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Recruiting to scale

Matthew Bowles our consultant managing the role
Published on 15 April 2019

For any business, simplicity is key when it comes to effective recruitment. In order to minimise the loss of time and of money, a comprehensive recruitment strategy is needed to make the process quick and easy, and to avoid a shortage of staff and subsequent delays.


When you’re a market-leading wind farm operator, having a good strategy in place is vital. The financial risks involved in building and maintaining a windfarm requires construction to go as smoothly as possible; however, due to the lack of a centralised recruitment process, our client company was experiencing difficulties when it came to sourcing the right people.


With upwards of 60 agencies being used, they were not recruiting to scale, which was expensive and wasted administrative time. Many Project Managers were also hiring people that they liked rather than the people that were best suited for the job, causing delays for projects that could otherwise have gone more smoothly.


Our client wanted to address these issues by building a more streamlined, centralised recruitment framework, giving recruitment responsibility to six procurement individuals who could source from four official recruitment partners.


It was at this point that we at QCS Staffing stepped forward. We’d previously worked with another client who also specialised in planning and constructing windfarms, which meant that we not only had prior renewable energy experience but also a reputation within the industry. We used this to reach out to our client just as they were starting to make the shift to a more centralised recruitment framework. Our experience of working in the sector, and our reputation as a fast and efficient contractor, impressed our client and we were hired to become one of only four recruitment partners to work with them.

As a recruitment framework partner, we had the opportunity to provide white-collar technical support, supplying our client with candidates for all stages of their projects, from planning through to maintenance.


As a result, the number of agencies used could be downgraded in favour of a much more cost-effective strategy. By recruiting to scale, our client has been able to operate with much lower margins; furthermore, our commitment to sourcing candidates with the right skill sets for the task at hand means that any workers we contract out are of high quality, and able to complete the work quickly and effectively. The time we take to vet our candidates, combined with our close analysis of the market, allows us to identify and target the best candidates for the job and headhunt them before any of our competitors.


Since partnering with our client, we’ve helped them to create and implement a standardised recruitment process, saving time, money, and allowing Project Managers to turn their full attention to completing the project rather than hiring staff for their team. We have also expanded operations with our client: though we initially sourced candidates solely for the UK, we were subsequently invited to source for project builds in Germany due to our impressive performance. Currently, we have over 70 people working worldwide for five assets in the UK and two for Germany. As our client looks to branch out with upcoming projects in China, Taiwan and USA, our expertise and experience make us a leading choice as a contractor in the renewable energy sector, whether local or worldwide.


To find out more about how we can support you, contact the team today.