Page 2 - W M Donald Newsletter - Edition Eleven

EWAN’S WELCOME
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone in Team W M Donald for contributing to ensure our company is in a strong and healthy position as we look forward to COVID-19 restrictions being eased.
I believe it is now more important than ever for the construction industry to take a long hard look at its future. In particular, the industry needs to ensure it has the necessary skilled people to meet private and public sector demand for new housing and infrastructure.
W M Donald has long been aware of the dangers of an ageing skilled workforce. As we continue to grow, we have sought to reduce the average age of our workforce. Today, the average age of our site teams is 36, down from 44 in 2018. Part of this reduction comes from our focus on apprenticeships. We have recently created ten new apprenticeships and aim to have seventeen in place by July of this year.
Experience on site, combined with classroom study, is critical to ensuring our apprentices learn new skills and stay in the industry. We need to give the youngsters an opportunity, in a safe and controlled site environment, to get ‘hands on’ experience. For example, W M Donald has developed the Green Vest scheme which allows trainee plant operators, within clearly defined and risk assessed areas on site, to acquire the skills needed to gain their CPCS qualifications.
The Green Vest scheme is only implemented on projects where the client is supportive of the scheme and has given their prior approval.
As I write this introduction, W M Donald has a workforce of 187 employees of which only 12 are women. Whilst this is a disappointingly low figure, W M Donald still outperforms the national average (6.3% compared to 5.5%). The desire to increase the number of women entering the construction industry is one of the drivers behind W M Donald’s visits to local schools and engagement in employment fairs. There remains more to do in this area; all of the current W M Donald apprentice intake are male.
Everyone in construction, from the newest recruit to the most experienced site worker, deserves to work in a safe and healthy environment. W M Donald has a strong track record in this area, but we need to get better at reporting near misses. Near misses are ‘wake-up calls’ which can help us prevent future accidents on site. To this end, W M Donald has recruited ‘SAFE ERIC’ who you will read more about in this newsletter.
After a slow start to the year for obvious reasons, 2021 is promising to become the busiest in our 44-year history. I would like to wish everyone associated with W M Donald a cautious, safe and healthy return to ‘normality’ in the coming months.
Ewan Riddoch - Managing Director
A cautionary tale
Achieving a negative cost differential!
Many construction and utility vehicles are equipped with a locking differential (diff lock). When activated, a locking differential ‘locks’ both wheels on an axle together as if they were on a common shaft. A locking differential helps a vehicle maintain traction, particularly on sites where ground conditions are soft, muddy and uneven.
So far, so beneficial. However, if the diff lock remains on when running on flat ground or normal roads, it will lead to tyre scuffing, understeer and, in extremis, the complete failure of the differential itself.
These photos show what happened to the differential on a dumper in the W M Donald fleet when the driver forgot to take the diff lock off. Spare parts had to be ordered from South Africa; the dumper was out of actions for three weeks; and the total costs ran into thousands of pounds!
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