Darren Schuck’s career could have looked very different. The now General Manager, Supply Chain at Civeo Australia
– a company specialising in full-service workplace accommodation – initially enrolled in a pharmacy degree after leaving high school. He soon discovered his future wasn’t as a pharmacist. “I switched over to a commerce degree and worked in a range of hospitality roles,” he says, later using that industry knowledge and newfound commercial skills to land a job at Empire Hospitality Group. That role eventually led to a GM position and when the personal circumstances of the ownership group changed, Schuck was asked to break up the businesses and sell them off.
Sale completed, Schuck took a break from work, taking the time to travel. “I really got the travel bug,” he says, and went on the hunt for a job that wouldn’t tie him down in one location. A role at Civeo Australia (then called The MAC) as a Food & Beverage Manager ticked all the right boxes. Taking advantage of the 14-day-on, seven-day-off roster, Schuck hopped around South-East Asia and Europe in-between work. “My career with Civeo was going well, progressing within the business to the regional relief manager and catering operations manager, when an opportunity arose with Civeo Australia’s operations support and procurement department in 2015,” he says. “At that point I was keen to get serious and step up my career.”
Seven years later, he’s happy he made that decision.
“Civeo has always aimed to deliver the best for its people… both the people that stay with us and our team,” he says. “It’s a company that lives by its values. I think about the five pillars that Civeo operate under – ‘care, collaborate, excellence, integrity and safety’ – every day, right from the top down, we live and breathe those values.”
The past two years have been particularly challenging, primarily thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on global supply chain. “Every day, there is a new challenge, whether that is out-of-stock items, logistical failures or external staffing issues, and this has created a really dynamic work environment for the team.”
And replacing unavailable products with substitutions from different suppliers or manufacturers is not straightforward. Civeo vets all products to ensure they meet a range of ethical and safety standards. “Every time something gets substituted, we’ve got to make sure that it meets all of those criteria,” he says.
Managing precarious supply chains has become a delicate balance between forecasting requirements and maintaining security of supply. “Goods that were once readily available within national distribution networks simply are not there anymore,” explains Schuck. “There’s a lot of thought and management that goes into that from myself and my category teams.”
Despite operating in adverse conditions, Schuck has seen business grow. When he joined Civeo’s Operation Support and Procurement sector in 2015, he was one of two people in the team. “Today, we have cross-functional departments, category and commercial management, procurement support, contract management and logistics,” he says. “We deal with a large number of suppliers across a number of different categories, and because of that have grown into a diverse and multifaceted team over the past six years.”
Asked to name his proudest achievement, Schuck is quick to mention his team. “[I’m proud of] building the procurement supply chain function up to the level it is within the business. I’ve got a remarkable team that’s respected within the business, and we operate with a significant amount of integrity.”
