Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Introduction

This wasn’t my intended blog but I wanted to share this now as it only happened yesterday. This blog covers my reactions to being tasked with a piece of sustainability work that I feel is not aligned with my DAP and therefore is likely to fall short of meeting my UK-SPEC requirements. I’m not one to shy away from work but I feel there is sound justification for doing so in this instance.

Background

When I first arrived here I made it a point to explain my raison d’être to both my immediate boss and mentor. I talked through my DAP and expressed examples where I thought I could meet my outstanding UK-SPEC requirements. In particular, E3 – undertake activates in a way that contributes to sustainable development. My take on this, pretty much identical to the bullet points from the UK-SPEC, was to get involved on a new project where I could conduct the stakeholder engagement piece, understand which star rating (on the Green Star spectrum) they wanted to aim for, and be creative and imaginative in coming up with design solutions. Well it hasn’t quite panned out that way…yet.

Issue

The week prior to my immediate boss arriving back in office from extended holidays (cue identified miscommunication) I was given the heads up that there was some sustainability work I could help out with. This seemed to be well timed as one of the sustainability team was about to depart on maternity leave.

On conducting the initial sustainability meeting/training to understand the project and my involvement it became very apparent that what was actually being asked of me was nothing more than an admin and certificate gathering task.

The project

The project, Capital Square, is a new development on the edge of the Perth CBD and the developer has a major tenant, Woodside (in the mining, oil and gas industry) ready to move-in once complete. They were promised all kinds of sustainable initiatives in their current tenancy but the building owner hasn’t come through on any of them. So, they are eager to move into Capital Square and have expressed their need for all the bells and whistles. In Green Star rating terms this translates to a 6 Star building which requires 75 of 100 pts to be awarded the World Leadership title (there isn’t any higher rating at present).

Issue continued…

This all sounded great until I was told that all the Environmentally Sustainable Design had been done and the big push now was to compile all the relevant information (certificates and documents) that provides the evidence of the building actually meeting the points they aspired to. NDY use their own purpose built template (in excel) in which to track the status of this information. The end state being to submit the collated information pack to the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) by the end of Mar 16. A quick estimate means that I would be spending 50% of my remaining time on Phase 3 doing this admin based work; not a very constructive use of my time. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t learn anything from doing this work but I can easily get the majority of what I need from a simple review of the template used for this project, which I now intend to do. However, I don’t see any merit in actually going through what seems like two months of torturous spreadsheet compiling.

What did I do?

Immediately, in the meeting, I asked more probing questions to confirm my view of what I thought was being asked to ensure there wasn’t more to it; there wasn’t. I then explained my particular circumstance which immediately confirmed to me that my requirements were not communicated when my stand-in boss set-up the sustainability work I had asked for. It’s not a massive issue but my view is that it all too easily fell into place and solved a resourcing issue but which neglected to consider my needs. I’m not suggesting for a minute that I’m above doing this type of work, or doing as I’m asked in general, but when you consider that we are actually employed under unique circumstances then something needed to be said.

On reporting this to my actual boss, who happened to arrive back on the day this meeting took place, his view was pretty clear-cut. He said “I thought that was just admin work, like what they give to graduates, you’re not going to get anything out of that”.

His view echoes my main justification. I am better off spending those two months project leading on another tenancy fitout project and putting into practice all that I have learnt from my current project lead role and gaining more experience in competencies A1 and A2; also on my DAP.

What did I learn?

You are the master of your own destiny throughout your attachment. Well I actually knew that already but it has been a good example of reinforcing it. No one is going to drive you to follow your DAP so when situations like this arise you have to stand your ground and speak up; with carefully considered and justified reasons that is.

In other News

With all this talk of snow I thought I’d share Perth’s weather forecast…so what? Yes my A/C at home has been working over time.