Coping with a ‘Head Freeze’ on Permanent Recruitment

Several clients we have spoken to are experiencing a ‘Head Freeze’ with specific regards to permanent recruitment. If this is the case within your company, you will still be faced with the same project timelines and order deadlines, yet achieving these targets will be even more difficult due to the stop in recruitment.

If this is the scenario you are facing, please consider the following. . . .

Most companies will have a ‘project budget’ or ‘contingency budget’, which is directly related to the projects you are working on and not part of your company’s overall central fixed costs.

This budget area will allow you to bring in additional manpower immediately on an interim or contract basis to enable you to ensure you have all the key engineering skills you require in order to successfully deliver on your projects.

Furthermore, with the flexibility that utilising interim and contract engineers provides, you can immediately end the contracts upon delivery of the project, thereby ensuring that your company is maintaining maximum efficiency.
 
Combating Engineering Skills Shortages
We are all very aware of the existing skills shortage within the engineering sector and how this can delay project delivery through the time required to source and recruit appropriately skilled engineers on a permanent basis.

This is another perfect example of where interim and contract engineer solutions can greatly assist.

Contractors, by their nature, often have skillsets that are not normally available within the permanent candidate market – and can be available at short notice.

This means that you can have an engineering professional who is a specialist within the area you need, available immediately, but only on your ‘books’ while their aspect of the project is live.  

Scaling production to meet peaks and troughs
Most engineering companies we work with have clear peaks and troughs in their production cycles – but frequently are unable to scale their personnel accordingly to ensure their company is running at maximum effectiveness and efficiency.

So, rather than adding to the cost of a permanent salary to your company’s bottom line, you are able to import specific engineering skills for the duration of a peek of your workload or for the duration of a project.

This will allow you to utilise these skills and as soon as they are no longer required, simply offload them as in many cases the skills are often only required for a specific aspect of the project (or time period), not on an on-going basis; instantly saving your company money.

Planning for the future using a permanent recruitment strategy
However effective interim or contract staff are in the immediate term, it will never replace the need to continually invest in skilled engineering professionals to enable your company to grow and develop for years to come.

Interim solutions should be viewed as what they are – interim. They give you ‘breathing-space’ to plan for the future and enable younger, less experienced permanent staff to learn from them.

Ultimately, you want to have skilled and loyal staff, employed on a permanent basis, who understand not just your specific technical requirements but also complement your organisational culture.

After all, these are the people of the future and permanent recruitment is what will allow you to build on your company’s long-term skill base to become a market leader.

Interim and contract engineering solutions from Jenrick Engineering
As we mentioned at the start of this article, Jenrick Engineering is one of the most experienced providers of Interim / Contract Engineering Professionals to UK Industry.

You are more than welcome to call Jenrick Engineering and have an informal discussion regarding your current or desired personnel structure. We would be more than happy to advise you on market rates for Maintenance Engineers, CAD Draughter, Design Engineers, Project Engineers and Project Manager – both from a Contract and Permanent perspective.

Please contact our Burton Office on 01283 548121 for free professional advice.