Prata om fusket med Jesper Göransson, Peab

Hello and welcome to the Building Market Commission and our new series Talk about Cheating. Before we let Jesper Göransson, CEO of Peab, who is our first guest, we will say a few words about what we are doing in the Building Market Commission. My name is Stefan Attefall and I am the chairman of the commission, and we are six members who will try to map and describe cheating and crime in the construction industry, but also come up with suggestions for what we can do about it. This is a fairly unique creation because it is the first time that construction companies, both the organization, the construction companies and the large construction companies in Sweden, the trade unions both on the LO side and on the Unionen side, on the white-collar side, and other trade union organizations and developers like Obos, Riksbyggen, HSB, and Sveriges Allmännytta have come together to invest in a commission that will try to do something about these problems. Of course, there are also many other initiatives, both in individual companies and in organizations and in the government world and in politics. But hopefully we can contribute with some proposals for measures, and we will present our proposals in January 2022, and then we will be working for almost exactly two years. Now you can follow these conversations we will have with some different representatives of the construction industry, authorities, researchers, and we will have them under the series Talk about Cheating, and tomorrow we will have a new conversation with Pia Bergman at the Swedish Tax Agency, and we will return both before the holidays and after the holidays with some additional conversations. The idea is that we will talk for 20-30 minutes with different guests to try to shed light on these issues and hear different inputs and experiences. And first out is the CEO and Group CEO Jesper Göransson at Peab. Welcome Jesper. Tell us a little about your long career at Peab. You have been there since 1996 if I am correctly informed.

Mm. You became CEO in 2013, that's quite a long time since you became CEO. Haven't you gotten tired yet?

Yes, that is an interesting aspect because it is part of what we are going to discuss. That is, you can run the company but you don't build culture in front of a Teams camera. Can you describe what the problem is? Do you think it's not being out and meeting people in the operations?

Mm. I also want to think of something that you think our listeners don't know about Jesper Göransson. What secrets do you have?

But windsurfing is your secret vice?

Exactly. Mm. Before we go into our main area to discuss and talk about how the problems look and what we can do about them, we should remind you as a listener that you can write questions on Facebook in the Facebook thread, and our Susanna Krikård will send them to me, the relevant questions. And as I said, you can also go to our website after this meeting and read more about what the Building Market Commission does. We are under the name Byggmarknadskommissionen. There we have our website, so please follow us and follow the conversations we will have in the future, what times they will be and so on. Jesper, we have had a growing or at least increasingly noticed problem about cheating and crime in the construction industry. If you could first describe from your perspective, is this a big problem or a marginal problem? Is it a long-term problem or temporary? How would you describe the nature of the problems?

Mm. What is the reason it has grown? What is your analysis?

Mm. We may come back to that very thing. But I usually argue that besides the EU's open borders and internationalization in general that has happened and made it easy to move, it has also been easy to travel cost-wise. And then we have the high economic cycle as a contributing factor. But there is another factor that I want to test on you. Could there be something in that we have become more such that we work much more with subcontractors? That is, construction companies specialize, have less own staff, more subcontractors, and then you become dependent on various actors who in turn may have their subcontractors who are not as thorough. Could there be something in that?

Mm. But is there something there that the industry should reflect on? Trends in the industry?

Mm. Mm. You, if we return to the social contract, you mean that here we have something we need to discuss. What does it include? And if we were to have a continued development with more cheating, crime in the construction sector, what dangers do you see for the entire societal development and for the industry as such?

Mm. Do you think it has been done enough?

There are still many different things happening. Both Byggnads and Byggföretagen have had various activities. We have had ID06 which has stopped some cheating opportunities, and we have some other initiatives among procurers and various actors, and authorities are cooperating to a higher degree. Don't you feel that it is on the right track, or do you think there are far too few efforts? Yes, but if I turn the question around, Stefan, you have been in the issue for quite a long time. What do you say yourself? Are we on the right track?

