An online competence system for 2,500 staff across 13 job families
Designed and implemented a competence system spanning the full delivery community at Costain, with bespoke behavioural and technical frameworks built for each job family.
The Brief
Capability across an entire delivery business
Costain runs major engineering and construction programmes across the UK. The brief was to give the business a single online system through which 2,500 staff across 13 distinct job families could see, evidence and develop their competence.
This was no copy-paste job. Each job family needed its own behavioural and technical competence framework. The system had to host all of them, and the rollout had to bring people with it.
Our Approach
Frameworks, then a platform, then engagement.
The Outcome
A capability spine for an engineering business
Costain ended up with a single source of truth for competence across thousands of delivery staff: self-assessment validated by line managers, personal development planning linked to actual roles, and resource intelligence at organisational level.
We have since rolled the same approach out at Shell, BAA Heathrow and Transport for London. Costain showed us what the model could do at scale.
