Featured Client: Ridge & Partners LLP

In the year 2022, unless you are a people-first organisation, you’re less likely to attract and retain high-quality talent. Importance has been diverted away from financial gain and toward personal benefit. Mutual respect, an inclusive culture, investment in development and environmental responsibility are all key drivers in many an engineer’s career search in the modern day.

As our featured client for February, we dived under the surface with Ian Ravenhall, Partner at Ridge & Partners LLP and based out of Birmingham.

Ridge are a privately owned, multidisciplinary organisation, founded in 1946, with a long pedigree working in construction and property. On the whole, the business has 13 UK offices and a head count of circa 750 people; 130 of which are within the Building Services discipline. They enjoy an event split of public and private work, with around 80% repeat business; and are well-experienced in projects across all sectors.

Looking back on how the pandemic affected the company and their staff, Ian proudly told us how Ridge managed to avoid worse case scenarios due to the firm’s resilience and continued growth. He  shared how Ridge focussed on employee well-being, arranging virtual cookery and fitness classes as well as encouraging staff to take time away from their desks.

With a sadness in his voice, he spoke of his understanding of how many engineering businesses have suffered in this same time period; but his pride in how Ridge was able to navigate through the pandemic with great management and agility looking after their people during such a difficult few years, was obvious.

Building for the future

October 2021 welcomed an expansion of the business by way of acquiring Projex Building Solutions and increasing their head count by an additional 50 staff members; and this is one of 3 routes to growth for the company.

Another method Ridge uses for company growth is internal promotion. “We’re very passionate about growing from within” Ian told us. “We’ll often look to grow organically and develop our people so that they can climb the career ladder. We don’t wait until an opportunity arises or get concerned if there are already many others in a specific role already. If someone is ready for more responsibility and a higher level role, it’s theirs.”

“We do like to think that we care about who we employ, what they do and how they do it; and I think doing well starts with looking after people.  Are they striving to be the best they can be? How can we get the best out of them? We proactively encourage staff to get to where they want to in their careers and we help to push them through, with no glass ceilings.”

Ridge is also an advocate for mental health, with a lot of platforms to support their employees’ well-being, in addition to other health benefits such as private medical insurance. They’ve adopted a new flexible working culture company-wide, allowing employees to arrange to work in a way that suits them; and there is the option to purchase additional holiday days for all. On top of this, the concept of doing good breeding happiness has also been adopted by giving staff 3 fully paid days off to partake in volunteering events of their choosing.

 A topic that Ian spoke about with great joy is the company’s community spirit and he talked us through what his 70-strong branch in Birmingham have been up to.

 “2021 was our 75th Anniversary year, so we decided to put a lot more focus on our charitable efforts. We did a lot of work throughout the year with local homeless charity Let's Feed Brum. We provided breakfasts every week for the whole month of march, served breakfasts, ran campaigns over the summer to collect much needed toiletries for them and then did the same for warm winter clothing in the later months. We managed to fill 75 boxes with donations which was amazing.”

“We also held a ‘fun day’ to raise money for one of our staff members’ regional girl-guide groups that she runs. We had a clown, a magician, a hog roast, raffles, buy a cake and all the really old fashioned fun-at-the-fair style games.”

“And we did some work with a special-educational needs Trust who have 3 individual schools across Birmingham where we gave each £1000 towards school equipment.”

Ian went on to tell us about how they did so much good last year that the company has agreed to continue to provide allocated funds towards charitable work. For example, if an employee requires sponsorship for a charity event or need a donation towards something that’s especially close to their heart, they can request it from this fund. A very kind, meaningful and supportive gesture towards putting some good out in to the world.

Sustainability

 Sustainability is very much integrated at Ridge with a dedicated sustainability team; and it’s as important to staff across the business as a whole in day-to-day life, as much as it is through their work. With future offices and expansions in mind, the company is very conscious of finding workplaces with better quality meeting space, better public transport links and better quality open spaces.

 Ian says, “We look at the physical construction of the building and consider how it’s new use is benefitting the client; and one of the things we’ve done is designed what we call 360 Sustainability. Our ambition is not just to be compliant, but be inspirational.”

“Sustainability has been massively on the agenda for some time, but I think now we've got this dedicated discipline it's easier for people to see the bigger picture. It’s no longer ‘what do I do as an engineer?’ or ‘what do I do as an architect?’. It's what we do globally as a team.”

Closing the skills gap

We were particularly excited to hear about Ridge’s efforts with the younger generation, to attract diverse talent to the industry through different methods.

“We’ve created something that we call ‘The Ridge Academy’, which is our training network. It covers  graduates that want to join us, whether after graduation or for their year out. We launched it at the end of 2021 and our aim is to try and get 50 graduates in to the business over the course of 2022.” Ian told us.

“Then, next year, we’re going to take it back to apprenticeships to give opportunities to those who A-Levels and degrees just don’t suit.”  

Ian also told us about his views on the importance of encouraging more women in to the building services engineering and construction industry. He expressed how he feels that it’s important to have a good gender balance because men and women have different ways of thinking.

He went on to say, “Everybody is slightly different, whether that be culturally or gender; or just the way you go about your work and your learning. I think everybody has just got to be accepting and respect the fact that we’re all different, and the results will be better for everybody.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Find out more about the opportunities Ridge & Partners LLP are currently offering by contacting one of our team.