In an old notebook I found a list of ideas for things I might one day write about. There’s no date on it and I can’t remember when I wrote it.
It’s a hastily-scribbled collection of thoughts and experiences from working in the construction industry for nearly twenty years. Most were familiar. One or two made almost no sense.
Then there was one that caught me by surprise because of its relevance. The note said:
It’s not a question of knowledge; it’s a question of attitude.
In November 2020, the Grenfell Tower inquiry began hearing about the products used to clad the tower. Much of the evidence has made for grim reading. It reflects poorly on the people, their companies, and aspects of product manufacturing in the construction industry.
On 20th November, as part of its reporting on the inquiry, the Construction Manager website published this news article. The person giving evidence was Jamie Hayes, formerly a ‘Technical Services Officer’ at Celotex.
When I first entered the world of insulation, working for a competitor of Celotex, I held the same job title. Exactly how similar my role was is impossible to say, but the coincidence of the shared title made one otherwise innocuous line from the article jump out at me. It said:
Despite the role’s title, Hayes did not have any technical qualifications…
It got me thinking - about my own qualifications, about how I came to work in insulation, and about what constitutes a ‘technical qualification’. Then I found a list in an old notebook and realised I’d been thinking about the topic long before this part of the inquiry started.
In the context of the article saying he “did not have any technical qualifications”, I must admit to some sympathy for Jamie Hayes. When I read that, I didn’t know how to interpret it.
Was it a comment aimed at the individual, for not gaining ‘suitable qualifications’?
Was it aimed at Celotex, for employing someone ‘without qualifications’?
Or was it aimed at the industry as a whole, for making it possible for ‘unqualified’ people to be giving out technical advice and working on technical issues?
I spent five years at college doing formal qualifications in construction and the built environment. The courses were varied. Some of the subjects were useful for my role in architecture at the time. Some of what I learnt has stayed with me beyond that, even if its usefulness is subject to debate.
One of my favourite lecturers used to explain how ‘breeze block’ is not a correct term, because concrete blocks have not been made using breeze for a long time. Occasionally someone will say ‘breeze block’ and I have to mention it, if only because my lecturer’s passion deserves to live on.
When I was employed as a technical services officer, however, it soon became clear that what I did know was nowhere near enough.
Should I have had more than a HNC in Building Studies in order to perform a technical services role? Having a HNC might have helped me to get the job. More relevant, I suspect, was my working knowledge of architectural practice and construction projects, my ability to understand construction drawings.
Over time, the research I did to answer people’s questions became my qualification. Fielding twenty or thirty enquiries a day, every day, highlighted gaps in my knowledge that I sought to fill.
A stack of books, British and European Standards, and industry publications gradually built up on my desk. I went on training courses and attended seminars, benefitting from the advice of experts.
I read DIY forums and became horrified at some of the advice I saw being dished out on them (sometimes you learn by recognising wrong answers as much as by understanding the right answers).
Talking to designers, specifiers, contractors, members of the public and the staff in builder’s merchants built my knowledge in a way that no qualification could. So we need to be careful when describing people as ‘qualified’ or ‘having no technical qualifications’.
Which is where we come back to an old notebook. “It’s not a question of knowledge, it’s a question of attitude.”
The best technical people I know appreciate and enjoy the complexity and minutiae of technical questions. We don’t mind when the answer is simple, but we’re not scared by situations where a simple answer isn’t enough.
Decoding the real issue behind an apparent problem, proposing a solution, feeling like you’ve helped the other person - those are things I’ve always found rewarding about giving technical advice in construction. I suspect it’s part of why others who are good at it do the job that they do.
Curiosity; a willingness to embrace complexity; a desire to help; an appetite for learning; a desire to make a positive impact on construction - these are qualities you can’t teach. For the kind of technical roles we’re talking about, these are what makes a ‘good’ or ‘qualified’ person.
Having worked in an insulation manufacturer’s technical department, one of the things I find most interesting about the Grenfell inquiry reporting is seeing how the technical, marketing and commercial sides of different businesses interacted and conducted themselves.
As this blog post attests, it’s been impossible not to compare and contrast with my own experiences.
Post-Grenfell, post-Dame Judith Hackitt’s review and recommendations, construction is putting plans in place to be better. Working groups are looking at all aspects of the industry, including the integrity of marketing and the competence of people who interact with products.
One of the working groups has defined competence using the acronym SAKE - skill, attitude, knowledge and experience (see page 203 of this report).
At the time of writing, the same working group is also “researching and developing a method of identifying, mechanising and evaluating, both organisational and individual behaviour” (page 43 of this report).
During my time as a technical services officer, the technical manager and I asked our line manager for authorisation to attend some retrofit training courses. We weren’t seeking to spend money for the sake of it, so we picked six modules that we thought best suited gaps in our knowledge.
Getting the nod from our marketing colleague proved difficult, because we couldn’t explain exactly what benefits we’d gain from attending the courses. We could outline general trends that showed the topic was becoming more important, but we couldn’t say exactly how we’d apply the new information (because we needed to learn it first!).
The lack of faith in why we considered it important enough to ask was telling. Had the proposed competency matrix existed at the time, it’s hard to say who would have held what grades. Crucially, I’m not sure it would have mattered.
Our skills, attitude, knowledge and experience were already known, by a colleague who worked with us every day. Our qualities weren’t enough to win complete trust that we were asking for something worthwhile, so what difference would having passed a test to rank our competency have made?
I could quote other examples.
Attempts to grade competency and ‘mechanise individual and organisational behaviour’ sound good, but will they result in the kind of changes - especially within product manufacturing - where the value of technical people, with the kind of qualities I’ve talked about, is properly recognised?
Does SAKE capture all of the qualities I’ve talked about? Can it ever capture them? And will it encourage change in companies who don’t properly appreciate those qualities?
I want these initiatives to be successful because I want the construction industry to be better. But I don’t want technical people to be swallowed up into a tick-box matrix. I took it personally when I read the words “did not have any technical qualifications”, because it grossly underrepresents what a person in a technical role can (and often does) offer.
At the moment, SAKE is designed to cover many people involved in many stages of construction. It operates at the level of ‘having x qualification’, when good technical people should be celebrated and elevated and seen for more than a grade on a piece of paper.