Unprecedented Labour Headwinds
In 2022/23, the tightest labour market in decades delivered a record-low unemployment rate of 3.4%, creating hiring challenges for organisations throughout Australia.
Businesses across every industry are struggling to locate, attract, and retain quality employees for critical roles. The unprecedented labour crisis is negatively impacting operational effectiveness and threatening future growth.
Skilled Trade Scarcity
Manufacturing businesses that depend on skilled trade roles for production have rapidly discovered that labour has become one of their strongest headwinds. Aggressive bidding wars and record attrition rates have compounded existing labour supply issues caused by a lack of emerging talent to fill skilled trade positions.
Traditional Recruitment Isn’t Working
As the labour market has evolved, many recruitment companies have failed to adapt to the new conditions. Archaic recruitment techniques that delivered results in the past are now failing to gain traction and providing a minimal return on investment.
Advertise. Place. Repeat – isn’t delivering value for businesses
Businesses desperately seeking talented employees are investing more time, budget, and effort only to fail to locate candidates or place individuals that aren’t aligned with long-term business needs.
Advanced Engineering Challenges
Tamworth-based advanced manufacturing leader Apollo Engineering has achieved an enviable reputation for producing high-quality products to supply local and international markets. Apollo Engineering has been producing top-quality machinery, components, and customised engineering solutions in regional Australia for over two decades.
Apollo Engineering’s laser focus on production efficiency through innovation depends on a steady supply of engineering professionals and skilled trade labour to meet the ever-increasing demand. When the business experienced record year-on-year growth (exceeding 20%), Apollo Engineering confronted the daunting challenge of finding workers for several key engineering, operations, and skilled trades roles first-hand.
As pressure mounted to locate skilled team members, Managing Director David Errington reached out to Dallas Wallace from Leading Manufacturing & Supply Chain Recruitment provider Giide.
Partnerships, Not Placements
Apollo Engineering’s future growth depended upon quickly locating quality candidates for a variety of roles, including highly skilled trade roles and several leadership positions. However, the recruitment experience with Giide was completely different to the companies that Apollo Engineering had engaged with in the past.
According to Managing Director David Errington, “We’d worked with some of the large recruitment agencies in the past, and they just didn’t take the time to understand our business. We were constantly chasing updates! Giide certainly punches above their weight”.
Giide’s partnership-first approach commenced with developing an intimate understanding of the Apollo Engineering business before the search for a candidate began. Dallas from Giide helped Apollo to build an individualised workforce plan that identified headcount needs now and into the future.
“Key to our approach is aligning our clients’ workforce strategy with their business strategy – this allows us to gain a deep understanding of their requirements and the essential ingredients for success. We challenge our clients’ thinking to ensure that we are all aligned to fill the role and support the new employee to be successful.” – Dallas Wallace, Managing Director Giide,
Giide worked with David Errington to pinpoint the right skills that would enable Apollo Engineering’s continued growth as an advanced manufacturing leader. Once Giide had identified the ideal skills, they commenced a comprehensive discovery process to establish the most effective locations to find the perfect candidates:
Did suitable candidates already exist internally?
Were there qualified candidates located within the local area?
Could we attract talent from other cities nationally?
Were there any options for international recruitment if we couldn’t find appropriate candidates?
Once Giide answered these critical questions, a highly targeted marketing campaign to locate quality candidates as quickly as possible and fuel Apollo Engineering’s continued growth commenced.
Searching In The Right Places
Giide used its deep industry knowledge and over 16 years of experience recruiting for technical and trade roles to search for candidates that would meet Apollo Engineering’s needs in all the right places.
The standard industry process of uploading a job description to recruitment websites regularly fails to produce quality candidates for skilled blue-collar positions. Understanding that this traditional approach was unlikely to deliver results, Giide implemented a more effective strategy.
Giide adopted a multi-channel approach across various platforms to amplify Apollo Engineering’s reach, targeting passive and active candidates across Oceania. Giide’s unique campaign managed to quickly locate several high-quality candidates that were successfully placed in engineering and leadership roles at Apollo Engineering.
Opportunities Over Dollars
The supply challenges of the current labour market have created bidding wars of catastrophic proportions for companies that require top talent. Yet, candidates are often seeking far more than larger pay packets in their next role. Giide helps organisations showcase their intangible strengths to attract top talent without engaging in destructive bidding wars.
According to Giide’s Managing Director Dallas Wallace, “Money may prompt a move, but it rarely buys loyalty…..it can always be matched or beaten. We work closely with our clients to understand how we can not only attract but also support our placed candidates to succeed and help them prosper.”
Successful Candidate 1 – Hidden in plain sight (local area campaign)
Giide located an exceptional candidate from within the surrounding Tamworth area, hidden in plain sight. The successful candidate wasn’t actively searching on job websites and was only found through Giide’s strategic campaign. Giide connected Apollo Engineering with the candidate using benefit-focused, local area marketing.
Successful Candidate 2 – Nurtured, individualised approach (candidate cold outreach)
Giide discovered a highly experienced candidate with the perfect skillset living in Sydney, then carefully explained the unique opportunities available at Apollo Engineering and within the Tamworth area. Ultimately, Giide successfully nurtured the candidate through the process of relocating to regional Australia and joining the Apollo Engineering team.
Turnkey International Recruitment
The skilled trade shortage in Australia and New Zealand was so dire that Giide needed to look further afield to find specialist manufacturing trades for Apollo Engineering’s upcoming project requirements.
After exhausting the supply of skilled trade talent locally, Giide leveraged strong partnerships with International Recruitment agency Peloton Workready and leading Australian immigration specialist Absolute Immigration to source, assess and mobilise experienced candidates with advanced manufacturing backgrounds.
With Giide’s assistance, Apollo Engineering filled seven business-critical, skilled trade roles using international recruitment in 10-12 weeks from start to finish. The entire overseas recruitment operation was project managed directly by Giide, using their existing partner relationships to expedite the process.
Giide’s international recruitment efforts have been a resounding success for Apollo Engineering. Managing Director David Errington said, “We’ve been extremely impressed with the workmanship and attitude of our international team members – they’ve contributed to a positive cultural shift throughout the organisation and are very well-respected by their local peers.”
Fuelling Regional Manufacturing
Giide provided expert guidance and high-quality talent, allowing Apollo Engineering to increase its workforce to over fifty team members and fuel its continued growth as a regional Australian manufacturing leader.
Apollo Engineering managed to secure the best talent locally and overseas to meet the demands of their business-as-usual activities and project requirements when many regional businesses struggled to find candidates.
Ready For A Different Approach To Recruitment?
At Giide we focus on delivering long-term value and helping clients succeed by becoming a trusted partner – addressing immediate recruitment needs with a sustainable approach that doesn’t involve a revolving door.
Supercharge growth, streamline planning and recover hours to focus on running your business with a different approach to recruitment TODAY.
