Meet Gabby – She Loves Her Job

December 20, 2019

In celebration of being awarded the 10th Best Place to Work in Australia by Great Place to Work, RCC has interviewed 10 employees who love their job. We’re honoured to have such passionate employees who jumped at the opportunity to share what they do, and why they love it.

 

Meet Gabby McGinness. Gabby is a Contracts Administrator based in the ACT. Since joining RCC, just 18 months ago, Gabby has grown to love her job for the mentors, and for her potential to develop and progress with the company.

“After starting with RCC a year and a half ago in the CA role, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Bob Anthony and Dave Archbold who have both been long serving RCC employees – over 20 years. They have been great mentors by always demonstrating the company values and showing me the RCC way.”

As a young cadet, Gabby says she was fortunate enough to receive invaluable mentorship from another female CA she describes as ‘strong, capable and determined’. After working hard to progress to a similar role, Gabby has now been a CA for four years – undoubtedly emulating the same hardworking attitude as her first female mentor.

“I’m working towards Senior CA at the moment, but long term I’d like to be a Contracts Manager. I’d love to manage all the head contract administration and take on more client liaison. The role also appeals to me because of the opportunity to manage and mentor a team in the same way I have been mentored.”

Gabby says that the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion with staff of various ages and levels of experience creates a positive culture and an environment where personal development and mentorship are accessible opportunities for everyone.

“There’s many times that I’ve been the only female on a project site, but I still get treated the same and have the same opportunities as my male counterparts.”

Belonging to a close-knit family herself, Gabby loves her job for the familial bond she’s formed with her team, and says site is a home away from home for her.

“My upbringing has taught me that there’s nothing more important than family, and that’s who you go above and beyond for.

When I joined RCC, I noticed this company has that same feeling within the project team and different business sectors. I think it is great that The Crookes family promote that family company mentality and invite everyone in the company to be a part of it.”

With her sights set on a prosperous career in the construction industry, it’s talented individuals like Gabby that make RCC’s team culture a supportive one. We’re proud to have a workplace that allows for progression, growth and fulfillment, but it’s our RCC family members who ultimately make this possible.

MORE ABOUT THE ANU SA8 PROJECT

The SA8 student accommodation project for the Australian National University (ANU) involves the design and construction of 1031 student accommodation beds with single occupant rooms in 8 buildings across 5-8 storeys. Designs for both SA6 and SA8 buildings are based on student surveys, emphasizing the importance of communal spaces and encouraging greater interaction between students, their families and the campus community. Having delivered the SA6 Bruce Hall Redevelopment project for ANU in 2017, RCC was honoured to be selected as the university’s construction partner to deliver the current SA8 development.

MORE ABOUT OUR 10TH BEST PLACE TO WORK STATUS 

The Great Place to Work assessment is a feedback-based study obtained from a confidential survey of our 700+ employees. It involves an independent audit across areas like hiring and integration, health and wellness, as well as workplace culture.
2018 was the first year RCC entered the assessment and we were thrilled to be awarded 17th Best Place to Work. Within a year, we rolled out a number of new initiatives to better the experiences of our people. To be recognised as the 10th Best Place to Work this year is a credit to our continued commitment to ensuring that everyone at RCC genuinely looks forward to coming to work each day.

Learn more about Great Place To Work Australia and their 50 Best Places To Work Study.

 

Happy Holidays and Thank You

December 17, 2019

Merry Christmas!

To our entire extended family, thank you for enjoying the journey with us this year; we wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

It has been a pleasure working with you in 2019 and we look forward to continuing our partnership in 2020.

 

 

If you would like to hear more about the projects RCC has delivered, then take a look at our PROJECTS.

If you want to know more about our history and our team, then take a look at WHO WE ARE

 

 

Emergency Contacts – Holiday Closure 2019/2020

Our offices and sites will be closed or operating with reduced hours throughout the holiday season between the 20th of December 2019 and the 2nd of January 2020. We have provided a list of emergency contacts for all projects in the event that you need to get in touch with a member of our team during this time.

​We wish everyone a happy and safe festive season and new year!

Emergency Contacts – Holiday 2019-2020

$140K For The Children’s Hospital at Westmead

December 6, 2019

Our generous extended family have donated more than $140K to The Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead. This incredible fundraising has been led by RCC’s Industrial team, who are known within our business for their great hair… as well as their big hearts!

