safety staffing shortages

Is Outsourcing the Best Bang for Your Buck? The ROI Of Outsourcing

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ROI Of Outsourcing

We talk a lot about outsourcing your staffing around here. But is outsourcing really the best use of your resources? At first glance, outsourcing services are costly. However, outsourcing is actually used by companies to improve efficiency while REDUCING costs. 

“In a study of 30 firms, outsourcing resulted on average in a 9% reduction in costs and a 15% increase in capacity and quality,” according to Wheelen and Hunger (2010). How do each of these things play out?

Let’s break it down practically.

It’s Monday and you’ve just landed a new contract.

You’ve got 8 staff on-hand that can work on the job, but you need about 15 more trained safety staff before the job starts next week.

On Tuesday you call ResponsAble and tell them the scope of expertise you need for your job.

Next week, your staff show up on time for the job.

That’s it.

When the job is over, the staff that worked on your project return back to ResponsAble and you don’t have to incur the cost or risk of termination or management.

Outsourcing means that you can grow your business and operate successfully without compromising quality or safety.

In this scenario (and many others) outsourcing was valuable to the contractor because he could still bid on that project knowing that he didn’t have the staff on hand to complete the job.

He didn’t have to hire staff pre-emptively prior to landing the job, thus costing him additional months of staff time and liability without a job on the table. He also didn’t have to panic after receiving a job that he didn’t have staff for.

Had this contractor not had access to a staffing company, things would have played out differently.

Upon winning the bid on the contract, he would have to scramble to find staff that were qualified within such a short time period. This would be very time consuming for himself and others on his team. Not to mention potentially impossible to recruit the caliber of employee he was looking for on such short notice. He may have had to take on the risk of hiring staff that don’t have as much experience or training in the type of work required for the job- thus compromising quality, efficiency and safety.

However, with the help of a staffing agency this contractor was able to have peace of mind while growing the success of his company by bidding on bigger and better jobs with confidence.

This contractor also has more time to spend focusing on his business and getting the next job, because he wasn’t spending his time managing his current staff, mitigating risk and focusing attention internally.

By working with a staffing agency a company actually SAVES on hours of time on overhead, liability of ill-equipped staff, risk of low-quality work, and cost of onboarding, training and termination.

Interested in learning more about how outsourcing your staffing could actually reduce cost for your company? Contact us to talk about specific opportunities to increase efficiency and effectiveness on your next job!

Overcoming Safety Challenges in a Turnaround

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safety staffing contractor

If you have planned for a plant shutdown or turnaround, or are currently managing one, then you have encountered the associated risk and safety hazards.  All good employers make safety the top priority while the turnaround will also be evaluated based upon quality, schedule and budget.  

How do you effectively drive high quality work on schedule and within budget without compromising safety?  

Build and maintain a safety culture with accountability.  

There are a lot of moving parts to your turnarounds with multiple contractors and subcontractors.  All these moving parts can threaten the integrity of your safety culture without a solid framework to keep everyone accountable to the safety mission.  

The blocking and tackling required to execute the quality of work, adherence to schedule and budget can begin to push against the zero tolerance nature of effective safety compliance.  While we know recognizing and preventing hazards is key to a safe workplace, as long as humans continue to work, there will be accidents.  Minimizing the risk of incident given that humans are working amongst changing hazards is key.  

How do you minimize the risk of a safety incident on your job?  

  • • Recognize the hazard
  • • Communicate
  • • Act to mitigate the threat 

If you can improve the turnaround team’s performance on these three points, you will minimize the risk of having an accident on your job.  

How do you improve the turnaround team’s performance on these three points?

  • • Assure there are experienced Safety Specialists and Techs working your turnaround
  • • Keep the experienced Safety Specialists and Techs out of the line of production management reporting

By having experienced Safety Specialists, Techs and other safety roles out of the production reporting chain of command, you maximize the total team accountability to the safety culture and zero tolerance mandate.  

Having Experienced Safety Staff means people whose primary role is Safety and who is fully competent in recognizing hazards, communicating effectively and knows how to act to support mitigation of a threatening situation.  

Just as you need your welders to be highly competent specialists who answer to the quality of their welds, so you also need Safety Staff from top to bottom who are highly competent and are not unduly influenced by any competing priorities such as schedule or budget.

It may seem of little consequence to many Turnaround Managers or Planners how the Safety staff is sourced for their project, but the impact of Safety Staff sourcing can be quite significant.  There is wisdom in helping your turnaround employees and contractors succeed by having Safety Staff as a stand alone team; out of the line of production supervision.  Minimize the risk associated with having the “fox watching the hen house.” 

What is a major step forward toward overcoming safety challenges during a turnaround?

Include an experienced Safety Staffing Contractor on your turnaround for all safety related positions where roles are not already filled by the owners’ safety staff.   

We help staff for turnarounds so have to identify these challenges and make it a priority to plan and communicate well so that things go smoothly.

If you are need of temporary labor or safety professionals during a turnaround, give us a call. Even if you have run into an obstacle toward the end of a turnaround, we may be able to provide qualified staff to handle the job. To learn more about the positions we staff and our process, please see here: https://responsablestaffing.com/safety-staffing/

Our Solution to Safety Staffing Shortages

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At ResponsAble, we understand that when hiring new employees, especially for temporary positions, there are several risk factors involved. Common concerns include:

  • Do these employees have experience?
  • Are they certified?
  • How are they prepared for the job?

We believe our knowledge and attention to detail is unmatched when screening Industrial Laborers, Confined Space Attendants, and the rest of our positions.

We have been matching experienced personnel to companies long enough to understand that every company culture, every open position, and every project has unique needs. We are able to truly customize our approach.

Lately, we have processed employees for worksites such as roofing, mine work, plant work, and other various labor-intensive positions. Commonly, we recruit employees for industry-wide jobs such as new construction sites, civil work, and cooling towers.

Our Screening Process: A Unique Approach to Your Business

The screening process begins when a project manager is assigned to your project and works with your team to fulfill the required positions, with the qualifications and experience you need.

Then, the on-boarding process of new candidates begins by ensuring they have the necessary credentials and certifications:

  • Updated Basic Orientation Plus Card
  • Updated TWIC Card
  • Prior Experience in an Industrial or Similar Setting Related to the  Position

These certifications serve as a preview to the applicant’s work ethic and eligibility for safety positions.

Processing and Preparation

After we collect certifications, we interview the applicants using behavioral styled questions. With those questions, we are able to confirm that candidates are experienced and knowledgable about the industry.

We use their answers as a way to understand their ability to handle an emergency situation, their creativity to solving problems, and their overall comfort level in industrial settings.

Along with behavioral questions, we screen the candidates for other qualifying factors: transportation, punctuality, reliability, skills, willingness to travel, etc.

Some of the best advice we can give a potential candidate (prior to an interview) is this:

  • Be punctual to your interview and all future job sites.
  • Dress and look presentable.
  • Research and learn about the petrochemical industry or other fields that interest you.
  • Obtain the proper certification and education.

Growing Database of Employees

If the applicant meets those specifications, they are placed on our payroll system, saving your administration time and cost.

We even cover workman’s compensation and payroll taxes and fulfill our process by handling the logistics of getting the employee to your job site.

We are continuously screening applicants for our main positions: Industrial Laborers, Confined Space Attendants, and Safety Technicians. This ongoing stream of talent allows us to supply experiences employees on demand.

We are not another staffing agency, we are the safety experts. For more information about our services, please give us a call at 225-753-1909.