By Casey Neill
Large Business Award
Sponsor: Facey Industrial Commercial
Winner: Buildsafe
Nominees: Bombardier Transportation, Buildsafe, Haulaway, Illusion Australia, Jurgen Swiss Bread, Lifestyle Brands International, Skillinvest.
Employment Award
Sponsor: Macpherson Kelley Lawyers
Winner: Buildsafe
Nominees: Bombardier Transportation, Buildsafe, Dandenong Pavilion, Illusion Australia, Jurgen Swiss Bread, Lifestyle Brands International, Skillinvest.
Buildsafe co-founder Peter Horton “certainly wasn’t expecting” to accept a Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce business award.
He ended up taking home two.
The Keysborough-headquartered company won both the Large Business and Employment awards at the chamber’s presentation night at Atura Hotel on Wednesday 22 November.
“It’s more about all the people that work with us than myself,” he said accepting the Large Business nod.
“It’s a great honour.”
Jason Ashton from Macpherson Kelley presented the employment honour, and told guests that Buildsafe was a client of the Dandenong-based law firm “and a fantastic business to deal with”.
He said Mr Horton looked after his staff exceptionally well, “against our advice sometimes”.
Mr Horton said: “We put a lot of effort into our staff and we get a lot out of them.”
Back in 2001, the Buildsafe team was calling 10 builders a day, staying up all night building equipment, and delivering it to sites the following day.
Its founders wanted to bring professionalism to the scaffolding industry, and to increase both safety and productivity.
“We’ve designed most of our products if not all of them,” Mr Horton said.
“One of the key factors has been the ability of our staff to put it up safely.”
It now employs more than 400 people and builders from across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland come to the company for solutions, not just products.
“We’ve still got a lot of growth left in Melbourne but Sydney’s our big one,” Mr Horton said.
Buildsafe also has a focus on mental health after losing a worker a few years ago.
“If you’ve got happy people at work you’re running a better business,” he said.
