Background
Union Station Enhancement Project (USEP) is a large-scale infrastructure project which is designed to prepare Toronto’s Union station rail corridor for GO Expansion service levels. From December 2020, this transformative project is being delivered through multiple sub-projects, all working toward one shared goal, that enables a two-way, all-day service every 15 minutes, that will radicalise how the community use Union Station.
USEP is being executed in progressive stages to ensure the timely delivery of the essential work. A key to this initiative is the use of an Alliance Procurement model, which allows project owners and their non-owner participants to jointly manage emerging risks and adapt to change when needed. Under the project name ONTrack Alliance, a strategic partnership had been formed between the following companies: Kiewit (the constructors responsible for the physical construction work within USEP), Alberici (through the partnership with Kiewit is involved in improving and expanding the construction work within USEP), WSP (acts as the lead design and overseeing all of the design work on USEP), Mass Electric (responsible for the electrical communications for the new concourse and the platform, as well as the signalling design and installation for the reconfigured tracks) and Metrolinx (which as the Owner Participant provides vital program integration, stakeholder management and requirements definition).
The ONTrack Alliance team leans on Mahoney & Matthews to lead collaborative culture measurements and interventions and serve on the Alliance Management Team for people advisory on high performing teams and behaviours conducive to collaborative leadership.
The M&M Effect
Mahoney and Matthews support has been embedded across several key areas:
- Advisory support for the Alliance Leadership Team (ALT) and Alliance Management Team (AMT) on People and Cultural strategy
- Achievement and ongoing maintenance of the IS044001 Standard for Collaborative Working, that supports a collaborative culture and way of working
- Coaching for all AMT members and selected Project Team (APT) individuals, for skills development or performance improvement
- Leadership and small group coaching sessions upon AMT requests
- Facilitating team workshops focused on collaboration conflict resolutions and effective communication throughout the Alliance
- Creating, collecting and analysing a regular and bespoke team health survey as well as partnering surveys amongst the Owner and Non-Owner Participants
- Leading and supporting internal initiatives such as Lunch and Learns, wellbeing strategy, mentoring programme, Safety Rodeos as well as assisting the HR team with people and culture related activities
Mahoney & Matthews being part of the ONTrack Alliance management team has led to a variety of positive outcomes. By facilitating collaboration and alignment across all the Alliance partners, we’re seeing improved morale and deeper, more fruitful relationships. This has been reflected in the team health survey scores (which show high levels of psychological safety) and continued, ongoing high scores for overall trust and happiness in the workplace.
Leadership capabilities at all levels have grown through coaching and development. Continuous support is helping individuals and teams navigate challenges more effectively.
In Their Words
Em and Sarah were a vital component of the ONTrack team's winnning bid journey and have been fundamental in the culture and collaboration across the project as People & Collaboration leads. They help us to be more human, lead with people in mind and deliver technical solutions through collaborative behaviours. They create value by enabling everyone to work together effectively and navigate and result conflict quickly and efficiently, which has been essential as our scope has increased. As the Alliance PD I can say M&M are my people brain - they hold our leaders and management team to account through their practical, compassionately direct approach.
Our Take
By working as an embedded part of the ONTrack Alliance team, we are able to impact real day-to-day collaboration through real-time conversations, high impact coaching, skills development and conflict navigation. The Alliance model is well set up to encourage a focus on collaborative behaviours, but it takes senior leadership sponsorship for our work to have impact, and the ONTrack Alliance team have prioritised investment in collaborative expertise from the start of the job.
