Mountjoy’s integrity-driven culture delivers construction excellence and meaningful social impact while promoting workforce wellbeing
Originating on the Isle of Wight, following local authority unification and privatisation of certain services in 1992, construction and maintenance company Mountjoy has established a strong foundation of its own. Incorporated in 2006 and having recently gained independence from the QUARR Group, the 350-employee contractor operates from its Portsmouth headquarters, with satellite offices spanning Southampton, Horsham, Woking, Isle of Wight, and Windsor. With a business model that splits 75 per cent maintenance and facilities management with 25 per cent construction, Mountjoy distinguishes itself from traditional contractors vulnerable to market fluctuations, by avoiding new build housing in favour of planned preventive maintenance, compliance work and construction, operating predominantly in the public sector.
Partner and Director, Duncan O’Rourke, expands on Mountjoy’s broad range of projects and tells Construction & Civil Engineering more about current work, employee benefits and numerous social initiatives.
“We’re different to our competitors because three-quarters of the business is made up of longer-term maintenance contracts,” Duncan begins. “They can range from two or three years through to ten-year contracts. We also have a place on numerous construction frameworks including Hampshire County Council’s ICF3 / Southern Construction Framework, PAGABO and Portsmouth City Council’s Primary Contractor Framework which offer a level of certainty of opportunity. This combination gives us far more stability in the market – we’re not as susceptible to the peaks and troughs of the construction industry. We’ve benefited many times over the years from that.”
A key long-term collaboration for Mountjoy is the 16-year partnership it has with Portsmouth City Council. “We’ve really embraced their way of working, which revolves around the systems thinking model,” reveals Duncan, regarding the successful maintenance and evolution of this relationship. “This is a different way of looking at workflows and processes – it’s less transactional than the traditional view, where decisions are made based on a rigid set of criteria. Our Managing Director, Simon Ingram, has been very close to the city council contract throughout its entirety, through his time as finance director up until now and we are clearly hoping to continue that relationship for many years to come.”
The design and construction of the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at the Isle of Wight’s hospital is the cornerstone for Mountjoy’s integral healthcare projects on the island. “We finished building the new CDC just over two years ago now, alongside the creation of a new fracture clinic, which was a refurbishment of adjacent buildings at the hospital,” explains Duncan. With a combined value of £6 million for the CDC and the fracture clinic, the company has negotiated a follow-on contract to construct new mammography and CT Units, based on the success of the previous projects and its relationship with the trust.
Although Mountjoy has a wide geographical reach in the South of England, it upholds consistency and culture across sites with a close-knit team, Duncan describes: “While a large number of our employees are located in and around Portsmouth, we remain close to everything and we instil our culture throughout – it’s all about our tagline around ‘integrity built in.’ We make sure our core values are well communicated across the teams,” Duncan explains. “We have a staff communication system called Engage which holds all the vital information they may require, and we’ve also developed our own IT system for managing workflows for all maintenance contracts, known as FES, standing for Front End System.”
Staff wellbeing
Communication, recognition and wellbeing among staff are crucial to Mountjoy. Not only does the group organise Staff Integrity Awards every two months, but it has also partnered with NatWest to implement an online GP and wellbeing portal for employees. “We recently started banking with NatWest, and they have an online health portal where you can go for advice on healthy eating and exercise and staff can login to the portal to book GP appointments. It’s a hugely valuable partnership which we hope will bring positive benefits to our employees. Mountjoy also offers access to Mental Health First Aiders for staff, along with an abundance of signposting to various mental health resources and specialists. Being positioned in an extremely competitive labour market, the company also tailors benefits around workforce retention. “We conduct an annual staff survey and, over the past four to five years, we’ve introduced a number of initiatives and benefits as a direct result of feedback received, including the buying and selling of holiday on an annual basis, staff recognition incentives and the online GP service.” With a high demand for electricians across the area, on occasions Mountjoy has introduced loyalty bonuses to try and solve the recruitment problem – including joining bonuses, paid over a period of time on top of salary.
Alongside its dedication to staff, social value initiatives play a large role in the business. This involves supporting key charities, local networks and educational programmes. “One of our chosen charities is Motiv8, a group which helps young people across Portsmouth,” highlights Duncan. “Last November, we organised and held our inaugural gala in aid of Motiv8, and it was a wonderful Vegas-themed evening – we raised about £15,000 on the night and we’re holding a 1920s themed event this year to coincide with the Portsmouth City centenary. We also provide some of our services to the charity free of charge.” It also strongly supports The Parenting Network, Politely Rebellious, Spark Community Hub, and the City of Portsmouth College. “Working closely with local education authorities, we’ve developed new apprenticeship offerings for trades with the city college,” continues Duncan. “It was becoming difficult to provide apprenticeships for certain trades through the national curriculum – that is where we stepped in and we’re providing valuable work experience for young people. In addition, Simon works with Shaping Portsmouth on the annual Apprenticeship Bus, where we organise a tour of Portsmouth Schools on a fully liveried bus so ours and other organisations’ apprentices can go in and talk to pupils about their experiences.”
Going forward, Mountjoy is continuing to take on worthy community projects while also focusing on the re-tender of key maintenance contracts and renewal of construction frameworks. “We’re not out to conquer the world,” laughs Duncan. “Our priority, as ever, is to maintain a high-quality service for our clients whilst we’re focusing on those bids. We don’t have any wild growth plans – we’re not about that. It’s about doing the very best at what we’re good at, and if growth comes organically, that’s fantastic. We have shown that over the past ten years or so. We will continue with our market research and view each opportunity on its own merits, assessing how it fits with the business model and there will invariably be some growth along the line.
“So far this year, we’ve had some positive results in terms of our construction bids and through our relationships with Hampshire County Council, Southern Construction Framework, Portsmouth City Council and IOW NHS Trust, amongst others. Right now, we’re concentrating on securing new projects, upholding our service and delivering proficiently to our clients.”