My name is Prasanna Suraweera and I am a mechanical

engineering graduate from Curtin University.

Been with Wood & Grieve 11, 12, years now

and I started doing mechanical engineering

and moved into sustainable design or what

they call ESD which is environmentally sustainable

design.

I moved through the ranks at Wood & Grieve

which are few I guess, but now I’m a position

of, I’m a principle shareholder in the company

and I am the section manager for the sustainability

division in Perth essentially or in WA.

Wood & Grieve was started by Mr Wood and Mr

Grieve essentially.

Way back when about 50 odd years ago they

started with structural and mechanical services

and essentially we’re an engineering consultancy

so we provide consultancy services for clients

on their projects essentially.

We’ve got 400 odd staff nationally now providing

services basically every location in Australia

for the building services, building and infrastructure

sector.

We don’t do mining, etc. at this stage,

we’re solely focused on the built form sector.

So our China office is a support office for

us here in Australia, so at the moment we’re

currently not doing any actual active work

in China, but it’s a ‘watch-this-space’

let’s see where that goes, so yeah it’s

exciting times for us.

We’ve got a very flat structure in terms

of our hierarchy.

The way we work is essentially we’ve got

engineers, project engineers and then we’ve

got project engineers who are also section

managers.

The only other levels we’ve got is essentially

office managers and then directors and CEOs
etc.

So relatively speaking we have very few middle

managers, and what we, the way the business

works each of the what we call ‘project

engineers’ is a little business unit unto

themselves.

So when a person becomes a project engineer

they’re effectively charged with managing

their little pocket of business which includes

managing risk, managing finances, managing

staff etc.

So it’s a very flat structure as a company,

all of the owners are also people that work

within the company so we don’t have any

external shareholders as such so people that

are owners have a vested interest because

they are in it, in the trenches working day

to day.

So I guess that’s part of the structure

that also assists in maintaining the culture

that we have.

Our key focus is our people and our clients

that service, the service to our clients.

That’s the biggest driver for us.

We also I mean obviously from a business sense

our prime directive is to obviously make a

profit and also manage risk, so all those

things sort of go hand in hand.

OK, so my current role I am, my official title

is sustainability section manager and I am

a sustainability project engineer.

So what that involves as a project engineer

I run day-to-day projects for clients.

So I will be the lead, the sustainability

team leader essentially to make sure that

the projects sustainability objectives are

met and exceeded.
As a section manager I’m responsible for
managing my team of sustainability engineers

essentially so I also have another sustainability

project engineer and another four engineers

that work, that we share as a resource.

So our little division is close to the, it’s

probably the biggest sustainability division

in WA and we basically service all of WA and

potentially another projects that come up

nationally that need additional support from

a personnel point of view.

Most of the time as managers and leaders we

get called in to I guess put out the fires

that inevitably come up on projects.

Look, most typical days I’m involved in

day-to-day liaison with clients, making sure

you know project deadlines are met, making

sure we’ve got enough resourcing internally,

and I still get involved in the technical

engineering side of things, into the computer

simulations etc.

I still enjoy that side of it and I’m still

heavily involved in that side of it.

The ‘putting the fires out’ if something

does go wrong or something needs a lot of

attention then I sort of get pulled in as

the section manager to come and handle that

situation essentially.

That applies I guess for my sustainability

division as well as we quite often are the

project coordinators for other disciplines

as well, meaning where Wood & Grieve has 13

other disciplines that we offer as scope of

works that we offer to clients, and so we

might on any one project we might have anywhere

from 1 to all 13 on the job.

Some of the senior people take a coordination

role in coordinating all the other disciplines
as well.

So it could be, I could be dealing with sustainability

issues, I could potentially be assisting in

whatever else, acoustics, electrical, mechanical

etc.

So that’s a typical day.

My personal style in a word is probably democratic,

is the official word for it.

I guess it’s not something, I haven’t

gone out to say I want to be a democratic

leader it’s just something that’s evolved.

I guess relatively speaking I’m pretty young

in terms of my professional career, I guess

11, 12 years in and to be doing what I’m

doing.

But what I’ve learnt that works and is probably

the leadership styles imprinted onto me by

my mentors and my seniors when I was coming

up the ranks is a democratic style or that’s

the style that I’ve found that works the

best for me in my situation.

From a section managers’ point of view it’s

first and foremost I need to have a viable

division.

So I’ve got to meet financial KPIs, I’ve

got to make sure that my clients are 100%

satisfied with the service that we’re offering.

Again it comes back to the culture and the

values that Wood & Grieve have, and they’re

the things that I get measured on, and they’re

the things that are important to me in making

sure that my business has a long sustained

future.