Last night more than 40 staff lost their hair for Bandaged Bear and presented The Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead with the donation. Only a few weeks ago the team decided they would like to raise funds for the worthy cause in the lead up to Christmas, committing to shave their heads to generate donations.

Claude, RCC’s General Manager of Industrial, said the generous donation had started with the team themselves and then received support from family, friends, clients and project partners who got on board for the charity;

“Donations from our business partners including subcontractors, suppliers and clients highlight their generosity and how aligned our entire extended family is in our values and commitment to giving back to our local community. I’m extremely proud of the team; its humbling to see them apply the same commitment and passion to this cause as they do to their work every day.

It means a lot to everyone at RCC knowing we have been able to give back to an organisation that touches the lives of so many sick children and their families. We had a choice to shave our heads, but the kids don’t have any choice in being sick… We are grateful for what the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation do each day and being able to be part of that is really rewarding”

Claude Concha – General Manager, Industrial

Claude, whose young son also volunteered to shave his head, said that he was proud to work for a family-based company that encouraged community contribution and to be surrounded by likeminded people who all wanted to jump on board and do something meaningful.

Michal Cohen-Noble from the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation said she was overwhelmed by the figure and grateful for the donation;

“there are many things we can do with an amount of money like this. It’s just absolutely unbelievable” and said such a significant contribution could be used in so many ways; “with this amount we can fund many different things like high priority equipment, on our list that could potentially help in critical emergency care surgical theatres, a fellow which would help any of our departments further the education of our doctors”.

Michal Cohen-Noble – The Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation

 

 

More about the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation

The Children’s Hospital at Westmead is able to care for 84,000 sick children and their families each year as a result of community support and fundraising.

Learn more about their valuable work.

 

 

Meet Jack – He Loves His Job

November 27, 2019

In celebration of being awarded the 10th Best Place to Work in Australia by Great Place to Work, RCC has interviewed 10 employees who love their job. We’re honoured to have such passionate employees who jumped at the opportunity to share what they do, and why they love it.

Meet Jack Reggers. Jack joined RCC in his final years of his engineering degree. Starting in a Graduate role that allowed him to study and gain practical experience in the industry, Jack is now a Site Engineer on our Opera Residences project, delivering one of Sydney’s most exclusive future residential developments.

“I love my job and I love what I do, but I think 90% of that is because I come to work with brilliant people every day.”

“At RCC, you actually feel like someone. From the Project Manager right through to the cadets, you can feel that everyone truly values each other and the company we work for.”

With a family of more than 700 employees, we are committed to ensuring our teams feel familiar and well connected. On a site with over 100 individuals, Jack says the RCC team’s culture and mateship creates an environment which keeps them on track; delivering high quality projects whilst genuinely enjoying the process along the way.

“We have meetings with our clients, subcontractors, consultants and architects and everybody sits in the same room to listen and collaborate. Everyone is talking and working together to get the job done.”

“It’s one collaborative project team pushing in the right direction.”

Jack loves his job for its challenges, and for the colleagues he says have become his family. Nominated the 10th Best Place to Work in our category in Australia, we’re thrilled to employ passionate people that genuinely enjoy what they do and provide them with a supportive environment and positive company culture to thrive in.

More About the 10th Best Place to Work

The Great Place to Work assessment is a feedback-based study obtained from a confidential survey of our 700+ employees. It involves an independent audit across areas like hiring and integration, health and wellness, as well as workplace culture.

2018 was the first year RCC entered the assessment and we were thrilled to be awarded 17th Best Place to Work. Within a year, we rolled out a number of new initiatives to better the experiences of our people. To be recognised as the 10th Best Place to Work this year is a credit to our continued commitment to ensuring that everyone at RCC genuinely looks forward to coming to work each day.

More About the RCC Family

If Jack’s story has left you wanting to hear more about what its like to be part of the RCC family then watch this space – we are planning another 9 employee interviews over the next 9 months.

In the meantime, check out this video to hear from other members of our team.

 

More About the Opera Residences

This project includes the construction of 104 high end apartments over 19 levels, three levels of retail space and 6 levels of basement parking within the busy Bennelong Point precinct. Public domain works involve a stairway from Circular Quay to Macquarie Street and a general upgrade to the Circular Quay Public Domain.

 

 

 

MBA Excellence In Construction Awards

November 12, 2019

RCC would like to congratulate our project teams and subcontractor, consultant and supply partners involved in delivering the Regiment student accommodation project at the University of Sydney campus in Darlington and the Shortland Correctional Centre in Cessnock.

