In today’s demanding labour market with shortages of skilled and qualified workers available for construction projects in Sydney, labour hire is an extremely competitive industry to be in, with so many other companies (large and small) promoting their labour hire services as the best. However, in our experience a lot of these labour hire agencies may be able to talk the talk, but they are failing to walk the walk.

Recently we were approached by a reputable, established organisation who specialise in the construction and operation of aged care facilities here in Sydney (due to client confidentiality we are unable to directly name the client in this case study). Established over 20 years, this client is more than familiar with labour hire having used a number of our largest competitors in recent years. We are often approached by clients who are already working with a labour hire agency and are just not satisfied, for many reasons.

For this particular company, at the time their preferred supplier was a large, established high street agency. But as they and we soon found out, being a popular name within the industry does not necessarily equate to quality. As with any client that approaches us after working with another agency we always ask for feedback on why they no longer happy with the service they were being provided. Why? If we find out what the other guy is doing wrong, we can make sure that we do it right, every time.

 

Why did the current labour hire agency fail?

Salespeople can be very persuasive of how good a company’s services are and account managers/labour managers can be very reassuring about how the service is executed. But what speaks for itself in the labour hire world is the quality of the actual workers supplied for the client’s project. In this case, it was the quality of the guys that their current company was supplying which was not up to scratch.

Even with the same roles to fill in the same location, each week they would be sent different guys to work on their projects with no consistency. This became very frustrating for the client as they were constantly having to repeat themselves each time with the new starters.

Not only were the workers that were being sent different each week, which they could have dealt with should they have been experienced and doing a good job, they unfortunately found a lot of the guys provided had little or no construction experience, and were often proved to be extremely unreliable. This meant that senior site staff were constantly re-doing tasks that had been completed incorrectly, as well as wasting time training staff who possessed only very basic on site skills.

These issues had a massive impact on the productivity on site, which meant that the project fell behind as a result, the consequence of that being a financial loss for the company. For them, enough was enough. Which takes us up to when they approached us.

 

Why we were better than the competition

After meeting with one of our sales representatives (who can talk the talk as we DO walk the walk), we made sure that we spent the time getting to know the business and fully understanding the client’s requirements. Shortly afterwards the client placed their first order with us.

In February the client required two carpenters and a traffic controller initially; given their previous experience you can’t blame them for being hesitant. A few days after our team were sent to work with them they then ordered a labourer as well, and by the end of their second week they had ordered a further three carpenters as well as another labourer and another traffic controller. Safe to say they were more than impressed with the quality of the skilled labour hire that we provided them. Not only were they happy with the standard of our employees, after receiving the request we quickly and efficiently filled the positions saving them both time and expense.

Two months later after the initial consultation and subsequent labour hire order, construction is in full swing and BriX Projects are still working with the client on that project.

 

How did BriX Projects labour hire hold off the competition?

Not only are our employees still working for our new client, but our client is pleasantly surprised that they have also been able to hold onto the same guys for the project, something they have had a lot of problems with in the past. Not to mention the quality of the workmanship, given our team are qualified, skilled and experienced in their given trades.

Our client was assigned a single point of contact, Stuart (one of our labour managers) who has become their relationship partner. Stuart has provided them with ongoing, regular communication about every element ranging from rostering, timetables and worker performance, to specific details, upcoming projects and which special skills or tickets that each worker will require.

 

But that’s not all

Our team love the satisfaction they get from pleasing any of our clients, whether it be a new client or one of our long-standing clients. Not only was this the start of a promising, long-lasting relationship with our new aged care client, but we have been approached AGAIN by a plumbing contractor who was working on the same project/building site.

They had noticed the quality of the guys provided by us and commented on how hard they worked when they were onsite. They requested a meeting with one of our sales representatives to discuss an upcoming project. Again, this meeting was a huge success and they placed an order straight away for three plumbers initially with the view to expand into their upcoming projects.

 

If you are looking for workers that you can rely on and trust to be not only qualified, but also skilled and experienced, then contact our team at BriX Projects today. Our team all have backgrounds in the construction industry, so they speak from experience they have gathered themselves. They know what you want and more importantly they know what you need.