Step 1 - Register your commitment
Go to ‘Join now’. You will then be sent full details of how to prepare your programme of cultural change, including the Charter Toolkit.
Step 2 - Review your current position
The continuous improvement process of the Charter involves assessing how competent your organisation is at a number of ‘cultural criteria’, which enable clients to achieve better outcomes from projects. The cultural criteria are the competencies which underpin the four themes of the Charter: Client Leadership, Integrated Teams, Whole Life Quality, Respect for People.
Step 3 - Plan an improvement programme
Identify areas of improvement that would most benefit your organisation. Each cultural criterion is defined in terms of a 1–5 scale of competencies from non-existent to best in class. Describe what your organisation proposes to do and how long it will take to reach a high standard of competency. You should also calculate the performance of your recent construction projects using the construction industry key performance indicators. The actions taken on cultural criteria will drive improvement in project performance.
Step 4 - Submit your improvement programme
Once you have planned your improvement programme, submit it via the website to Achilles Information Limited who will pass it to independent assessors. They will produce a written report and discuss it with you. To be accepted, the improvement programme should demonstrate an understanding of the requirements of the Charter, a commitment to improve and an adequate explanation of the plan in the supporting text boxes in the online submission.
Step 5 - Achieve charter status
When your improvement programme has been approved, your organisation will be awarded Charter Client status. A Minster at the Department of Trade and Industry will sign a Charter Client certificate and the Charter Client logo can be publicly reproduced.
Step 6 - Monitor your progress, review your programme
Each year you will be asked to measure your progress using six construction industry KPI’s and to amend the improvement programme to reflect progress and current business strategy.
The website provides you with graphical reports so that you can track your progress against your Programme and also benchmark your performance against other Charter Clients at any time and in complete confidence.