These collective teams who worked on these projects received an award last weekend at the NSW ‘Excellence in Construction’ Awards gala event.

Regiment Student Accommodation
University of Sydney
NSW MBA Award Category:
Student Accommodation Buildings up to $100m		 Shortland Correctional Centre
Justice Infrastructure
NSW MBA Award Category:
Public Buildings over $50m

 

For us, success is about completing a development that RCC, our clients and our project partners can all be proud of. Congratulations to everyone who played a part in the design and delivery of these award-winning projects.

 

 

Sydney Modern Project Ground Breaking

November 8, 2019

The first sod has been turned on the site the Art Gallery of New South Wales expansion, the Sydney Modern Project, marking the commencement of this future landmark development.

RCC’s Managing Director, Jamie Crookes said he was honoured to take part in the ground breaking ceremony this week;

“As a family owned Australian construction company, Richard Crookes Constructions is incredibly proud to have been selected to deliver the Sydney Modern Project. We recognise the significant contribution that the Art Gallery of NSW and the arts community make to both the Sydney and broader Australian cultural landscape.
We are honoured, as their construction partner, to play a role in realising the vision for this expansion project and to deliver what will undoubtedly be a landmark building for Sydney and a major cultural destination in the wider Asia-Pacific region”
Jamie Crookes – Managing Director

 

RCC will continue to partner with the Art Gallery of NSW and Infrastructure NSW, as well as a team of subcontractors and consultants to deliver the major expansion.

We have a proud history of collaborating with the NSW Government to deliver important social infrastructure projects and we look forward to working with INSW, the AGNSW, the Royal Botanic Garden, neighbours and the local community on this exciting and iconic project.

 

More about the Sydney Modern Project

The completed expansion involves a new stand-alone building, located to the north of the existing Gallery, and includes new exhibition spaces, a public art garden and the adaptive re-use of two decommissioned WWII oil tanks.

The Sydney Modern Project is scheduled for completion in 2022.

For more information about the project visit artgallery.nsw.gov.au

 


Pictured from left to right: Ben Quilty, Artist Member, Art Gallery of NSW Board of Trustees; Gretel Packer, Vice President, Art Gallery of NSW Board of Trustees; Mark Nelson, Chair, Sydney Modern Project Capital Campaign Committee, Art Gallery of NSW; Ryue Nishizawa, Architect, SANAA; Kazuyo Sejima, Architect, SANAA; Dr Michael Brand, Director, Art Gallery of NSW; The Hon. Don Harwin, MLC, Minister for the Arts; The Hon. Gladys Berejiklian, MP, Premier of New South Wales; David Gonski AC, President, Art Gallery of NSW Board of Trustees; Maud Page, Deputy Director and Director of Collections, Art Gallery of NSW; Isaac Wakil AO, Chair, Susan & Isaac Wakil Foundation; Sally Webster, Head of Sydney Modern Project, Art Gallery of NSW; Uncle Charles (Chicka) Madden, Gadigal Elder and Member of the Art Gallery of NSW Indigenous Advisory Group; Simon Draper, Chief Executive, Infrastructure NSW and Jamie Crookes, Managing Director, Richard Crookes Constructions.

 

 

Oran Park’s First Commercial Topping Out

October 31, 2019

Project milestone celebrations are always special, but the recent Topping Out Ceremony at Oran Park celebrated the towns first standalone commercial building and raised funds for a worthy cause.

To mark the completion of the structure on the future TRN House building, Greenfields Development Company, TRN Group and the wider project team joined RCC to see the ceremonial tree craned onto the roof slab.

Our Project Manager, Michael said that being able to share the day with wife and daughter was a hallmark of the collaborative environment and culture on the project;

“Greenfields Development Company share RCC’s family values and it’s rewarding to be working with them, the entire consultant and subcontractor team and the local community so collaboratively”.
Michael Ryan

Mark Perich of Greenfields Development Company in Oran Park Town said, “Once complete, TRN House will be the first A-Grade equivalent standalone commercial space offered for sale or lease in Oran Park Town”.

TRN House will stand alongside the existing Oran Park Podium retail and commercial precinct and will be the latest addition to Oran Park Town’s growing commercial hub.

The event was also an opportunity to promote Pink Up Oran Park, a breast cancer awareness and fundraising campaign supporting the McGrath Foundation, which has seen several sites across Oran Park Town turning a shade of pink during the month of October.