Yes, I think we have, shall I say, we are at some kind of turning point, I feel. There is a lot going on. There is a higher degree of awareness. There is a movement in the right direction. But it must somehow be given real power and coordination, I think, to crack this. Because as you yourself say, there are very strong economic forces involved, and we know that you don't crack that with just fine words and things. So I agree that there is ignorance as well. I notice that awareness has reached a certain level among some actors but not really in depth. And it can be an organization too, that some are engaged but not all.

Mm. The secrecy issues in our legislation are one such area that we also drill into from our side. Precisely. A bit symptomatic perhaps, it was also that the government appointed Mikael Sjöberg's investigation that was supposed to look at these issues, but he was not allowed to present any legislative proposals, and now his investigation has landed in that they are preparing an investigation on the issue. So the steps are going in the right direction, but it is going quite slowly, I think.

I have received a question from a viewer here. What responsibility does Peab have for it being possible for work-related crime to gain a foothold in the construction industry? What would you answer to that question?

But you were touching on this about it having to come from the highest level and clearly indicate the direction, and you also touched earlier on this about culture building as a group management. Do you think there is too little pointing with the whole hand from the highest level and too little culture building to prevent cheating and crime in the industry among all your colleagues and other actors?

What, how do you cut?

Yes. And do you have lists of those you don't like, so to speak?

You have your own black book where you have listed them. Yes, but how do you build the culture in a large organization like Peab so that everyone becomes aware and behaves the same way when working with individual factors? Take, for example, the site manager who is in a crisis situation, must solve an urgent problem to keep deadlines, and then grabs the first best option that may not be the most reputable company. You are pressured with different considerations. How do you build this culture to get this in?

Mm. I am taking in another question that has come in on our Facebook thread, and they refer to Väjdäcket. Väjdäck has done a review of its operations and from that concluded, quote, 'All subcontractors cheat.' I think a quote that Lerner Wei has said something about 90% cheat. Has Peab thought of doing a similar review?

Yes, Väjdäck has done a review of its operations and from that can conclude that all subcontractors cheat. It is based on an interview with Lerner Wei where he found that up to maybe 90% of those they checked had some type of error. Has Peab thought of doing a similar review?

There was a developer who said to me: 'Yes, we do this and that, and then we have to ask ourselves how far we should go in our controls.' So what can each company have a huge organization to control all subcontractors in several tiers? And what do you say about that? Is it that you take too much responsibility or too little? I think we cannot take too much responsibility in itself, but on the other hand, I think the aspect that this colleague raised is very relevant because somewhere you have to discuss that there is no single party that solves these issues alone, but it is a collaboration between authorities, industry associations, trade unions, and companies, and then the discussion about how to divide the responsibility is very relevant. So I think that.

Mm. What do you think? What do you think? As you look now at the Building Market Commission, which will be finished with its report in January, if you could send something with us, or to authorities, or politicians, or to industry colleagues and industry organizations, what would you envision now for forceful measures or activities? Do you have any special advice to send?

Do you have, besides Finland, any concrete advice that you would like to say, do this thing then?

Mm. Mm. Thank you, Jesper. We will conclude our conversation and remind that we will return with conversations. We will look at trust and control. We have asked Lars Trädgård, a researcher, to look at these issues that are a bit larger than just the industry covers. But precisely because it is connected, as you yourself touched on, Jesper, the entire trust in society is threatened if we cannot trust that the rules are fair, that rules are followed, and that the authorities also do their part. And we will talk with authorities, including the Swedish Tax Agency, tomorrow at 3:00 PM, and you are welcome to join. Then we continue this conversation series. Go to the Building Market Commission's website and follow us on Facebook where they talk about cheating, so you can follow our work in the Building Market Commission. And I hope that we will be able to satisfy at least some of your hopes, Jesper, when we come with the Building Market Commission's final report, but we will also come with some activities in the fall that will be with the audience when we can gather again, which we hope and believe. But Jesper, with this, I say a big thank you for participating in this first conversation, Talk about Cheating.

Thank you. Then we shut down for this time. Thank you. Goodbye.