Haymills trys new tactics

The management turn-round at Haymills, the £100m-a-year construction group, is now complete. Four of its six business leaders have now been replaced. A seventh regional office, in Amesbury, Wiltshire, has been closed down.

Julian Brandon took over the reins as managing director of Haymills five months ago and was dismayed at what he found. "Parts had not made money for years: the East Anglia region was good, but London was most disappointing - it should be the jewel in the crown," said Brandon this week.

His clean-out of the top brass is now complete and other management layers are not now at risk. Brandon said: "We have some excellent people in the business and better leadership will get the best out of them."

Haymills' new core values are being drawn up not by Brandon on his own but by the whole management team - the group board plus four of its business leaders. "It has to be a joint effort for it to stick," said Brandon.

Meanwhile, one innovation from Brandon has been giving his project managers a few cold sweats. "I believe in face-to-face contact with clients once their project has been completed," he explained. "Clients love it and I use it as a learning experience."

Accompanied by his business unit leader, Brandon feels he gets more honesty from the client than if he went in with the project manager - and that means talking to them afterwards.

"They were unnerved at first," said Brandon. "That's not surprising as a defensive posture is a first reaction. But by the second project you find a different attitude." That probably results from discovering that Brandon is looking for better ways of taking the group forward, rather than setting them up for punishment.

Brandon was headhunted from the Morgan Sindall group where he had been managing director for Sindall, a construction division with a similar turnover to Haymills at £100m.

"The job description was ideal for me, with Haymills wanting leadership skills and greater customer awareness," said Brandon. "These are the two big things that have been lacking from the top [in Haymills]."

He thanked John Morgan, chief executive of Morgan Sindall, for teaching him that if a contractor looks after its clients, then the rest will follow.