Joonas Haverinen heads Welado’s road, industrial, and real estate construction management business management. In addition to getting new projects, Joonas maintains his field-specific skills as project manager for the Oulu-Kemi highway 4 project.
What are you an expert in? How did you develop your expertise?
My strongest skills are in road and street construction management, and bridge construction management, as I’ve been working with them for 17 years. When you’ve been working for this long already, it’s nice to lead, expand, and develop the business.
We are always recruiting new and different skill sets, and my job is to figure out how we can use them, and how they can help us get a wider range of business opportunities. It’s nice to see how other experts grow and develop at Welado.
What does being an artisan mean to you, and how is it visible to the client in practice?
We work according to our company values and together try to find the best solutions for the client. That’s teamwork. My own job too is mostly helping others and figuring out who can help.
What do your workdays typically include?
My main responsibility is to ensure profitable growth, which in practice means putting together bids and finding work for our road, industrial, and real estate construction management experts. We have plans to expand our real estate and industrial construction management teams to the point where we can consider them their own businesses. We are also always looking out for new business opportunities, of which waterways and aviation and energy construction management projects have already partly kicked off.
What do the new services include?
Waterway construction management can include the dredging, deepening and maintenance of inland and sea waterways. It can also include seafaring safety devices like lighthouses and their maintenance. We could also be a part of dock and harbour construction projects.
Aviation includes facilities and infrastructure related to air traffic like airports. We have actually just signed a framework agreement with Finavia regarding all of Finland’s airports.
On the energy side we are already in deep, as they say, as we have five people involved with projects concerning the Posiva final disposal solution. Fortum also employs several of our experts with different construction management responsibilities.
What is your education and employment history?
I graduated from the University of Oulu with a degree in environmental technology in 2004. After graduating I worked for ISS Proko Infra for 8 years, first as a construction management engineer, then as a project manager, and finally went from industry manager to industry director. Following the sale of the business I moved to Ramboll, where I worked for five years as industry manager and leading expert.
In 2016 Kimmo Saarela called and asked if I would be interested in developing Proxion’s road business. I moved to Proxion in early 2017, soon after which the whole construction management business became a separate independent entity, Welado. I would say this has gone pretty well if in three and a half years we’ve recruited 50 people into profitable businesses lead by me.
Your biggest successes?
It has to be the Oulu highway 4 projects. We can be proud of the work we did on those projects. The place has the third highest average daily traffic in Finland after Helsinki’s ring roads. It was rewarding to get the work done safely in a location with such a challenging amount of traffic.
What are the most important factors in the success of a project?
With all project leadership it’s most important to get the project done on time, within the cost constraints, and according to the quality requirements. If in addition to all that the project is done safely, the whole team can be proud of their performance. When you’re working in heavy traffic, you have to look after your own safety and make sure that the road users can continue on their way safely.
Our promise to our clients is an always easy project. To me this means using our expertise to make decision making easier for the client. We know how to explain and demonstrate to the client why specific suggested changes should be accepted or rejected. Our job is to make the client’s job easier.
What does trailblazing mean to you?
We stay on top of the times. We can do that when we understand our clientele’s strategy and their goals, and when our own strategic practices react to our clientele’s needs now and in the future. We recognise where we are now, and what new winds are blowing in the industry.
We also have the courage to test out new tools and practices and do things differently in a positive way. It’s pure stupidity to do things the same way every time and then expect things to change.
What kind of colleagues do you have at Welado?
Great team players. Helpful and open. They are willing to talk about things, even hard ones, and ask for advice when needed.
In what ways do you want to develop on your Welado path?
You always want to keep developing, otherwise you might get bored. I want to strengthen my field-specific skills, gain new skills in areas I don’t yet know much about, and of course develop as a supervisor and a leader. When the organisation is developing in a more flexible direction, you have to be there developing practices and making processes more flexible. You have to be able to show people how it’s done and set an example. I think leading by example is what works best for Finnish people.
What would you like to improve upon within our field?
There is still a lot of room for communication skills to grow. You still see some old-fashioned confrontation in the field. We believe that collaboration and mutual support always push a project forward. It doesn’t detract from your own value when others make the grade and succeed.