Hawkins Construction Ltd is New Zealand’s largest privately owned building company. Working on hundreds of construction sites, the very nature of their work can be hazardous so making health and safety a core value of their business is very important to them. However, with over 500 hundred employees and contractors spread through out the country, ensuring that they all have the necessary health and safety training was difficult.
In 2011, Hawkins replaced a five-year old computer-based system with a new programme. The old programme had been hosted in-house. The company decided last year it needed to do something about how it was delivering this training.
"We found we'd outgrown it so our CEO, who has a passion for safety and learning, asked me to do due diligence and come up with an alternative."
Upgrading from the old to the new system proved a pain-free process. Hawkins commissioned Wellington firm Genesis Consulting Group to take the existing e-learning application and convert it to run on open source platform Moodle.
Gen-i, meanwhile, which was already a significant Hawkins supplier, was the obvious choice as delivery partner. Hawkins Construction adopted the ReadyCloud Server infrastructure-as-a-service model, to host their new online health and safety e-learning tool.
The initial idea was tested on two of the Hawkins construction sites and proved highly successful. The system’s success was such that the process has been made mandatory on all Hawkins sites. The systems success was such that the process has been made mandatory on all Hawkins Construction sites. The best part is Hawkins Construction hasn’t had to go out and buy extra hardware or hire the extra staff to cope with the new online e-learning tool or the fluctuating demand, this is all handled by Gen-i.
As a browser application, all Hawkins staff and contractors are now able to complete their health & safety training at any time from anywhere making it very convenient and easy to do. Also, Hawkins Construction now has real time visibility of their workforces’ health and safety competency levels.
"When a company is about to join one of our projects, as part of the procurement process they send us a list of employees who will be on the site, and we provide them with log-ins to complete the health and safety requirements online, ensuring that everyone on site has adequate training.
The development and delivery of the system was straightforward. Gen-i’s ReadyCloud Server service is fast, scalable and robust enough to deliver the Hawkins Construction Health and Safety application.