When I sat down to interview the first member of the Salus team, I thought I knew how the conversation would go.

We would talk about career history, memorable projects, the changing face of Building Control and perhaps a few words of advice for anyone thinking about joining the profession. We’d write the story, publish it on the website and move on to the next interview.

But something unexpected happened. The more people I spoke to, the more I realised they were all telling the same story. Not just about Building Control, regulations or even their own careers – a common theme surfaced throughout – every one of the interviews was about learning.

From Regional Directors, Principal Surveyors, Building Inspectors, through to Technical Administrators and Apprentices, whatever the stage of their career they had reached, from three months to thirty years, the conversations would intersect at the same point – the learning never stops.

That became particularly obvious when I recently met Apprentice Registered Building Inspector Elliott Chamberlain.

Coming into Salus from a bricklaying background, Elliott expected there would be plenty to learn. He was starting a four-and-a-half-year apprenticeship, encompassing university, regulations, site inspections and plan checking as part of his new job description.

Yet it wasn’t the amount of information he had to absorb that surprised him, it was the people around him.

“Even after 20, 30 or 40 years, they’re always learning. You’re never going to know everything.”

It was one of those comments that stayed with me long after the interview had finished. At first, I thought it was simply an observation from someone at the beginning of their career. But, upon reflection, I think it describes the culture at Salus better than almost anything else I’ve heard.

Elliott wasn’t just talking about himself, he was talking about everyone.

During the week, Elliott spends time studying towards his degree, but when I asked where he’d learned the most, he didn’t mention university. Instead, he talked about shadowing experienced inspectors, listening to conversations in the office and asking questions on site.

“I’m definitely learning more through mentoring and being on site. You can read something on a screen, but when someone explains it while you’re looking at it on site, it paints a much clearer picture.”

That idea of learning through people, rather than simply through processes, cropped up again and again.

As Learning & Development Coordinator, Pamela Lyon probably has the widest view of career development anywhere in the business.

She sees apprentices beginning their careers, experienced inspectors progressing through higher registration classes, colleagues completing specialist CABE programmes and managers developing leadership skills. She coordinates apprenticeships, professional qualifications, continuing professional development and annual appraisal processes, helping people identify where they want to grow next.

What struck me wasn’t simply the breadth of development taking place across the business. It was that Pamela is on exactly the same journey herself.

Alongside supporting everyone else’s development, she’s currently studying towards her own Level 5 qualification in HR and Learning & Development.

When I pointed out that this seemed rather fitting, she smiled – “Lead by example.”

These words explain more about the culture at Salus than any values statement ever could. The people responsible for learning are still learning themselves.

Once I’d noticed that pattern, I started seeing it everywhere.

Wendy Hill, Regional Administration Manager, told me how a career that began in microbiology eventually led her into Building Control support after retraining and adapting to a completely different profession. Her story is proof that careers rarely follow a straight line and that “the skills we all have can be transferred “ and take you in completely different directions that one would never expect.

Jennie Dicker, Regional Administration Manager, joined Salus looking for a part-time administration role that worked around family life, a theme close to so many employee’s mindsets these days. Ten years later she’s Regional Administration Manager, leading teams across the South of England. She didn’t arrive with a carefully mapped-out career plan; she simply “kept taking opportunities to develop as they came along”.

Senior Project Surveyor, Joy Tsui’s story follows a similar path. She laughs about “falling into” Building Control, but the reality is that curiosity changed everything. Processing plans led her to ask questions, which developed into an understanding that over time turned into her profession. What started as an administrative role became a technical career because she wanted something that “challenged her”.

After more than 35 years in Building Control, including over 20 years with Salus, Clive Hemming (Principal Project Surveyor) could easily have become someone who simply relied on experience.

Instead, he talks passionately about taking younger surveyors onto site because, in his words, “there’s only so much you can learn from a screen.” For Clive, mentoring isn’t an obligation; it’s part of protecting the future of the profession.

James Emery, Director, offered another perspective.

Having progressed from Building Inspector to Director, James spoke about leadership not as something that comes automatically with experience, but as another skill to learn. Different people need different support, different opportunities and different ways of developing. Leadership, like technical competence, is something you continue to work on throughout your career.

Looking back over all these conversations, I thought I was writing a series of interviews but what has been happening is that I have been documenting the culture at Salus, one where people are encouraged to ask questions and where experience is shared rather than protected.

Apprentices learn from surveyors, surveyors learn from one another and leaders continue learning alongside the teams they support.

Building regulations change and modern methods of construction evolve as technology moves forward and with that momentum, clients’ expectations change. Doing things ‘the same way they have always been done’ is no longer an option.

The people at Salus have realised that experience alone is no longer the yardstick for a modern business, indeed the longer someone has worked at Salus, the less likely they are to claim they know everything, instead adopting a curiosity that supports them in their working lives.

That’s why Elliott Chamberlain’s words have resonated with me.

“Even after 20, 30 or 40 years, they’re always learning.”

After spending months talking to people from across Salus, I don’t think there’s a better way to describe the business. Learning isn’t something you do at the start of your career or something you complete once you’ve passed an exam or achieved a qualification. It’s something that happens every day.

Around meeting tables and at construction sites, plan checks and mentoring, conversations and asking one more question, that’s the real philosophy that underpins the expertise at Salus – learning isn’t an isolated stage of your career, it’s part of who people become when they work here.