Development of a collaborative training partnership in the NZ construction industry

Abstract

In 2015 a first tier New Zealand commercial construction company approached the Department of Construction at Unitec regarding the company’s professional development training. The primary aim was to focus on introducing a more collaborative best practice approach in a competitive construction environment to some 300 middle management onsite construction staff over a 4-5 year period. The company was seeking a partnership with an innovative tertiary provider to offer specific professional development expertise, and give effect to the company’s strategy for ongoing and accelerated growth. The delivery approach needed to have the greatest possible impact on staff in terms of engagement and knowledge transfer. How was this academic-industry partnership built? In this first part of the research, the philosophical and practical approaches, timelines applied by both parties, the steps of how the partnership was developed from the initial interviews through to the developed successful partnership are described. The preparation and delivery of this practically based, real-time bespoke programme alongside the learnings will be described in later stages of the research in a series of publications.