SIMON Higgins reckons his contracting company, ECM Global Project Partners, is all about growing people and keeping them.
ECM’s employment record is certainly evidence that the strategy is working.
Full-time equivalent staff numbers have leapt to more than 500 in the past three years, from 110.
In the same period revenue has nearly trebled, reflecting the company’s growth strategy, which it plans to continue in the medium term.
ECM has appointed investment adviser Argonaut to help the firm look at its options, including a potential IPO, as it seeks capital to forge ahead with expansion, including launching operations in Queensland.
Mr Higgins sees aiming for growth as self-perpetuating and, if done strategically, de-risks the company by keeping the best people while diversifying at the same time.
“You have to grow to continue to challenge the people you have groomed to help you grow,” he said.
He likens it to a sporting team hitting its straps and building momentum to be a grand finalist; it’s about keeping the right balance of old hands and new energy.
“That line management team we have is a mixture of youth, exuberance and experience,” he said.
Mr Higgins said the company had made a number of strategic moves that recognised the need for growth as a platform for staff retention. To date that has had two significant phases. The first was a decision to aim for rapid expansion in 2009 and get the company ready for that.
In 2010, ECM made a significant acquisition, diversifying into the structural, mechanical and piping sector with the purchase of Kwinana-based Press Construction Group, which it now calls PCG. That helped provide a more vertical orientation for ECM as it moved into a field that was typically involved earlier in the contruction phase.
That expansion was not done hastily, though.
Mr Higgins said that it was all about knowing the company’s market better than rivals did, which allowed them to better recognise the opportunities when they arose.
The ECM boss is adamant that this expansion, both organic and acquisitive, has been done without adding the bureaucracy and inefficiencies that usually come with scale.
“For a long time we were the biggest of the small guys or the smallest of the big guys,” Mr Higgins said.
“Now we are one of the big guys, but we don’t have that extra layer.”
That shows in the way the company puts its project managers out as the front line touch-point for clients; rather than having the CEO as the relationship manager.
“It is not me or Mike (Hender),” Mr Higgins told WA Business News.
“There are so many clients out there that when you say ‘ECM’ they would think of a person who is not necessarily the person.
“Our people own the reputation of the company.”
Mr Higgins proudly talks of a 29-year-old project manager based in Port Hedland who is in charge of a major contract and 200 staff.
He said this was possible through a talent identification program that actively sought out people capable of working their way up through the organisation, training them and then giving them opportunities by growing the company.
“Some people put their hand up and say ‘I want to do some more’,” Mr Higgins said.
“That is an opportunity they would not normally get (elsewhere). Some people don’t realise how good they are.”
ECM has adapted this thinking to engage with Indigenous Training Australia in order to employ more Aboriginal people, a group particularly under-represented in the electrical contracting field.
Mr Higgins said that, at one point in a contract being undertaken for Fortescue Metals Group, 16 per cent of ECM’s workforce on that site was indigenous, bringing the company total to 9 per cent. That has slipped slightly but the goal is to maintain that at 10 per cent or above.
He said dealing with indigenous employees required a different approach from the traditional workforce.
“I am not saying it is complex, just different,” Mr Higgins said. “You need a support network.
“They (indigenous employees) need mentoring and people they know so that if there is an issue, cultural or otherwise, there is somewhere for them to go.
“ITA offers that counselling and advice service.”
ECM’s expansion plans are also factoring in the possibility of a slow-down in the future by diversifying into industrial services such as maintenance while the boom in construction is still at full steam.
“You can’t just think about that when everyone needs it,” Mr Higgins said.
“You have to establish that now; use that momentum period to establish that diversity in your business.”
The PCG business has also picked up some niche local content jobs in specialist areas generally termed exotic metal work such as tanks, vessels and pipe spooling; the sorts of areas Mr Higgins said WA-based fabricators could be competitive in compared to the large-scale LNG work, which was simply too big for the local market.
The group’s move to Queensland has already been mapped out; engaging people from there and blooding them in the ECM culture in WA, as well as identifying the local staff who will move east.
Mr Higgins believes Queensland has opportunities for ECM because it is only just moving to the larger scale projects that WA has been engaged in for many years.
As mentioned above, the company has also engaged Perth corporate adviser Argonaut on its options, including the possibility of a stock market listing.
Mr Higgins said the company was engaged in this process as a way of gathering additional capital and providing employees access to equity.
He added that ECM had assembled a team on the corporate side of the business that ensured the company was prepared for any eventuation from that process.
At present, Mr Higgins is one of three shareholders in the company. He took over as CEO from the founder Michael Hender, who remains an equity holder and chairs the ECM board.
