Quayclean Australia creates Quay Academy to focus on leadership and culture

Quayclean Australia in partnership with Weatherill Leadership has created the Quay Academy to establish deep cultural behaviours within its 1500 workforce and develop leaders throughout the nationwide organisation.

Quay Academy is designed to train, mentor and develop talent from within the Quayclean team.  

All staff throughout the company will be involved in the evolutionary recognition of values and culture as well as developing talent through the organisation. Quay Academy is focused on the use of outside industry experts including National Institute of Dramatic Arts and En-Hansen Performance Coaching.

As a leading Australian cleaning, waste management and presentation services company, Quayclean is responsible for cleaning and presentation services at several leading Australia sports venues including the SCG, Gabba, Adelaide Oval, Marvel Stadium and Australian Turf Club racing sites.

Simon Weatherill, the principle of Weatherill Leadership, was the long-serving Chief Executive of the Melbourne Sports Hub which encompasses the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (MSAC), State Netball Hockey Centre (SNHC) and Lakeside Stadium, as well as MSAC Institute of Training, a specialist training institute for the sport and recreation industry.

Quayclean Chief Executive, Mark Piwkowski, said Quayclean has an evolving philosophy which positively reflects the values of the company as it strives to make its customers look great.

Piwkowski notes “our leadership team understands that leadership drives culture and culture drives performance, so we have established the Quay Academy to develop these consistent behaviours in our customer driven and innovative thinking enterprise.

“Developing culture, leading teams at any level and developing authentic leaders is everyone’s business at Quayclean. No matter what the position an employee has in the organisation, they have ownership and responsibility for their actions, and are accountable for the leadership that they demonstrate.

Piwkowski adds “we have a diverse range of customers all with unique requirements such as the Sydney Opera House, Gold Coast City Council, Adelaide Oval, Melbourne Racing Club and Perth Zoo across the country. We are preparing our leaders to have the knowledge and skill to effectively lead their teams and create outstanding experiences for customers.

“Our focus on developing credible authentic leaders is based on creating role models that ‘walk the talk’ and follow through on their promises.

“Our workforce comprises a wide array of men and women from a variety of nationalities and cultural backgrounds and we are looking to develop an organisational culture which is the foundation of everything we do.”

Piwkowski said Weatherill understands the importance of leadership within organisations and the critical role team leaders play in developing culture.

Weatherill said leadership development is based on Quayclean’s core values of trust, teamwork, respect, growth, and passion and adds “these values underpin the desired culture of the organisation. It is critical the personal values of the aspiring leaders align with the company values.

“The main premise of Quay Academy is leadership is a learnt skill and that skill is measured by how one behaves in any given situation.”

Weatherill said key leadership qualities include:

• Selectively showing weakness by exposing some vulnerability and revealing approachability and humanity
• Relying heavily on intuition to gauge appropriate timing and course of their action
• Managing teams with high expectations, tough empathy while having a love and respect for their work, and
• Doing the right thing to make a positive difference and create a better place for everyone to work

Weatherill went on to say “unquestionably, our world, our society, our countries, our workplaces, and our homes have become much more complex and challenging.

“There is a great need for leadership today, to give people a sense of direction to guide us and assist us in doing the right thing."

To contact Quayclean to find out more about the Quay Academy, click here to view their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory. 

Image: Simon Weatherill presenting.