Skilled and Specialist Labour Hire with Real-Time Skills Mapping

Skilled and Specialist Labour Hire with Real-Time Skills Mapping

Hiring the wrong personnel for a specialist job can be costly in time, money, and safety. The key to successful skilled and specialist labour hire is documenting all employees' licences, experience, and availability before they start the job. This guide details how real-time skills mapping can enable a hire business to despatch the correct employee to the correct location.

Key Benefits of Skills-Based Workforce Allocation

Assigning workers according to their talents and not their availability is an enhancement to all jobs. Clients receive the appropriate person, and workers receive training for appropriate work. This strategy is important for hiring companies for several really good reasons, which you can see below.

Right Person, First Time

The workers who are employed in the jobs have already got the necessary licences and experience to do the job. There are fewer replacements to be made and consistent quality from the first day.

Safer Sites

Labour is allocated to work that they have been trained to do. This reduces chances of accidents and rework. Supervisors also spend less time correcting avoidable mistakes.

Faster Placements

With a second search of the coordinators' skill search, the appropriate person is displayed. Requests for urgency are no longer dependent on phone calls and memory.

Lower Hiring Costs

The fewer mistakes that are made, the less rework, call-backs and wasted time. Cumulatively, these savings add up over a year.

Stronger Client Trust

Before a worker comes to a client's site, proof of qualifications is provided. Having clear records makes it easier to get repeat work.

Fair Work for Workers

The skilled worker is assigned to tasks where they can apply their skills. Track and explain pay and hours more easily. When employees' skills are acknowledged, it makes them feel valued.

Skilled Labour Hire and Real-Time Skills Mapping

Skills mapping provides an accurate understanding of individual workers' capacities. It provides a record of trades, tickets, years of experience, site history and special tasks. This helps speed up and standardise hiring decisions. The same facts will be viewed by two coordinators looking at the same worker.

That picture is kept up to date by real-time mapping. The record will automatically be updated once the worker completes a course and renews a licence or is no longer available. A lot of skills still exist in a coordinator's head or within the soft copy of a spreadsheet. These lists have a short shelf life and are difficult to share.

If there is a coordinator away, that knowledge is taken away. A live map provides everybody with the same information. The worker profile is viewed by coordinators, supervisors and managers. It also aids in growth as well. Managers can easily determine if they have the skills needed on staff or if they must hire new employees when jobs start to come in.

Worker Qualifications and Credential Tracking

Each job in the specialities has special entry requirements. A site could require the following: white card, high-risk work licence, trade licence or a recent safety induction. Failure to pick up one of these could halt work and/or violate rules. One ticket that has expired may delay the entire crew.

All documents are stored with credential type, credential number and credential expiry date. Coordinators can easily review them without having to follow up on paperwork. New documents can be uploaded to workers' mobile devices as well. This helps to keep records up-to-date without any additional office burden. It also gives workers a feeling of ownership of their profile.

Good records also serve to safeguard the hiring firm. Proof of cheques is available to show if a client or regulator queries. The licensing requirements vary from industry to industry and state to state, and it is important to verify the licensing requirements with the appropriate Australian licensing authority at the time. The information to record is detailed in the table below.

Matching Specialists to Job Requirements

The first step in the creation of a good match is to have a clear job brief. The short refers to the trade, licences, tools, work site, start date and duration of work. The more detail in the brief, the better the match. Clear briefs also enable employees to know what to expect on day one.

These needs are then compared to the skills map, and the workers who match are displayed. The coordinators can then verify distance, previous performance, and hours worked. A coordinator is provided with a short list of qualified individuals, instead of many individuals calling.

Per profile: Skills, licences, location and availability are viewed at a glance. The final choice will be at the discretion of the coordinator, but the search is much quicker. This is helpful for those with specialist positions, where not many people are qualified and where the wrong person in the job makes a big impact on the costs.

WMS for Competency-Based Workforce Planning

A WMS consolidates skills, rosters, timesheets and workers into a single place. Managers aren't anymore bouncing between spreadsheets, emails and paper forms to find out what can be done.

Skills are also tied to actual work with a workforce management system. It indicates the type of job that a person has already done, how many hours he/she has worked and what training is needed.

Built on Construction Experience

WorkforceMS started in the construction sector, with work crews working from site to site and licences being an everyday need. That's an environment that's ideal for labour hire, where labourers are being lent to other companies that need to demonstrate their skills.

Specialist Labour Hire Through Skills Verification

It is important to have trust in specialist roles. Clients typically have legal obligations with respect to visitors to their websites and therefore are expecting the hiring firms to vet them accordingly. A client should be aware that a given electrician, rigger, operator or technician actually possesses the aforementioned skills.

Skills verification is the process of verifying those claims by reference to evidence. This could encompass training certificates, reference checks and site records, amongst other things. Documents need to be verified before placement and re-verified when they expire.

There is a simple status like verified, expiring soon or expired, which enables coordinators to take swift action. The worker needs to be familiar with the checks that are to be performed and why. Personal documents need to be kept securely and provided to persons as required by Australian privacy law.

Real-Time Worker Availability and Skill Tracking

If the worker is not free, then his/her skills are not useful. Real-time availability provides insight into the availability of employees: who is on a job, who has completed and who can commence tomorrow. Also displays leave, unavailable days and hours already worked. This will prevent overbooking and long shifts in an unsafe manner. In a WMS, this information is alongside rosters and timesheets.

It eliminates discrepancies and errors since hours worked go directly into the pay records. The most effective combination is to combine both facts in a search. A coordinator can check out a licensed operator available on Monday and in the vicinity. If plans are altered, the system will notify the worker and keep them up to date. No one has to wonder about the new start time or location.

Managing Licences, Certifications and Training Records

Licences expire, and training becomes out of date. If left to their own devices, these dates are likely to be forgotten, particularly when there are hundreds of employees on the payroll. Coordinate, and workers are alerted before a document expires using automatic reminders. This allows time to be provided to renew so that a worker is not pulled off a job at the last minute. Training records are also important to have.

They identify those workers who have taken part in safety training courses, equipment training or toolbox talks and those who require refreshers. This makes it easy to keep this all in one record, saving admin time and facilitating audits. It is also useful in helping to identify to clients that their employees are qualified.

Key points to remember:

• Note all skills and licence and expiry dates in one location.
• Check on credentials prior to placing a worker.
• Look for and read with a partner.
• Make reminders for when licences expire and training expires.
• Review monthly skill gaps/skill placement.

Data-Led Workforce Deployment Across Sites

Every day, placements deliver valuable answers with data. How each client and site is performing is clearly indicated in reports on hours worked, skills used, placements filled and late starts. When it's always difficult to find people with one skill, it might be a good idea to train or hire more individuals in that role.

For sites that require immediate cover frequently, managers can arrange for a standby pool to be in place. The clear figures indicate the need for more skilled workers and the capacity for more skilled workers at certain locations.

Managers can shift people as needed, travelling less, and with fewer holes. Reports also help to make fair decisions. For workers, it gives them insight into how placements are generated, and for owners, they can be confident to communicate to clients the costs and results.

Conclusion

Placements are based on reliability, skills, current records and quick matching. Clients can be assured of skilled and specialist labour hire services as all employees are verified and mapped. Schedule a demo with WorkforceMS to experience the power of real-time skills mapping and get the right people on the right jobs.