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The hiring challenge behind the UK’s biggest construction projects

March 10, 2016  /   No Comments

Nick Martindale

The UK is currently embarking on a large number of significant construction and engineering projects, ranging from Crossrail to Hinkley Point, the proposed third runway at Heathrow and HS2. Such developments require vast numbers of people, taking in engineers, project managers and surveyors as well as labourers, electricians and welders; and it falls to recruiters to ensure such schemes have the skills they need to go ahead.

The problem is that such skills are already in short supply, and this is only likely to worsen as a number of major schemes commence at the same time. “Recruiting can be extremely difficult, particularly as some of the work, such as laying track for HS2, will be in remote areas of the UK,” says Graham Hasting-Evans, managing director of construction industry training firm NOCN.

“Projects like HS2 will also create demands for different skills as industry finds new and more effective ways of constructing, including manufacturing a great proportion off-site and just assembling where required. This presents a real challenge to managing the supply of skilled people.”

Liam Murray, client services director of BPS World, says his organisation takes three approaches to tackling skills shortages on such projects: seeking people in different sectors who could potentially move to a related one; expanding the scope geographically to the rest of the UK or abroad; and taking on more junior people with the intention of senior colleagues helping to train them up.

But he also stresses the need for compromise on behalf of clients. “To create the best candidate pool possible, given the shortages of skilled engineers, we need to establish where the criteria can be flexed,” he says. “What is more important: time, cost or quality? For example, can we lower the experience levels or is the client prepared to pay more, either in relocation costs or salaries, to compete against other recruiters?”

When it comes to identifying candidates, new channels such as LinkedIn – with its ability to use digital badges to demonstrate credentials – can be a good way of spotting people who might otherwise not been discovered. “Lots of academic institutions and organisations in the US are using digital badges as a way to verify the qualifications that individuals have,” says Mike Acaster, PPM portfolio manager at AXELOS, a joint venture between the UK government and Capita.

“Recruiters also need to look at what they have actually done,” he adds. “Does their CV show good progression from straightforward to increasingly more complex projects? Is it possible to determine their contribution to the success of the projects they have worked on by interview and reference? How have they handled complicated, complex or sensitive matters in the past?” 

The rail sector is a particularly challenging environment, says Adam Street, senior consultant for Europe and Africa at Airswift, as many candidates are being lured overseas to places such as the Middle East to work on newbuild projects, rather than the UK’s Victorian infrastructure. “This could further increase the skills shortage we’re already seeing and affect the rate of progress in the UK,” he warns.

One answer could be to turn to overseas candidates itself, he says, but he also stresses the need to develop more homegrown talent. “One area recruitment companies are exploring is the creation of apprentice schools,” he says. “Companies will fund young engineers as they enter the industry, learn the trade and support them as they take their qualifications.” 

This can also be applied to other candidates, says Donna Johnson, rail divisional manager at Search Consultancy. “One thing we can do is look at training programmes for candidates to upskill,” she says. “This is particularly useful in markets like signalling which is highly regulated and very specialist. Offering this to candidates can in turn boost our appeal by offering them something that competitors may not be.”

Central to any such initiative is that recruiters are embedded in their client organisations, and able to have a strategic input into decision-making, says Giles Sumner, service delivery director at Rethink Talent Management. “We need to assume the role of HR or operations director and work with the client to identify the personnel required at every level of the programme,” he says. “It’s also about leveraging referrals and networks; we can’t simply rely on reactive searching. It’s our role to add value throughout the process, be forward-thinking and have a flexible, pre-emptive approach to identifying new talent.”

Talent shortages are not the only issue such projects present, however. Another major headache can be the length of time such schemes take to get off the ground and the uncertainty that can surround them in the build-up.

“It can take a long time for the decision to be made that gives the project the final go-ahead,” says Murray. “Even then, because it’s usually public money, these projects can very easily be put on hold, and often are, particularly if there is a change in government. With such uncertainty it is difficult to get a good candidate to commit to a potential project when they have many other firmer offers.”

One lever recruiters can use is the sheer prestige of working on major projects, which can help shape an individual’s career. “There are many people who are driven by such a challenge, especially if they replicate them in other countries,” says Acaster. “They can provide individuals with a comprehensive set of skills that can be applied across so many industries, opening up job opportunities that an individual may not have considered before.”

Having experience of working on such notable jobs can also be a career highlight for recruiters, says Johnson. “Having this kind of project under your belt helps a recruiter to attract more projects of this type,” she says. “A proven track record of recruiting for complex campaigns – whether that means high volume or campaigns requiring a diverse range of skills – is invaluable.”

 

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  • Published: 8 years ago on March 10, 2016
  • Last Modified: March 5, 2016 @ 4:52 pm
  • Filed Under: Featured Post

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