The market for the recruitment of field service engineers is buoyant, if you talk to many of the recruitment specialists out there. But when you talk to some of the service organisations seeking to take on new people, they might add ‘fraught with difficulty’.

High-quality field engineers (FEs), it seems, are becoming something of a collector’s item. There just aren’t enough to go round. The best now command something of a premium when it comes to luring them away from other service companies, while the question on everyone’s mind is: ‘where have they all gone?’

Problem area
One company that has experienced constant problems with recruiting service engineers is Electrolux Laundry Systems (ELS), part of the Electrolux Group and one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of professional laundry equipment. Chris Allenby, service manager at ELS, whose UK headquarters are in Dunstable, Bedforshire, believes much of the problem lies with the recruitment channel they use. ‘I really don’t feel that the recruitment agencies fully understand our needs. We are very specific in what we ask for, yet the bulk of the feedback we get by way of CV is for IT professionals and not field engineers.

Ill-equipped
‘We are constantly being offered potential interviewees whose skills are not transferable to meet our skills requirements at Electrolux Laundry Systems. Also, while we are very specific in stating what those skills should be, we will certainly accept people from a different technical background. For instance, we do see people with very strong mechanical and electrical abilities whose skills are highly transferable, such as engineers from a factory maintenance or other field service environment.’

Allenby feels that recruitment consultancies generally are under pressure to push out CVs to prospective employers, and fail to monitor and sift the applications sufficiently thoroughly to identify unsuitable candidates. ‘I suspect that there is a lack of training within the agencies themselves when trying to match the skills of the candidates to our needs. In many cases, I don’t think that candidates are interviewed face to face, which I think is an essential part of the process.’

According to Allenby, Electrolux’s attempts to recruit field engineers are worst hit in the London area. ‘Money could have been an issue,’ he says, ‘although we’ve reviewed this for 2004 and introduced a new grading system with a clearly defined career path.

‘Another reason could be simply that people have taken more glamorous (ie clean) jobs within the City, such as in IT. Of course, a service technician’s job in the City is rather like an obstacle course: before he even gets to the customer, he has to negotiate traffic restrictions and parking restrictions.

‘Along with all this, we have our own service level agreements to meet, so possibly this could be off-putting to someone who is not used to travelling in a vehicle in the City.’

Instability
Hallmark is certainly one organisation that recognises first-hand the unstable nature of recruitment when it comes to field engineers. ‘We recruit field services engineers nationally and our main problem is with the number of jobs an engineer has had in the past,’ says Deborah Lewis, recruitment co-ordinator. ‘It appears many have flitted from job to job, without providing continuity for a company.

‘Many clients offer not only good remuneration, but also good training and development opportunities, and understandably want a return on their investment. They want engineers who have stayed with previous companies longer than a year and have shown previous commitment to their employers.

‘At Hallmark, we have introduced a popular new service where we advertise client vacancies for three months for a one-off fee on our website (www.hallmarkonline.co.uk). This ensures a regular supply of CVs from our large database, which are sent to the client company for them to deal direct with candidates,’ Lewis explains.

‘The company can then make their own decisions, based on their industry and job requirements. This is cost effective and gives the clients that hands-on approach, without incurring huge advertising costs.’

John Cushing, contracts manager for Probe-IT, a recruitment agency based in the heart of London and specialising in all levels of engineers from service through to IT, has a remarkably refreshing approach to the whole subject of acting as a professional go-between when finding field engineers for service organisations. ‘If you were to ask any service manager which are the two most hated words in the English language, he/she might well respond “recruitment agency”.

Scapegoat
‘The agency is often seen as the scapegoat of the recruitment world. We exist to solely serve our clients’ needs yet, when something goes wrong, we are lambasted for providing ill-equipped candidates who are inevitably “never” what the client required in the first instance,’ says Cushing. ‘Yet often agencies co-exist with their real-world partners in a state of harmony, creating the perfect balance of recruitment.’

So why does the finger of accusation sometimes get pointed at the agencies? Cushing suspects that service managers who tend to denigrate the job recruitment agencies do are exhibiting frustration with their own recruitment process.

‘I certainly don’t believe, where such criticism is voiced, that it is well founded. There is this notion that agencies try to capitalise on an opportunity to make money through sending candidates that are either irrelevant or through using the old “pray and spray approach”.

‘Yet I wonder how often the service manager has told the agencies exactly what they are after? Agencies exist to serve and fulfil the needs of clients where gaps have been left in their own recruitment cycle and, believe me, in this current market, we have to be good at what we do. Recruitment is no longer an industry filled with unskilled workers making that “quick buck”. ‘With the correct approach to the client and the agency, each manager can get exactly what they want. However, how many times do companies really sit down with the agency to run through a role; how many times have they turned down a meeting on the grounds that it would be unproductive?’

Communication
Cushing stresses that the policy at Probe is to communicate with its managers on a weekly basis, learning about the customers’ business and their needs. ‘We actively pursue meetings. At the end of the day, it is more productive to speak to people you have met, rather than just a voice at the end of the phone. Our candidates are vetted, prepared and spoken to by skilled consultants who know their business, while CVs are only sent on receipt of a vacancy, never randomly. However, and most importantly, we aren’t afraid of being honest. As for a candidate shortage - what shortage?’

