Airport Corporation Substation Upgrade
BUILDING TRUST WITH SUPPLIERS, S UBCONTR ACTOR S AND CLIENTS Pensar Construction Group’s interest in a positive and encouraging environment also extends to its dealings with clients on one end and its suppliers and subcontractors on the other. Not 12
interested in clinical, transactional one-off partnerships based on the lowest bids, Pensar sees value in building a partnership that lasts and always working to understand our customer’s needs. “We want to build relationships with like-minded companies that share our high professional standards, and help them grow as
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we grow,” says Martin. As Pensar has found, there is a simple key to building these collaborative relationships. “The foundation of true collaboration is good communication, being open and honest and having frank discussions at the start to let people know where they stand—each stakeholder gets
the opportunity to talk about what they hope to achieve,” says Martin. “Over time, it happens organically that positive relationships are formed and continue to evolve and strengthen. It doesn’t happen on day one, but we definitely try to build a rapport. We try to keep the same set of rules and create the same kind of positive collaborative w w w . p e n s a r. c o m . a u
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PENSAR CONSTRUCTION GROUP
relationships up and down the food chain.” TH E ROA D A H E A D “Do good things and be generous, and good things will come back to you. We believe in karma,” says Martin. That belief has been bolstered by Pensar’s successes, which have continued with the company’s recent diversification strategy. Now the company is entering a period of consolidation to ensure that the strategy is able to take root and survive in the long term and that risk among the divisions is well balanced. “We will continue to grow in a slow and sustainable fashion,” says Martin, adding that the company plans to expand its staff to around 200 by the year 2020. “We’re ensuring that our building, water and power divisions are still growing and moving forward, increasing revenue and staff numbers, and are profitable so they can sustain their growth and continue to be viable businesses.” As Martin explains, Pensar’s 14
Rocky Point Boat Ramp, North Qld
growth is exciting for more reasons than just the increase in revenue that it brings. “Growth creates opportunity for the staff that work here, as well as opportunity for people to come in and bring fresh ideas and fresh energy to the company,” he says. “We’ll be tweaking the
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Company Information INDUSTRY
Civil, Building and Utilities HEAD OFFICE
- South Brisbane, Qld Australia REGIONAL OFFICES
- Cairns, North Queensland - Somersby, New South Wales FOUNDED
2000 EMPLOYEES
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organizational structure, and that will open up new opportunities for existing staff to be promoted or move into a completely different role. We’ve already created two new roles in the organization that current staff members are moving into in the next couple of months. It’s exciting to see that play out as we speak.” As the business continues to accentuate the positive, the sky is the limit for its success.
REVENUE $115m group turnover
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H Q @ PE NSAR.C OM.AU W W W. P E NSAR.C OM.AU.C OM
8 Hockings Street, South Brisbane Queensland - Australia - 4101 Tel. +61 7 3846 5922 | Fax. +61 7 3846 1599