What Our Clients Say

Peter Ward, Head of People & Change, South Australian Water

Peter Ward, Head of People and Change at South Australian Water (SA Water) presented ‘Organisational Transformation’ at the Worktech Public Sector Workplace Symposium on Monday, 18 January 2010.

Peter’s presentation illustrated how SA Water used its real estate to leverage cultural transformation, attract new generation of employees and enhance its reputation, by demonstrating a high level of sustainability and leadership through innovative design.

Completed in late 2008, SA Water’s new workplace as achieved exactly what the organisation’s leadership wanted for its culture and development. Rent cost is no more than it would have been, using conventional procurement methods. Attraction and retention is improving with graduate applications having soared from an average of 150 to more than 440 in 2009, compared to prior years.

SA Water is the South Australian Government water authority. In 2008 they consolidated three metropolitan sites to a new headquarters in central Adelaide, which incorporates world-leading workplace, laboratories and education centre facilities, and is among the first commercially-procured, 6 Star, Green Star office buildings in Australia.

Working closely with SA Water’s internal project team and engineering partners, DEGW developed the aspirational brief for the project, the strategic brief for the workplace, the technical brief of laboratory requirements and the building performance brief for the building shell.

Peter Ward presented a similar talk at an evening event ‘Doing more with less’ on Tuesday 19 January, which was hosted by DEGW and Davis Langdon. This event attracted key real estate professionals from the public as well as the private sector.