Because if I don’t do those two things the

business fails and basically it doesn’t

work.

So they’re the key performance indicators

that I’ve got, that I need to meet.

Obviously to achieve those two I need to make

sure I have great people, I need to have happy

people that work for me essentially, so that’s

where our culture, our values come from.

That’s what works for us.

Look it’s consultancy basically, we’re

selling expertise, we’re selling people,

we’re selling knowledge essentially.

We market ourselves as experts in our respective

disciplines and that’s why we’ve sort

of broken it up into those disciplines so

that we can have those expertise fields.

We sell the quality of service that we provide,

we sell the expertise, we sell innovation,

that’s how it gets sold.

Fundamentally it’s a fee for time base arrangement,

but that’s only one aspect of it.

So most of our projects we do on a lump sum

basis so there is a, it’s equating a value

to the quality that we bring and differentiating

ourselves with somebody else essentially.

So that’s fundamentally how we go about

it.

Look, I’ve already spoken about the core

values, it’s something that was instilled

into us I guess from I certainly know when

I started.

It is the key thing that we find differentiates

us as well as we get told from our clients

and our peers that they feel differentiates

us.

It’s essentially, the core of what we are

it’s our people.

So we have, we say great people and we strive

for high performance.

We are at all times trying to do the best

by each other and our clients.
That fundamental I guess respect or empathy
is what resonates in the industry and that’s

why clients come back to us, that’s why

we have students that want to come and work

for us, that’s the core ethic I guess that

drives us.

So from that starting point is what comes

the exceptional service.

So because we’ve got happy people, that

allows us to give good quality of service.

We have the business owners are in the business,

so that drives them to be better at what they

do, it’s not an external entity that’s

making business decisions for us on our behalf

where we don’t have any control, that they’re

not in touch with what we do or our business.

So I guess all of those things put together

just make sure that we are able to stand by

those values and actually deliver those values.

So without sounding cheesy it’s not somebody

didn’t come and say we created these values

and now go and live them, it was almost the

other way around, it’s something that’s

evolved from the original Kip & Tony’s days,

that’s their culture.

They were two Uni students and they built

it up and that’s the culture that they fostered

over a long period and I guess the long standing

nature of most of the senior staff is testament

to that.

But it’s also what helps us drive that culture

going forward, it’s always having that mentoring

relationship.

When I first started I had senior people that

had been around for 10, 20 odd years and they

instilled that culture onto us and now it’s

I guess my legacy to take it forward.

They’re the things that I think is what

stands us in good stead and differentiates
us.

It’s probably the same answer, for us and

this is my personal opinion I guess, for me

it’s all about relationships.

It’s about network and relationship and

it’s not, I don’t finish a task and go

OK I’m now going to go and build my network

or I’m now going to go an market, it’s

a philosophy to life I guess is that every

single person that you meet is a valuable

park of your network and you should treat

it that way.

If you just have the respect for other people

it makes it, you’re on a level playing field.

Perth being what Perth is it’s a very small

pond in the scheme of things, which can difficult

if you’re trying to break into the circle

I guess.

But once you’re there it’s actually really

quite easy as long as you provide those key

qualities; respect, empathy and you’re trying

to achieve a good outcome for your peers then

it’s actually easy to build a good reputation.

I’m speaking for myself personally as well

as for everybody else, and all the other senior

people at Wood & Grieve we also abide by that

same philosophy.

I guess it’s that commitment to client service,

clients can trust us to deliver the outcome.

We’re not there just to, I’ve got a vested

interest in delivering the outcome for my

client because it means that I’m going to

do a good job and it means that it’s going

to make sure my business is sustained for

the future.

So great service I think is paramount and

I guess that’s why we’re fortunate enough

to be in Perth which sort of is an easier

place to provide that and build a reputation

and build that network, build those relationships

essentially.

Our business is very much influenced by what

the market is doing.

So we’re a service provider so that means

that if clients are in a downturn then that

means that we obviously eventually come down

in our business turnover as well.

So things like the GFC where the entire market

had a huge downturn, that was a significant

challenge for us to get through and to get

through I guess in a way that we could be

proud of.

So we saw a lot of layoffs in the industry,

in the wider industry where as soon as the

profits take a dive then obviously mass letting

go of people.

So from our point of view we talk the talk

about our people and how much value that they

bring and for us we didn’t want to just

let go of mass let go of all our people so

that was a significant challenge and it took

all of the differentiators that we had to

get through that phase and you know it’s

still something that’s continuing I guess

is the market forces that eventually go up

and down and I guess that’s in every business.

