In September 2016 NextGen was approached by a local manufacturer based in Westbury to help them with the supply of temporary labour for their busy festive season.
We had not worked with this client before, so the first job was to conduct a site visit in order to meet the key decision makers and assess their exact needs. It became immediately apparent that the support we potentially offered was critical to the failure or success of this company over a period that represented over 30% of their annual turnover in 5 weeks trading.
After being shown around the site we discussed and agreed the following:
After a very detailed and exacting brief we left site with the challenge of finding 50 staff for a 5 week period from November to New Year to cover 12 hour shifts on both days and nights. We had approximately 6 weeks to fulfil this requirements so the team got straight to work and started the recruitment process.
The first task was to book a venue to hold group interviews and registrations. This gives us a real target to aim for and all candidates have definite timelines to work with.
We then placed adverts on all the major job boards including CV Library, Monster, Reed, Indeed, Total Jobs and many more. This started the candidate flow and was supported by our team of highly experienced consultants running search and selection processes on a daily basis. Within a couple of weeks we had a strong pool of potential candidates who had been pre-qualified by the team to assess their suitability for the positions we had to offer. However, experience tells us that we would need twice as many people aligned to this project than the client had requested in order to account for fall-offs and absenteeism and because of this we pushed forward to increase the amount of candidates we had to choose from.
By the time of the first group interviews at a location in Westbury we had 61 potential workers booked in of which 44 actually attended over the 2 days. This gave us a good start and 3 weeks to find the additional people we required for the assignments. More search and selection, another group registration session and we were at the levels required to fulfil the clients’ requirements. At this point all candidates had completed registration documentation, Right to Work checks, been given their Assignment Details Forms and offered their availability and commitment to work.
During the build up to start date, we kept in touch with the client to assess their ever changing requirements and remained flexible, consultative and understanding throughout the process. We appreciate that forecasting and actual requirements are often worlds apart and our ability to upscale and reduce numbers would be paramount to the success of the project.
We are off and running now and the early signs are very promising. All staff attend shift as requested and the feedback from line managers is very positive. It was noted by many that we had succeeded in delivering a well-balanced workforce that varied in age, nationality, gender and religion, something that we know to be critical. All staff were knowledgeable, informed and enthusiastic and it quickly became apparent that we would meet the initial objectives set down by the client.
With a few inevitable bumps along the way, we find ourselves at Christmas with 5 weeks of continuous supply behind us. Staff attendance rate was at 96%, client satisfaction at 100% and the workforce were content and asking for more hours. Key comments coming back from the supervisors and managers on shop floor were as follows:
As a result of the positive staff reviews the client has now engaged a number of NextGen workers for temp to perm and permanent contracts to replace some their less productive team members. We have also been requested to continue supplying temps for the foreseeable future and are in discussions about placing future Management, Sales, Back Office and technical shop floor staff on permanent contracts.
As far as case studies go this contract was a real success story and although much time, hard work and commitment went into delivering the project on time in a cost effective and professional manner the upshot is that NextGen now has another committed and trusted client. Over a very short period of time we have managed to create a really strong partnership based on respect, trust and honesty and I hope that this relationship will continue long in to the future.
My thanks go out to Rachel and Ben in the temp division for all their hard work and support, Sally for her continuous effort in the perm division and to Stephanie for keeping us all compliant throughout the process. The NextGen team goes from strength to strength and we look forward to our next challenge!!!
Alex Morgan
Director