Putting customers (and kids) at the heart of our business

In Wellington, the Memorial Park Alliance has decided to put customers at the heart of the project, by taking the proactive stance to engaging with the community.

Engineer Ian Pringle explains the moving of the Home of Compassion Crèche to one of Mount Cook School’s experts

Developing major roading projects through urban areas will always stir up emotions for local residents. The Memorial Park Alliance decided to embrace that strength of feeling by bringing the community into the heart of the project.

This means embracing the brickbats as well as the bouquets so they can try and make the experience the best it can be even though everyone is still working to a tight deadline. 

As Brian Aspin from the Memorial Park Alliance says; “we see ourselves as part of the big picture. This period in time is not about ‘us’ or about ‘our project’. Our project is part of the rich culture and history since pre-European times of the place and community within which we work.  We want people to be pleased to have shared the experience rather than glad we are gone.”

One of the main ways to draw the community in has been to reach out to Mt Cook school, which sits right next to the site.

“We set out from the start to engage with the school in as many positive ways as possible to make the school pleased with the experience of having a construction project next door,” Brian says.

The involvement with the school includes:

• Visits to the school from our engineers, site and office workers – from mentoring children’s projects to reading to them during Book Week.
• Visits by the school to our site conducted by site engineers and the safety manager.
• An easy-to-understand booklet called Right beside our school(external link). The booklet was a finalist in the 2013 NZ Plain English Awards and has become a resource in our interactions with all stakeholders.
• The children held a competition to name two of our cranes. The winning classrooms came on site to install the nameplates and sit in the operator’s seat.

Engineer Russell Scoones pointing out features of the project site to young Mt Cook School enthusiast Dov Silberstein.