Construction and Engineering: Recruitment agencies are in demand

However, John-Paul Toner, Operations Director at the privately owned specialist recruitment consultancy, Contract Scotland, makes the point that recruitment agencies differ markedly in quality, one from another. His agency specialises in the provision of professional staff, rather than tradespeople. So its focus is on placing professional staff such as engineers, site managers quantity surveyors, architects, project managers, estimators and planners.

"One of the traditional practices in the recruitment sector is to pay recruitment staff commission for successful placements. We’ve never worked to this modealas we believe it sets up a conflict of interest between the Consultant and both the client and the candidate. Commission incentivises staff to secure placements, whether or not a particular candidate is the right candidate long term for that company," he points out.

By way of contrast, Contract Scotland does not include commission on placements as part of its remuneration policy. "We’ve removed any incentive for our staff to do anything out of self interest. Everything they do is motivated by a desire to secure the best possible outcome for both the candidate and the client company," he says.

The consultancy has been going since 1990 and now employs some 40 staff, with further expansion planned for 2017. "Instead of meaningless activity matrices, with commission paid to staff based on the number of placements they achieve, we have a completely different performance management model. We have benchmarks and expectations tailored to each staff member, depending on their length of service and ability. These benchmarks have to do with how we deal with a candidate or a client, how we go about building the client/candidate relationship and how we represent each side’s interests, since we are always acting for both" he explains.

"If we do everything properly and it culminates in a placement, then that is the goal that everyone is looking for, but our consultants are tasked with managing ongoing client relationships in a way that enables us to really map out and understand the client’s requirements and culture. That way we are best placed to find the candidate that matches their goal," he comments.

One of the trends in the industry has been for larger construction companies to put recruitment into the hands of an internal HR team or a specialist procurement team. They in turn will then contact the consultancy to initiate the recruitment process. It sounds on paper as if this approach, which is part of a wider trend in which companies are moving to more formal procurement processes to try to control costs, will be cost effective for the client.

However, Toner points out that there is a real problem here in that once HR or a procurement department takes over the recruitment process from the manager who is actually the person who needs a particular vacancy filled, then it introduces a distance between the end user and the consultancy.

"One of the best ways for us as recruiters to understand what a particular manager wants from a candidate, quite apart from the formal recruitment brief we get, comes from having worked closely with that manager in the past. Putting everything through HR hampers ease of communication, with the end user, which at worst removes all human contact from the recruitment process and can often lead to less satisfactory outcomes," he comments.

Candidates come from a wide range of sources. Toner points out that Contract Scotland’s own database of professionals is unmatched in the industry, having been built up over the course of the last 26 years. At the same time it also advertises regularly for positions and will usually receive multiple applications for each post. Even those responses that are unsuccessful this time round may well be a perfect fit for a different organisation at some future date.

On the client side, the consultancy acts for a whole range of clients, from builders and developers, to civil engineering contractors, house builders, consulting engineers, cost consultants and the like.

"As we grow year by year our goal is to develop more client relationships, but also build upon the long term loyal client relationships we have developed over many years. However, by and large, most of our business comes from repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals. For example, a sub-contractor working for a main contractor who is a client of ours may well be pointed in our direction to try to fill a vacancy.

There is no doubt that it has become harder in recent months to source candidates. Contract Scotland has come up with its own initiative to try to offset the developing skills shortage for its clients. Around 18 months ago it launched a not-for-profit social enterprise, Constructing Futures. As Toner explains, the purpose is to try to secure work placements for graduates with construction related qualifications, who may have graduated several years ago and been unable so far to find employment in the sector.

"So far Constructing Futures has been able to place around 40 people in shadow placements and a dozen of these have been able to find permanent positions with the client company at the conclusion of their work placement.

Toner argues that this is an initiative that should be taken up and replicated on a far larger scale by the construction industry bodies. "There is an obvious limit to what we as a private consultancy can do, but we have shown that there is scope for opening the doors for people who, for one reason or another, have not been able to get employment following their degree.

"There is a pool of potential talent out there and with the skills shortage likely to be exacerbated by consequences of Brexit, this kind of initiative makes a lot of sense," he notes.