Whilst Chris Short, sales director of recruitment agency Concept IT, also feels that generally there is not a shortage of skilled field service engineers in the UK, he does acknowledge several factors involved in the recruitment process which can create problems. ‘Understanding technical requirements is only part of our job,’ he says. ‘Personality, notice periods, geography and salary are all important factors. Unless a client seeks very niche technical skills, we can usually find the right people technically. From our experience, some locations can typically prove more challenging when it comes to finding good quality engineers, with London and East Anglia prime examples. Salary restrictions can also hinder the recruitment process.’

Short claims that many companies have a grading policy, which prohibits them from paying more money to find the right person. ‘These two factors are further linked, in that, unlike many other IT roles, we find salary packages do not reflect living costs. For example, a field engineer in South Wales will typically earn the same amount as an engineer in London.’

Concept IT’s screening process always involves a telephone interview, including technical questions and reference checking. The company can also interview candidates face to face or provide facilities for a client to interview candidates from its central UK location.

Cross-country
‘This has worked very well in the past when a client has wanted to interview engineers from different parts of the country in one day,’ adds Short. ‘We also always aim to network with engineers whom we know are technically competent and reliable. We find that getting recommendations from these engineers can often lead to finding good people.’

Meanwhile, due to increased demand in the supply of field service engineers to both large and SME IT services companies across the UK, Concept IT is now offering two new services to clients. It provides both on-site and remote technical and psychometric screening of candidates, and also free interviewing facilities from its central UK location within the West Midlands. Robert Taylor, senior consultant, comments: ‘We have a strong track record in the supply of both permanent and contract staff within the service delivery area of IT. Our main focus traditionally has been within desktop support, networking and EPoS (electronic point of sale). Currently, we have more than 40 engineers working on a contract basis through Concept and I expect this to double during 2004.

‘We are looking to expand the division to also cover ATM, printer and photocopier skillssets. From our extensive candidate database, we can typically provide field service engineers within 48 hours across most UK locations. We keep in close contact with the engineers. All engineers are fully reference-checked and technically competent. We know they are reliable.’ 

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Negotiating the outsourcing route
For some companies, outsourcing can be a highly effective solution when it comes to fulfilling the needs of a specific project. Many businesses that find themselves in this position have turned to Manpower Business Services, buying in the necessary skills and expertise on a contractual basis.

Manpower has been providing professional and flexible mobile workforces for some of the business world’s leading names for more than 16 years. Its teams source, train, equip and manage mobile workforces, delivering projects across a range of technologies. With more than 2,000 engineers around the country, Manpower offers a range of technical skills, supported by an infrastructure which includes intelligent call scheduling and screening, plus parts management and inventory.

As part of this service, Manpower offers full management support within the client’s business infrastructure, as well as providing its staff with the right tools, telephony and vehicles. ‘This ensures consistent quality through our commitment to agreed performance management criteria,’ says Manpower.

One company that has benefited from Manpower’s services in this way is the Post Office. Initially, Romec, a facilities maintenance provider to Post Office Ltd, was contracted to install PIN Pad technology in 17,500 post office branches. PIN Pad technology allows customers in post offices to access a range of banking and financial services functions, thanks to a personal identification number (PIN) and microchip. This technology represents a secure way of paying for a range of services, using a debit or credit card, and is a major step in preventing fraud. The roll-out project was to last over a nine-month period.

Manpower was selected by Romec in July 2002 to work in partnership to install the technology. Manpower provided its ‘People Plus’ solution, supplying a team of technical professionals to undertake the installation of the PIN technology in post offices from Bristol to Edinburgh.Manpower provided a dedicated team of trained technical staff, including a project manager to install PIN Pad technology across the vast network of 17,500 post office branches nationwide. Manpower recruited and trained over 35 technical professionals to install all 38,000 units in under nine months. Manpower used its own nationwide network of installation engineers. Not only did Manpower provide their expert staff, but also supplied the necessary equipment and tools needed by the engineers to install the systems.

Both Romec and Manpower held joint training sessions, so that all engineers became familiarised with client infrastructure and processes. Marc Powell, national account manager at Romec comments: ‘We needed a high degree of flexibility in this project and Manpower with its nationwide network could successfully help us implement this. Their flexibility was really was brought to the forefront when we had to find ways of working around the opening hours of the 1,500 busiest post office branches.’

Manpower’s People Plus service offering was unique in helping Romec with this vast and timely project. Manpower’s infrastructure meant that the mobile workforce could be tracked and monitored remotely, ensuring speed, quality and efficiency.

The installation roll-out was delivered one month ahead of schedule and on budget. PIN Pad has been in operation in all 17,500 branches from 1 April 2003. The Manpower team had full contingency plans for potential sickness cover and implemented a bonus scheme for engineers. Staff retention levels were high throughout the life of the project, says Manpower, ‘ensuring consistent and high-quality service levels’.

Romec is using the partnership approach and its success developed during the PinPad project to build on new business opportunities.