Royal BAM Group (operating as Royal BAM) is a premier European construction enterprise generating between seven and eight billion euros in annual turnover. With major divisions operating across the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, BAM covers the full turnkey lifecycle of the built environment—spanning architecture, design, property development, procurement, complex infrastructure project delivery, and long-term facilities management for up to 30 years. Their world-class portfolio includes iconic, highly engineered landmarks such as the world’s largest sea lock, advanced nuclear facilities, massive cable-stayed bridges, and stunning architectural marvels like Dubai’s Museum of the Future.
In this case study, readers will discover how Royal BAM Group (UK & Ireland division) overcame the dual challenges of upskilling thousands of decentralized construction professionals and maintaining up-to-date training material. Readers will learn how BAM partnered with Global eTraining (GeT) to seamlessly integrate an extensive, multi-modal library of software training into their existing corporate platform under the BAM brand. This collaboration successfully democratized learning across a highly diverse workforce, shifting organizational culture toward on-demand, flexible education.
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FEATURING
Paul Brennan
Director for Digital Project Solutions (UK & Ireland)
Beth Deeley
Head of Digital Engineering and Visualisation
As a major player in the European construction sector with a multi-billion euro turnover, Royal BAM Group operates across a massive life cycle—from design and procurement to vertical construction, heavy civil engineering, and long-term facilities management. This expansive portfolio requires a vast array of complex technical solutions from vendors like Autodesk, Microsoft, and Bentley.
To remain a leader in digitalization, digital twinning, and virtual design and construction, BAM needed a way to keep its distributed workforce current with ever-evolving software packages. However, their existing training paradigm was deeply restricted by operational demands, high turnover, and rapid technological advancements, creating critical barriers to true company-wide standardization.
“Our biggest challenge… is trying to upscale so many people or keep so many people keep their skills up to date. And we can’t afford to always take them away from the job site… We have thousands of engineering and project management staff that we need to be able to reach.”
Paul Brennan
BAM employs thousands of engineers, architects, surveyors, and project managers spread out across vast geographical regions. Historically, high-quality training required pulling these key professionals away from active job sites and putting them into traditional, classroom-style environments. This method was not only operationally disruptive, causing costly downtime on projects, but it was financially unsustainable to scale across thousands of staff members who needed instant access to learning tools.
“We have thousands of engineering and project management staff that we need to be able to reach. We can’t afford to have them on projects. We can’t afford to have them always in classroom training.”
Paul Brennan
Technology changes at the fastest pace the industry has ever seen. While BAM excelled at identifying immediate training needs and building initial course materials, the internal team lacked the resources and bandwidth to maintain them. Internal leadership found themselves caught in a cycle of creating a course, celebrating its rollout, and watching it become entirely obsolete within eight to twelve months as software developers updated features and workflows.
“And then the second problem we have is keeping content up to date. And that’s something that we haven’t been great at doing that in BAM… We always create a training course, pat ourselves on the back, and we tend to forget that we need to come back and update it in eight or nine or 12 months’ time.”
Paul Brennan
Navigating nearly 100 distinct digital capabilities and project-specific client demands made standardizing a uniform “BAM Way” exceptionally complex. Because nuclear projects, bridges, roads, and hospitals all require entirely different workflows and distinct software applications (such as Civil 3D, Revit, Solibri, or Synchro), the team struggled to filter the noise and provide the exact skills training required for specific roles without overwhelming the workforce.
“We have nearly 100 different capabilities that we can kind of, I suppose, call upon… Trying to bring together the kind of hundred capabilities which are ever growing, along with the competence centers and the technology that’s linked to those processes, has been complex.”
Beth Deeley
To tackle these deep-rooted educational bottlenecks, BAM partnered with Global eTraining to deploy a highly scalable, role-based cloud learning solution tailored to their massive organizational footprint. Rather than adopting a generic, off-the-shelf software training package, BAM focused on creating an intuitive digital learning ecosystem. This allowed them to marry external technical expertise with internal procedural standards, putting targeted education directly into the daily workflows of their diverse teams.
“We made the decision to bring in Global eTraining as just an extension of our BAM learning platform that was already there. So that was really good how you were able to kind of make that happen with us and make it so that it was more BAM branded rather than the Global eTraining brand.”
Beth Deeley
To combat “platform fatigue”—the friction caused when employees are bombarded with too many disparate external digital tools—BAM worked with GeT to fully integrate the platform as an extension of their pre-existing BAM learning management system. By masking the external brand and maintaining a strict, professional BAM look and feel, they minimized adoption barriers and successfully positioned the technical courses as standard, corporate-approved professional development.
