Once again demonstrating tremendous levels of consistency, Clancy Construction was recently named by Deloitte as one of Ireland’s Best Managed Companies for the 11th year running. Construction Industry News recently caught up with Declan Fitzpatrick, Construction and EHSQ Director, to see what this phenomenal success means to the business and to see how it has been achieved.
“We were obviously absolutely delighted to win the award again and we’ve got great value from being involved for over a decade now,” explains Declan. “We particularly enjoy the annual awards event itself, as it’s a fantastic opportunity to meet other companies and network with companies from other sectors.
“From an internal perspective, it also underlines to our own staff that we’re operating in the correct manner, as well as showcasing to our clients and other stakeholders the high standards we adhere to. The recognition is vindication of the superb business practices we’ve instilled into the company over the years. These are based on the types of criteria that all the best businesses work to, not just in Ireland, but all around the world.”
Reaching such lofty standards is an achievement for any company but to keep hitting such heights year after year is even more impressive, particularly when there’s always challenges to overcome. So, what’s been the key to this consistency? Declan believes the principal factor has been the people at the heart of Clancy, the basis on which every business worth its salt is built on. “We have a fantastic core of people within the company,” he adds. “We currently have just over 200 directly employed staff, and it’s interesting that when we were first named the Best Managed Company in Ireland 11 years ago, our workforce force was just under 80 employees. With the addition of our own staff, combined with the sub-contractors, we have in the region of around 1,000 employees across all our sites on any given day. To put this into perspective, we average 14 or 15 live projects at any one time.”
Given these numbers and the growth it has seen over the years, it’s no surprise that Clancy places such a strong emphasis on staff training and development. This not only ensures that its people reach their full potential but also demonstrates the company’s commitment to them. This is vitally important at a time when skills within the construction industry are thin on the ground and recruitment can be difficult.
“We work extremely hard to keep the good people that we have within the business, and we regularly have staff undertaking part-time degrees or master’s degree courses, which in many cases we fund or part-fund. This is an approach that has worked well and has benefitted the company hugely.”
Away from its people, Clancy has also reaped the dividends of having a focused approach to the development of its long-term prospects, as Declan highlights: “We work really hard on our strategy and tend to operate on three-year cycles. This involves sitting down with the senior leadership team to develop a plan to take us forward. The key is being agile and having the flexibility to adapt to any changes that occur within the market or the economy.
“We set out very clear and deliberate strategic goals that we want to achieve in terms of turnover, profit margin and the number of clients and the type of clients that we want to work with. However, in terms of what’s happening with the market or the economy from a macro perspective, our plans have the capability of changing to suit the wider picture. We sit down with the senior leadership team every quarter to conduct a two-day review where we assess where we’re at and identify what we need to prioritise for the following quarter in-line with our overall strategy.
“Of course, external factors can have significant effects, so we’re always mindful of refining our approach, if necessary, in order to keep our turnover and profit levels where we want them to be. Throughout this process, we remain in constant communication with our staff so that they’re kept updated with our plans going forward. This is absolutely vital.”
Another crucial element to Clancy’s philosophy as a business is the importance it places on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which it continually has various initiatives devoted to. This is in addition to its emphasis on operating in a Lean construction manner and its goal of adhering to its ‘Last Planner System’ (LPS) that it has across all its sites. This is very much about working with sub-contractors, design teams and clients to achieve high levels of collaboration. This has resulted in significant success, particularly in the past five years. Despite this progress, regular assessments are again carried out every quarter to identify any issues that require addressing.
“We put a huge emphasis on our six core values, and we’ve spent a great deal of time over the years developing them and communicating them to our people and our stakeholders,” says Declan. “They form the basis for the strong decision-making processes we have built within the business. This means that even with 14 or 15 projects taking place at the same time, they all adhere to the same health & safety standards and quality controls as each other in-line with ISO standards. Again, we’re fortunate that our staff really buy into this approach and the feedback we receive from them is extremely positive, It definitely makes their lives easier in terms of how they do their jobs every day. To underpin this, we recently held workshop events for over 160 of our staff over the course of several days to reinforce the values we have as a business and the reasons why they’re so important to us as a company.”
With this multi-faceted approach to continually cement its philosophy within the company, it is easy to see why Clancy has avoided any risk of complacency and achieve such superb consistency. It was therefore no surprise that it was named as one of Ireland’s Best Managed Company for 11 years running and it has every chance of making it 12 years in 2026.