The programme brings together graduates and early career professionals from both firms for a series of development workshops aimed at encouraging the type of collaboration and knowledge sharing which both firms argue is crucial for to delivery of the future pipeline of construction work.
The initiative took place on Tuesday 5th December with 75 graduates and existing high potential staff from the two firms attending a development workshop at The Jumeirah Creekside Hotel.
The workshop included a panel debate with leaders from each business and a competition to design infrastructure and developments for a hypothetical project based on Mars. This is in line with the Emirates Mars vision, where a UAE spacecraft is set to arrive at Mars in 2021 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UAE.
The competition designed to give the graduates a real life experience of working as a team on the design and construction of a project and understand it from different stakeholder’s perspectives. Teams were assigned roles, from main contractor, to designer, supervision team, and programme manager, and given a different aspect of a fictional development to design and build within a set budget.
They had to deal with real-life situations such as a last minute variations and changes of deadline, before presenting their work back to the ‘client’ where they were assessed on their work.
WSP Managing Director, Greg Kane said: “Fostering collaborating in everything we do is one of our five WSP ‘guiding principles’. We want our young professionals to understand early in their career the value and importance of learning from and collaborating with others in our industry. To realise that their skills and knowledge in isolation are not enough to lead to successful project outcomes and to be curious, particularly about the challenges other stakeholders face and how we might be able to help.
ALEC CEO Kez Taylor added: “Bringing our graduates and early career professionals together in this way is about collaboration of the industry. We don’t work in isolation, we work extremely closely with all our industry partners and with the challenges ahead of delivering the huge programme of construction projects in the region efficiently and sustainably. This is a step working towards successful outcomes for all parties.”
ALEC and WSP are currently working together on the recently awarded One Za’abeel Project. This landmark development is a mixed-used project that stands proudly in the heart of the city. As with many projects of this scale, One Za’abeel has its share of challenges not least of which being the execution of construction activities within a live/operating highway intersecting both tower plots.
Development workshops such as this one, help to build and improve the understanding of each party’s role and enhance collaboration, which is beneficial to the overall success of a project.
About ALEC: ALEC (ALEC Engineering and Contracting LLC), is an award winning, multi-disciplinary construction company based in Dubai with operations in Abu Dhabi, Oman and Qatar. We have consistently evolved and grown to become one of the largest contractors for the execution of major construction projects with staff in excess of 12,000 employees. The scope of ALEC's projects includes resort hotels, themed retail developments, high rise towers, airport terminals and residential & commercial buildings. www.alec.ae
Contact Amy Conway, Marketing & Communications Manager, ALEC
+971 4 429 0599 [email protected]
About WSP: WSP is one of the world’s leading professional services consulting firms, with 37,800 staff, based in more than 500 offices, across 40 countries. Together we provide services to transform the built environment and restore the natural environment, and our expertise ranges from environmental remediation to urban planning, from engineering iconic buildings to designing sustainable transport networks, and from developing the energy sources of the future to enabling new ways of extracting essential resources.
With 1,700 people in the Middle East we are working on some of the world's most iconic and complex projects. We take pride in helping our clients to realise their ambitions by offering our unique, local knowledge whilst leveraging our worldwide expertise.
We are a Great Place to Work© and take pride in attracting, developing and engaging the best professionals in our fields of expertise.
Contact Lucy Connell, Head of Marketing & Communications, WSP in the Middle East
+971564127386 [email protected]