Becoming One Team that Delivers Excellence

Following the meteoric rise to become the UK Highways Agency’s main vehicle for highway management, A-one+ remains the country’s leading Managing Agent Contractor.  The joint venture between Halcrow, Colas and Costain has seen a period of rapid growth, doubling in size to over 1800 employees in the last couple of years.

There are lots of reasons why A-one+ are successful, but understanding what the client is looking for in terms of service delivery is key to their success, and remains their highest priority after safety. Having just one client means they can shape their organisation and their systems to deliver what that client wants.

Following the successful winning of a new contract with the Highways Agency in one area of the UK (Area 7) a new management team was created for that area.  This management team came from different parts of the joint venture organisations, and there was a need and a desire to galvanise this team so they could engage and empower all involved in the new project.

Doug Coutts, General Manager commented  “As General Manager of a new team coming from different areas and contracts I felt that we needed some expert help from outside the organisation to help us bring our people together, at a time when we were facing difficult economic circumstances and increasing pressure from our client to deliver more for less.  In today’s environment we needed to be sure we were getting the best from our people.”

After much consultation, Dale Carnegie was chosen as the preferred supplier for this project. In the initial phase they had to get the buy in and commitment from all members of the management team and this was done through a series of meetings and 1-2-1 coaching sessions.  Once the needs were clear and the Area 7 Management team were committed to the development, there were then a series of development sessions focused on attitude and skills development to energise the team and engage and empower others in Area 7.

Running alongside the Development Sessions, the management team were working on Business Improvement Projects to find news to engage and empower others in Area 7.