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Floorspan - Investing in People
- Lynden Dighton
Taken from a question and answer session with Floorspan Estimating Team Leader Ian Belton on 21/02/2020
As Estimating Team Leader at Floorspan Contracts, Ian is responsible for processing and allocating incoming enquiries. He also manages the staff within the estimating team. A big part of Ian’s role is to assess a job’s requirements and to offer technical support and advice to the estimator. We have a large, efficient team of estimators at Floorspan.
Helping staff grow and reach their full potential through training is very high on the agenda. Ian is one of the company’s mentors; he has had an input in training nearly all the staff currently working at Floorspan.
Ian’s service at Floorspan covers more than a decade. Following joining us in 2005, he has gained in-depth experience through working in nearly every department. Since starting as a Production Operator, he has witnessed massive changes and growth within the company. This experience is vital when training new employees and for setting the foundations for the future of Floorspan.
Floorspan ensures individuals have the skills to do their job to a high standard. They offer a lot of training to ensure that nobody gets left behind with new tech or novel ways of doing things.
We asked Ian to talk about his time at Floorspan, how it has changed and how Floorspan invests in its staff
I joined the Floorspan team almost 15 years ago on 25th April 2005 as a yardie (Production Operator). When I first started, there were around 20-30 staff, including lorry drivers, installers, management/office staff and the production operators. The entire company was on a much smaller scale back then, with only a small yard for production and just one office.
It wasn’t long before we expanded as a company. Within five years of me joining Floorspan, the number of staff had easily doubled. I was out of the yard and into the warm office, working as a designer/estimator. We also got a concrete plant in the yard, rather than delivery by a mixer lorry like it used to be when I first joined.
How staff development is linked to growth
Fast-forward a few years, and we had continued to grow at the same rapid rate; we had new office buildings and a new staffing structure; 10 lorries as opposed to three when I first joined. Manufacturing infrastructure also changed massively: we had more sheds for casting, and we extruded hollowcore manufacturing rather than the tricky wet cast method. Floorspan was developing rapidly, and we were getting busier and busier.
An increase in staff within the office was necessary, and that’s exactly what we did. We trained up and developed more estimators and designers so we could keep up with the high demand of jobs coming in. We even had to create a department for the larger development jobs that were coming in. Because of the increase in our production capability, we could cater to much larger jobs, so we created a specific department for those jobs.
All this growth and development around the company meant that the staff needed to grow, too. The management team has always been excellent at making sure staff are developing themselves. They sent me on a part-time CAD course to develop my skills and transfer those skills to new team members. At the time of changing roles to Team Leader, I undertook an NVQ in Team Leading.
Floorspan ensures individuals have the skills to do their job to a high standard. They offer a lot of training to ensure that nobody gets left behind with new tech or novel ways of doing things.
We asked Ian what the biggest difference is from when he started and what he predicts for the future
Personally, going from Production Operative to Team Leader, it has been an enormous change. When I started in the yard, I never thought I’d be in the office working on CAD drawings within the estimating and design team five years later.
Switching to our own concrete was another massive change to how we worked and what we could do. We have also recently launched our new eFloor EPS flooring system which is really exciting, and already we can see that it is becoming more and more popular.
The future is exciting; things have changed so much in the time I’ve been here. The Ian who started 15 years ago would not recognise the place it is now, so who knows what the next 15 years will bring? Onwards and upwards.
Thanks to Ian for providing this information. Ian is very passionate about his job at Floorspan and does excellent work every day. We hope this has offered an insight into how we invest in our staff and how we have grown and developed into what we are today.