CONNECTOR BUILDS WORKERS FROM THE GROUND UP

‍Carrie Williams is living proof how one plus one can equal three in her role as Human Resources Manager and MATES Connector at C2H Piping Services.

Her HR skills are constantly put to the test as she supports workers to overcome obstacles that may hinder their performance and longer-term retention at work.

These discussions at times unearth a whole bigger can of worms including struggles with mental health and suicidal ideation.

It’s here that Carrie’s skills as a Connector and bachelor’s degree in psychology are put to action. It’s about understanding that there is always a reason behind a behavior, says Carrie who is also co-owner at C2H.

“We have had employees who struggle with the 7am start. In these situations, we meet with them to find out exactly what’s going on. We do not focus just on the fact they’re not coming in on time but exploring the reasons behind the behaviour and supporting them in it if we possibly can,” Carrie said.

“Often there’s a background of trauma and significant mental health, and the person has had to go it alone a lot from a young age,” she said.

These struggles are often accompanied by a range of material difficulties. Employees in these situations may not have stable accommodation, or a reliable car. In other cases, they may rely on their parents for transportation. In such cases, Carrie might connect them with a co-worker to get them in each day.

In other instances, it’s a matter of providing suggestions that help to shape up more productive attitudes and behaviour at work.

“An employee that I have worked with in the past would start off his day in a really bad mood. He had a lot going on in his personal life, but his attitude was effecting how the rest of the workshop felt about being at work,” Carrie said.

“I shared with him what I do when I might not feel so great. I said that I listen to music, I choose music that I might have listened to in my teens or 20s, something a bit nostalgic, and how it can really lift my mood.”  

“We agreed when he came in to start work that he would stick his headphones in and play music that he likes. His supervisor has reported that things are going better, and I’ve seen this myself. Simple suggestions like this can help to shift behaviour and keep a worker on board,” she said.  

But some of the greatest challenges hark back to the kind of role modelling an employee has experienced during their formative years, says Carrie. Workplace expectations like punctuality, reliable attendance and maintaining a positive attitude at work can come as a culture shock to new employees that were not exposed to societal norms around employment.

“I’ve often found that people simply haven’t been taught those basic employment skills. They just haven’t had somebody in their life to demonstrate a reliable work ethic or how to hold down a job. So, it’s not normal for them to understand that they need to be in by seven o’clock, and that there are implications if they don’t,” she said.

“In my experience if you nurture employees, and offer them training and support, you see them become more confident, and this helps build on their personal lives and mental health as well. The challenge becomes about trying to change their thought process around work generally,” she said.

With depots based at Mackay and Brisbane, the bulk of C2H’s employees are poly welding technicians, a skillset that Carrie says sometimes attracts an unfair wrap in the industry.

“I find that because poly welding isn’t an official trade, it’s something that people tend to ‘fall into’. Because of this, it can be viewed as a lower-level role, but there’s a lot of skill involved.”

It’s a profile that Carrie hopes to raise, along with the skills, pay and long-term employability of the C2H workforce.

“We now have the vision to set up a Centre of Excellence at C2H. Each employee will be reviewed on an individual basis. They may not have any training or skills. They may not have worked for a long time, or maybe only casually, or maybe not at all. They’ll often lack confidence and experience degrees of anxiety and depression. Our job is to make them an excellent poly welder, and to be desirable within the industry. For their own self-worth, and for C2H to be known as the gold standard.”

The vision is to combine relevant training units from the national accredited training framework along with other modules that address fundamental employability skills – the kinds of soft skills that can pose big barriers to employment for people from backgrounds of economic and social disadvantage.  

“It’s all about setting up positive expectations around work,” Carrie said.

“The program will include units like customer service, personal presentation, how to interact with customers and coworkers, what to expect when attending a mine site for the first time. We hope to alleviate any anxiety or worries from the beginning.”

Carrie anticipates another layer of innovation to the Centre’s approach, inspired by earlier HR work undertaken in the UK.

“What we’ll have is a very transparent pay scale attached to the program. As workers climb each step of the ladder getting additional units of competency ticked off, their hourly wage climbs with it. So, there’s motivation there not just to improve yourself through training and qualifications, but to improve your pay as you climb up that ladder,” she said.

“It really makes me happy, to help and support people be the best that they can be, this is something that I am passionate about and that I love to do.”

C2H and Carrie were proud to Fly the Flag for MATES recently and are doubly proud to have recently signed up to the Australian Building and Construction Industry Blueprint for Better Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (the Blueprint).

“We signed up to the Blueprint because we really want to support mental health. We want it to benefit our employees, and for it to become normal for that to happen in the industry, that it’s not just a secondary thought. Instead, it’s just what we do,” Carrie said.  

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