The days of sending a site labourer to ask the site manager for a “long weight” may be behind us. What once passed for light-hearted banter is now rightly seen as bullying. 

That shift proves the industry can change its culture. However, the industry may have metaphorically sent me off to look for that elusive weight as a graduate entering the industry, and I have been waiting patiently since.

I joined the industry in the era of the Latham and Egan reports taking hold. Everything was ripe for change and change was desirable, possible and imminent. Collaboration, lean construction, client centric approaches – they were all coming and I hoped to be part of them.

So it was with some irony that RLB’s most recent research – our annual procurement trends survey – pointed to now being the time for a shift to outcome-based procurement. It struck me that some of the points raised could have been the findings at the turn of the century, as much as they are now.