 

 

Experience for Constructions’ Next Generation

October 24, 2019

Our Snackbrands project at Orchard Hills hosted over 180 students from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) last month, offering them an immersive tour of the site, as well as a series of presentations from our site team.

“I just wanted to pass on a big thank you for coordinating such a great site visit for the students last week. The feedback was amazing. One student was so impressed he’s sent a thank you note of his own with his CV!

The diligence displayed by the RCC team, ensuring every student was signed in and inducted, coordinating manageable and safe group sizes and then escorting each group around the site speaks volumes about RCC’s unwavering commitment to site safety and planning”

Craig Barry – UTS Lecturer

These Construction Management and Civil Engineering students represent the future of our industry; we are proud to be involved in their transition from classroom to construction site and give them a firsthand insight into safe and sustainable construction practice.

 

 

RCC: 10th Best Place to Work in Australia!

September 12, 2019

RCC is thrilled to be recognised as the 10th Best Place to Work in Australia – a milestone achievement that reflects our continued commitment to ensuring that everyone at RCC genuinely looks forward to coming into work each day.

The Great Place to Work (GPTW) assessment is a feedback-based study obtained from a confidential survey of our 600+ employees and an independent audit across 9 practice areas. See the results of the 2019 GPTW study here.

2018 was our first evaluation in the study, and to be named 17th in our category (100-999 employees) was a remarkable achievement, to which we are incredibly proud.

Following our success last year, 2019 saw the integration of several new initiatives entirely unique to RCC and the support, development and appreciation of our growing teams. We feel that it is a combination of our highly talented employees and RCC’s unique culture, value-oriented initiatives that we are now considered among Australia’s top 10 Best Places to Work.

 

 

“Recognition as one of the Greatest Places to Work in Australia is a significant achievement for RCC in a demanding and pressurised construction market. To make it to the top 10 is an outstanding result.”

“For me, what makes RCC great is our people. They are our best assets, and this result reflects their contribution to the business and work environment and our commitment to ensuring their voice is heard as we continue to grow.”

Jamie Crookes – Managing Director of Richard Crookes Constructions

 

We are a private, family-owned company dedicated to building an open, honest and collaborative culture that is fulfilling for all our staff. We have a lot of heart for what we do for each other.

It would be no surprise that RCC’s most fundamental value is family.  Being a private, family-owned company dedicated to building an open, honest and collaborative culture means that coming to work at RCC is more than just a job for all our staff. New members are welcomed into the RCC family right from day one, including an induction that sets the tone for the business they have joined. We ensure that all new starters have a number of activities to complete to help form part of their integration plan.  They are set up with a “buddy” to help them with everything they need to comfortably transition into the business. Our founder, Richard Crookes, personally welcomes all new starters and we find it is this familial touch that sets RCC apart from other large companies.

Similarly, our staff appreciation events encourage RCC teams to spend time with their families whilst team building – whether it’s at the zoo, running the City2Surf or in an Italian style cooking class. Events like these are important to us, but it’s the enthusiasm of our employees which make them memorable.

RCC offers an environment that can facilitate career growth, personal opportunity and an exciting workplace through its diversification.  Being a family business means that family is high on the agenda at RCC providing family-based benefits including generous paid parental leave packages, additional paid annual leave to encourage more time spent with family and friend, family days out and much more.

Growing our own has always been a fundamental principle of how we manage the business therefore we invest heavily in technical training, personal development as well as a suite of team building activities which form a consistent and dynamic social calendar. Since our success in 2018, we have unveiled a suite of initiatives including a Women Leading program, Health & Wellbeing and Workplace Giving Programs – all working to help maintain our strong commitment to a thriving and lively workplace. They’re also fundamental to our company’s core values: Client First; Delivering Certainty; We Do What We Say; Family Values; and First Step Safety.

 

 

RCC is also committed to celebrating the achievement of our people; our best asset. Complimentary to our staff initiatives is our Rewards and Recognition program that recognises the outstanding behaviour and performance of our employees. RCC’s Hats Off awards encourages peer-to-peer appreciation for those who go above and beyond, and we regularly celebrate key project milestones throughout the year. We also support informal team appreciation events to build an organic, in-team culture.

To be ranked 10th Best Place to Work in Australia is confirmation that we value a supportive, fulfilling and dynamic work environment – and RCC employees agree.

Do you think you would enjoy the journey of working on exciting projects, with highly skilled, passionate people in a positive and supportive workplace? Find out what it’s like to be part of the RCC family…