“We made the decision to bring in Global eTraining as just an extension of our BAM learning platform that was already there… So that it was more BAM-branded rather than the Global eTraining brand.”
Beth Deeley
Understanding that a commercial manager, an estimator, and a structural engineer require entirely different software competencies, BAM built a strategic digital “shopfront.” Using the GeT Insights tool, employees take low-stakes skill assessments that automatically generate customized, highly targeted learning paths. This methodology isolates precisely what an individual needs to know for their job function, ensuring they spend time mastering relevant tools without wasting hours on irrelevant content.
“The analogy for us is like trying to create a shopfront for our people. We have surveyors, engineers, architects, commercial managers, planners, schedulers… It is trying to make sure that the right people are doing the right training with the right tools to support their job.”
Paul Brennan
Acknowledging that every individual processes information differently, BAM leveraged GeT’s inclusive platform design to appeal to multiple learning styles—visual, audio, read/write, and kinesthetic. By offering interactive cloud-based material alongside bite-sized modules, BAM successfully shifted away from rigid, long-form courses to a “just-in-time” training model where field teams can log in, quickly master a specific feature or workflow, and immediately apply it to their real-world workflows.
“I do particularly like with the Global eTraining stuff as well is how inclusive it is because it does address so many different learning styles… To make it as accessible and inclusive as possible makes it just one less kind of hurdle.”
Beth Deeley
By embedding Global eTraining directly into their corporate ecosystem, BAM successfully modernized its corporate learning culture and established a self-sustaining blueprint for workforce development. The strategic shift away from temporary classroom setups toward a centralized, cloud-based framework has fundamentally changed how the multi-billion euro enterprise manages engineering data, tackles specialized projects, and prepares its personnel for future industry innovations.
“Creating that shopfront, creating those linkages, making it somehow visible for them has probably been a great challenge… But at least we don’t have to worry about creating the content, Susan. I think that’s where you guys come in, how, and you have made it easy for us.”
Paul Brennan
Thousands of engineering and project management staff members across the UK, Ireland, and continental Europe can now access technical training directly on demand. Because employees can log in via computers, tablets, or smartphones right from the field, BAM has effectively eliminated job-site downtime and travel costs associated with traditional training, allowing complex infrastructure projects to maintain maximum productivity.
“Making upskilling as available as possible. I think that’s what I’m trying to say. Or, you know, something that they can tap into when it suits them is one of the reasons that we actually decided to partner with Global eTraining.”
Paul Brennan
By outsourcing core software curriculum management to GeT, BAM’s digital engineering leadership has completely freed themselves from the burden of content upkeep. GeT’s automated version control ensures that all software paths remain updated with the latest industry releases. This enables BAM’s Centers of Excellence to stop worrying about manual text updates and focus 100% of their energy on layering internal “BAM Way” standards over the foundation material.
“Creating that shopfront… has probably been a great challenge myself and Beth. But at least we don’t have to worry about creating the content, Susan. I think that’s where you guys come in, and you have made it easy for us.”
Paul Brennan
The partnership has successfully democratized training, driving an organizational shift where employees actively take ownership of their professional advancement. Through gamified challenges and customized learning paths instead of high-anxiety exams, BAM has lowered the hurdle for digital adoption. This agile learning foundation has successfully prepared its workforce to absorb emerging methodologies and upcoming technologies, such as advanced AI implementations, with ease.
“Partnering up with a professional learning company, right? Because in some ways… You have developed a platform which makes learning so much more, I suppose, real for people, especially how people learn, and everyone learns differently… It really helps them get to grips with the technology and the advances in technology.”
Paul Brennan
In an industry traditionally bound to rigid classroom instruction, Royal BAM Group successfully shifted the paradigm toward an agile, on-demand learning culture. By deploying Global eTraining as a seamless, internally branded extension of their platform, BAM solved the critical issues of content obsolescence and operational disruption. The resulting architecture empowers their diverse workforce to master sophisticated digital engineering tools at their own pace—ensuring that one of Europe’s premier contractors remains continuously equipped to build the future.
“We have thousands of engineering and project management staff that we need to be able to reach. We can’t afford to have them on projects. We can’t afford to have them always in classroom training… Trying to prepare my colleagues for AI that’s coming, really help them get to grips with the technology and the advances in technology is something that I’m committed to… These kinds of partnerships do make a difference.”
Paul Brennan, Director for Digital Project Solutions, Royal BAM Group
