Construction conversations aren't deskbound. Neither is Contented.

Leighs Construction | New Zealand | ~250 staff | Contented since September 2024

Complex, large-scale projects like those delivered by Leighs Construction demand efficient management and clear communication across multiple teams with tight timescales. The challenge often isn't agreeing what to do, it's making sure what gets agreed reaches everyone who needs to know, quickly and accurately.

On construction sites, those important conversations happen on the move. Coordinating across trades means bringing people together where the work actually is - out on site, walking through what needs to happen and thrashing out a plan as you go.

The Contented app captures meetings wherever you are - on site, online, around the boardroom and on the ute on the way back. It's built to handle noisy spaces, multiple speakers, diverse accents and lots of banter.

For Leighs Project Manager Alex Fearon, it means he can record a walking meeting with multiple subcontractors as they move across the site together, and the outcomes are ready to be summarised and circulated by the time he's back at his desk.

"When you get everyone talking to each other on site, it's brilliant. You can step back a little bit, record, and then what they've agreed can be quickly summarised and shared. Everyone is on the same page and following one plan."

Teams at Leighs use Contented for the many different meeting types that keep a construction business running, not just those on site. Templated minutes, action tables, profiles and decision logs can be produced in moments, rather than hours.

For a project manager, the hours recovered from documentation are spent on what the role is actually for - planning ahead and managing risk before it becomes a problem.

"Having more time to think is precious," Alex says. "I can spend more time looking ahead and planning how we're going to get there. I can think more about what could go wrong and how to fix that now. I'm not doing admin all day, answering emails, writing minutes. I'm actually getting to think."

What does it mean for the organisation?

Construction work is high-stakes. Programme deadlines carry significant penalties, quality standards are non-negotiable, and keeping multiple teams aligned across complex projects is fundamental. With Contented embedded across Leighs, consistent and accurate records are produced faster and with less manual effort. The breadth of use reflects how deeply the tool is embedded, with teams using meeting minutes and action items for documents and human-centred templates such as participant profiles for insights.

What does it mean on site?

Decisions made during walking meetings between project managers, subcontractors and site teams are captured as they happen and distributed before the day is out. Everyone works from the same plan. Actions agreed are on the record. Nothing gets missed.

What does it mean for the individual?

When meetings that took an hour to write up can be documented in minutes, that recovered time goes directly into work that moves projects forward rather than the administration that follows them. The cognitive load of remembering who agreed to what across a busy week is lifted. Ask Alex what he'd do without Contented and the answer is straightforward:

"I'd have to hire somebody to just follow me around and take notes."

‍