Why Should Offshore Wind (OSW) Developers and General Contractors Work With a Staffing Intermediary?

Arthur Ransier, Director of Business Strategy at nTech Workforce, highlights this monumental opportunity for offshore wind investors and contractors, “Applying staffing & labor best practices, in partnership with a skilled General Contractor which is responsible for the day-to-day oversight and planning for construction, improves ROI by ensuring sufficient project management, a skilled workforce, enhancing safety, managing labor costs, and mitigating risks. Having the right people with the right skills in the right roles at the right time is tricky business; a staffing intermediary complements your general contractor by ensuring workers are appropriately trained & experienced, reducing downtime and increasing overall project efficiency. Bringing a staffing & labor intermediary on board means improving your ability to adapt & respond to the trickiest resource to manage – people.”

How Do Staffing Intermediaries Differentiate From General Contractors?

General Contractors deliver value through construction planning and day-to-day project oversight. Many have robust supply chain management teams responsible for direct & indirect categories, ordering supplies, and engaging vendors of all types to deliver within scope, schedule, and budget. However, a dedicated staffing intermediary is adept at building and managing workforces; a staffing intermediary brings decades of established relationships – spanning pre-apprenticeship programs in the nonprofit sector, workforce development agencies in the public sector, Union and Non-Union subcontractors, minority-owned businesses – which ultimately gives you access to a diverse workforce including millions of workers. Research shows that diverse companies outperform less diverse companies; a McKinsey study from 2014-2019 found that companies in the top quartile for cultural diversity were around 35% more profitable than those in the fourth quartile. 

In offshore wind, where heavy upfront investments exist and an even greater demand for long-term ROI, diversity – and working with a staffing intermediary to achieve it – will pay dividends.

How Do You Implement a Staffing & Labor Program for Offshore Wind (OSW) Projects?

What Will a Staffing Intermediary Do to Support Offshore Wind Projects?

A staffing intermediary delivers a holistic managed staffing & labor solution that improves pathways into OSW jobs. Partnering with the general contractor and developer, the staffing intermediary can leverage planning data to project upcoming hiring needs (minimum 6 months out), share that knowledge with subcontractors, and connect them to workforce agencies & nonprofits that offer pre-apprenticeship programs. Ultimately, a staffing intermediary improves access to good-paying OSW jobs, provides standards and templates for subcontractors to provide ongoing training & development through apprenticeships, and builds a reliable talent pipeline for developers and general contractors to get work done by serving as a staffing & labor catalyst at a program-management level. If needed, the staffing intermediary can integrate a bespoke training program by engaging third parties.

What Are the Day-to-Day Responsibilities of a Staffing Intermediary? 

A staffing intermediary is responsible for the strategy, management, and administration of the contingent workforce supply chain, which includes numerous tasks such as the following:

• Sourcing contractors, subcontractors, and workers
• Managing contracts and work orders
• Enforcing flow-down provisions and negotiating remediation
• Managing standard operating procedures and policies
• Uniformity, consistency, and standardization for supplier relationships
• Engaging suppliers
• Measuring supplier performance with a balanced scorecard
• Quarterly business reviews
• Job/work order intake calls
• Worker performance surveys and open dialogues
• Monitor job category market data for changes (up or down) to rates
• Negotiate supplier discounts for volume
• Provide a greater opportunity for top-tier suppliers
• Timekeeping & invoicing
• Consolidated invoicing & standardized billing practices
• Time entry management
• Supervise systems integrations & review invoice accuracy
• Optimizing workflows
• Engage developer and GC to ensure adherence to business rules
• Document developer & GC feedback to inform continual program improvement
• Implement technology to reduce operational costs
• Complying with mandates, statutes, and regulations
• MBE goals
• Audit compliance (rate card, background checks, data quality)

Will Staffing Intermediaries Add Strategic Value? What Are Some Expected Results? 

Your staffing intermediary has a lot to offer and will be able to go beyond the day-to-day tasks of administering technology for your organization’s staffing & labor needs. While specific service-level agreements will need to be discussed, and aligned with your needs, here are a few to get started:

SUSTAINS LONG-TERM VALUE

• Satisfactory performance survey scores
• Continually improved worker retention on new assignments
• Supply chain partner audit compliance

ADDS GREATER EFFICIENCIES

• Supply chain partner portfolio rate card compliance of (on average) 100%
• Reliable integration between vendor management systems and invoicing systems
• Timely supply chain partner payments
• Average work order response time under three business days

EASY FOR STAKEHOLDERS TO USE

• Net promoter score (from the developer, general contractor, and supply chain partners)
• Uptime of vendor management system (VMS)
• Minority-owned business (MBE) participation

In alignment with offshore wind goals to develop good-paying, local, and highly-skilled jobs in sustainable energy, nTech Workforce – through its Managed Staffing & Labor Services – offers developers a system for engaging staffing & labor supply chain partners which is (a) easy for stakeholders to use, (b) adds greater efficiencies, and (c) sustains long-term value. We expect to provide developers with a more resilient, adaptable, and reliable workforce, thereby improving long-term investment returns and growth opportunities.