But for us we sort of made sure we stuck to

our guns, stuck to the values that were important

to us and just really reinforced the need

to leverage our relationships, really provide

good service and we sort of came through reasonably

well.

So that is always, that has been and always

will be one of the great challenges is trying

to meet the market demand and also downfall

but obviously keep a sustained business and

keep the people happy and engaged and all

that kind of stuff.

That’s probably the significant challenge

is making sure there’s enough business coming

through the door.

Our client base includes everyone from governments,

architects, project managers, quantity surveyors.

We sometimes do work for our peers, so we

have a wide variety of clients and a wide

variety of projects for that matter.

From our side we don’t narrow ourselves

into a particular client base or a particular

type of project, and I think that’s really

important because clients want to know that

we can be there for them irrespective of project

size whether it’s a billion dollar project,

or a couple of hundred thousand dollar project,

it needs to be just as important from our

side and the clients need to feel that.

That’s the philosophy we take into all our

projects.

So we don’t, we try not to narrow ourselves

into a particular client base or a particular

project type.

The industry that we’re in is an interesting

one.

I guess the direct industry that we’re in

is the built form and infrastructure, civil,

land development space.

The engineering consultancy service that’s

offered by us is only one part of engineering

consultancy, so there’s a wide gamut of

consultancies that fall into the engineering

consultancy space, and a lot of the companies

naturally align themselves with something

like oil and gas, or mining, because when

times are good they’re the ones that are

prospering the most.

So what we see is our wider industry, most
of our competitors have, and I say most have

arms that the reason the exist is to service

those mining or oil & gas clients, and then

they also have the building services sectors

as ‘support’ and to kind of provide additional

revenue streams as a secondary business.

So majority if you look at from a staff proportion

point of view that the majority of the staff

in those consultancies are serving those ‘key’

engineering fields, whereas for us we’re

more focussed in on the one which is the built

form and infrastructure.

It’s an interesting space so at the moment

a lot of the services that we provide have

been around for many many years.

Things like mechanical services and electrical

services, they’ve been the core disciplines

that have been going on for many, many years,

long before Wood & Grieve.

Some of the opportunities come out of the

things that we’re doing at the moment which

is the sustainability sector.

So sustainability and built form was a natural

fit because there’s a lot of impacts from

the built form so there was a lot of opportunities

for improvements.

So that’s, it’s an opportunity that has

been around for quite a number of years now

and I guess different locations in places

around the world has adopted those opportunities

to different levels so you see places like

California in the states that have got quite

a lot of engagement with the sustainability

opportunities and they roll it out almost

through government and it’s a business as

usual kind of approach.

Whereas in WA and Australia there’s a lot

of talk about it and the first infancy steps
into capturing those opportunities is being
taken, but there’s still a long way to go

in terms of how that gets rolled out.

So the sustainability opportunity is one that’s

been around for a while but still has a long

way to go, other sectors for us include the

technology and the integration space.

It’s a huge opportunity that what we call

the technology sector so that includes alternative

energy sources, it includes ICT, it includes

data, server rooms, data centres etc. all

of those kinds of things, as well as integration

which is at the moment we’ve got mechanical

systems, we’ve got electrical systems, we

might have IT systems, security systems.

All of those things are almost kept separate,

and never shall they meet.

So the integration opportunity is one where

you take a more holistic view and go ‘OK

all of these outcomes are needed, how do we

achieve that with a single system that provides

all of that service?’

So that integration opportunity is a pretty

significant one so at the moment we’re putting

a fair bit of input into that integration

sector, sorry the technology and integration

sector to try and push those opportunities

out.

Look it’s funny because we’re about getting

things built.

We’re about physical things that we can

touch and feel.

But a lot of the big innovations I think need

to come from a more legal and business standpoint

and legislation standpoint.

There’s a lot of innovative technologies

that have come about that can’t be rolled

out because of governance issues.

Because of legal issues, and essentially you
could use the term ‘red tape’.

Some of the things that we face is the roll

out of renewables for example, to be fair

it has come along in leaps and bounds, but

there’s still a long way to go.

So the whole energy sector and the regulation

that goes around that, and the things that

facilitate renewables for example are few

and far between.

So there’s a lot of road blocks in its way,

so the more we can champion those innovative

approaches to thinking and governance the

more of the technology innovations that can

be rolled out so it’s not an innovative

product, it’s not an innovative service

perse, those things will come, there’s plenty

of drive and expertise in the industry to

roll that out but what we need to see and

will happen will be the governance and the

legal frameworks that need to go behind it.

