Meet construction’s Mr Nice

Explain Ocon’s ethical approach.

We’re a very young company, just three years in operation, so we try to be as open and honest as possible to keep people on board and attract more partners. We’ve managed to build up a very supportive group of suppliers, with whom we have an open dialogue from tender stage right through to value engineering issues.

What are your payment terms for subcontractors?

We generally guarantee payment within 35 days of a package’s completion. Everyone agrees on a lump sum package at the start of a project and are paid promptly once the work’s completed – it means subcontractors come back to us as a result.

How do you maintain an ethical payment strategy when the markets become hostile?

There’s always going to be a market price for doing a job, so we’ll all discuss the margins and agree on a payment strategy. We’re not aiming for endless turnover growth, so we’d rather be cautious and aim for modest profitability. The likes of Taylor Wimpey are too aggressive and it will affect their relationships with subcontractors and suppliers as a result

How are you aiming to grow your staff and what skills are lacking?

We have 135 staff and we want to grow that by 10%. As with other contractors, we lack engineers and surveyors. We have good project managers and site managers. We’re building our sustainablility team by taking on managers from inside and outside the firm and we hope to have that together within three months.

What is your approach to sustainability?

We try to include as many sustainable aspects as we possibly can, such as biomass boilers and green roofing. There is always a premium to pay for sustainable features, however, so it depends on whether the client wants to spend more money at the front end, and on the planning constraints.

We have extensive waste stream management plans, notably minimising plasterboard waste and increasing recycling.