Fernox has welcomed Steve Cawley, runner-up winner of Challenge 3: Leadership at the COINS Construction Industry Grand Challenge, to its offices, to share his shortlisted and highly commended innovative idea.

Securing funding towards future education and continued professional development (CPD) based activities, Steve will be looking to progress his career and promote his idea to companies within the construction sector and beyond. 

Entering his idea of a reverse and circular mentoring scheme in December 2016, Steve was delighted to be shortlisted and receive the runner-up prize at the finalists’ event in February 2017.

Explaining his entry, Steve Cawley, a pre-construction engineer at Interserve, said: “Mark Farmer’s construction industry report was the real catalyst for my entry into the COINS Construction Industry Grand Challenge. I was attempting to address several key points highlighted within the report: a need to improve the skill-sets of those within and entering the industry, retaining the knowledge of the 19% of the construction workforce set to retire within the next 10 years, and improving employee engagement; and ultimately, employee retention. My entry encourages horizontal, vertical, and lateral knowledge sharing across separate companies.”

A social media-styled platform, Steve’s entry put forward a platform where professionals of all tiers could post their current expertise for others to search and match. A ‘contract’ would then be created where the two people would enter a mentoring partnership for a designated time period, with an outline of what skills they would be sharing.

Awarded runner-up from the 25 entries to the Leadership Challenge, Steve won £1,500 of funding towards his continued development that he will be putting towards his Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) membership and advancing his graphic design skills.

Fernox marketing director Francine Wickham said: “A transferable and mutually beneficial scheme, Steve’s entry is an advantageous mentoring initiative not only for the construction industry but has applications for any company. We’re delighted that he visited the Fernox head office to share both his winning idea and his future plans with us.

“Consistently innovating and pushing the boundaries of the chemical water treatment and filter technology, Fernox has been driving best practice within the heating industry for more than 50 years. A vision for how expert knowledge could be shared, Steve’s circular mentoring scheme would be ideal for encouraging and sharing best practice throughout the industry.”