Success is a very subjective thing so it’s

a question of how you measure it.

For us, it’s creating profit so that we

can sustain our business and keep this vehicle

going.

The other big part of it is for us it’s

always work.

Work is work, you’re not on a beach, work

is work.

But it’s making it a place that’s actually

reasonable and you’re actually looking forward

to going there to do the work essentially.

So it’s making it a good place to be.

It’s very hard to say what ‘success’

is, and what is a successful business?

For us we think we’ve achieved our objectives

and we continue to achieve those objectives
and I guess we just want to continue to live
the values and philosophies that we abide

by and to try and keep it going as long as

we can and keep it a sustainable business

going into the future.

Everyone can’t be leaders, and good leaders

(good managers) need good workers at all levels,

each one of those levels is a very important

slice of the pie I guess.

So without one of those levels you can’t

have a good leader.

So it’s not to say that everyone needs to

strive for leadership, so that’s probably

the first point.

The other point is that it’s almost something

that can’t be taught, and that’s ok.

I think that’s the first thing, you know

sometimes you and I remember when I finished

Uni it was OK I need to go for the next step

on the ladder and I need to be the next leader

and always strive to be that, that was a little

bit flawed because you get to those points

and then you sort of go well now what?

It’s a very enlightening sort of journey

to go through.

So where are we going to find the leaders?

I think the leaders are in, leadership is

in each of us and it’s just a question of

finding a place that fosters it as much as

possible.

But it’s also to a degree it’s not something

that can be taught.

That’s what I’ve found I guess, or learned

and I’m not in any way saying I’m a good

leader or a bad leader but it’s just something

that sort of evolves over time.

When you’re applying for a job, don’t

use a generic template letter, that’s the
first sign from a manager and a leader’s
point of view of a candidate.

Sometimes I read some of the application letters

and it’s almost a generic, it’s a downloaded-from-google

letter.

There’s no personality in it, there’s

no genuine interest in it, it’s almost a

mass mail-out type scenario.

Don’t waste your time.

If you’re willing to put the time in and

convey your personality, convey the things

that are important to you as a candidate,

they’re the things that we can identify.

It’s difficult, I used to hate the job application

process I was really bad at it, but it’s

funny now being a manager and hiring people

I can see why I was terrible at it.

It’s funny my one and only job, I’m still

here so there you go.

But it’s try and convey your personality,

your interests, the things that drive you

and take the time to learn about who you’re

applying to.

Learn about the company, learn about the person

you’re applying to if you can, find out

what drives that culture, that business and

you’ve just got to try and make a connection

at that level.

I guess that’s the first and foremost thing,

because that’s the first thing that I see

as a manger looking at new candidates.

Beyond that, if you get to an interview you

need to get personality across, you need to

get, and that doesn’t mean be extravagant,

it just means be natural but get your personality

across.

One of the big things for us, this is ‘us’

as Wood & Grieve, isn’t necessarily how

well you score in your university degree,

it’s actually the people skills.

It’s whether you can hold a conversation,

it’s whether you can have intelligent communication

with somebody.

They’re the things from, we’re a service

provider essentially and that’s what’s

important for me to make sure that the people

that I have in my team can communicate with

our clients and communicate well and communicate

empathetically and respectfully and achieve,

get to the point, you can get to achieving

the objective through communication because

that’s fundamentally what we’re about.

This is an interesting question, it’s very

difficult and I guess the issues that I see

for university graduates is that a) how they

learn is changing, so the whole open university

concept is drastically changing how and what

they learn.

The big issue for us as employers is that

we’re wanting people that are geared around

what we do.

And can fit into what we do and our culture

really, really well.

One of the concerns I have is that if you

go into something that’s too theoretical

it’s all well and good but you need to make

sure you’ve got some connection to the real

world.

Especially if you’re coming into a field

that similar to what we do.

It’s all well and good If you’re going

to do theoretical and you’re going to go

into a research type project, career and that’s

fine, but for us it’s all about applying

the knowledge that you’ve learned.

Going to university and getting knowledge
is good but the application of knowledge is

the difference I guess, is the X-Factor, is

that ability to apply knowledge and to apply

different concepts to achieve a particular

outcome.

I think the challenge to university students

is yes go and do your degree but you need

to look for opportunities to try and exercise

that ability to apply knowledge.

It’s not just about learning, it’s about

applying it.

Look for opportunities to do that.

We have 400 + staff, we’re in basically

most of the national cities around Australia

with the exception of Adelaide, we offer 13

disciplines we’re in all sectors of built

form and civil land development.