How to Deal with Skill Shortages

The shortage of workers in construction and engineering continues to grow. Luckily, there’s a lot that you can do to overcome this challenge.

Back in 2008, the construction industry took quite a hit. The housing crisis put a dent in the sector as a whole and everything was slow for a while. Luckily, the industry has not only recovered but even flourished more than ever. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a construction boom on a global scale. And this trend looks certain to continue. All around the world, numerous projects of all scopes and sizes are underway. Since experts pretty much agree this growth is set to go on in the near future, it’s a good time to be in the construction industry. However, with growth comes another challenge, which actually isn’t anything new.

The Growing Labour Shortage

In 2006, reportedly 600,000 construction workers and engineers left their professions. The consequences of this mass exodus industry is still felt today. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics even reported 434,000 vacant construction jobs as of April of last year. That’s in the US alone. These skill shortages might already have affected you, putting up many challenges in front of your business. Your timelines get longer, which can be problematic on its own. Numerous projects are facing 30-day delays, going up by 150 days in the worst cases. Of course, this adds to your overall costs, which can be substantially higher. Not only do you have to pay the workers more, but retaining them is another challenge. The skill shortage has increased staff turnovers in the construction industry as a whole. Many companies are struggling to keep projects running smoothly and without interruptions. If you recognise any of the above issues in your business, you don’t have to worry just yet. There’s a simple and convenient way to overcome the skill shortage.

How Cybalink Can Help

One of the most effective ways to counter skill shortages is to outsource. In recent times, many construction, engineering, and mining companies have gone down this road. And a good percentage of them got excellent results. For more than 17 years, Cybalink Solutions is the preferred outsourcing specialist for construction and engineering businesses. We’ve worked with top ASX-listed companies in helping them expand beyond their onsite team. You may wonder how our services can help you overcome the skill shortage. Here are the top benefits of working with us:

1. You Can Find the Exact Talent Needed

Cybalink can help you fill just about any vacant position. Our aim is to ensure that you have all of the support needed to create a streamlined workflow. To make this happen, we connect you with capable professionals in the relevant fields. Your remote construction and engineering staff can handle specialised tasks, like:

• Engineering design
• Architecture
• Estimating
• Structural detailing/drafting

We can also provide an offshore HR team for handling all of the processes related to recruitment and management. From background checks to KPI tracking, our professionals can make HR management a lot more efficient. Furthermore, we can also connect you to professionals in the following areas:

• Data management and processing
• Finance and accounting
• Administration support
• Marketing
• IT

If you run into any bottlenecks, we can expand your team in a way that ensures seamless workflow.

2. Quick and Simple Recruitment

We at Cybalink Solutions understand how valuable your time is. Our goal is to help you complete your projects with maximum efficiency. For this, we always do our best to provide you with the professionals that you need in a timely manner. After we get to know your business and its needs, we’ll help you recruit the best people for the job. Better yet, we can put them to work as quickly as possible. Our short turnaround time is something that our clients particularly appreciate. With other outsourcing providers, you may have to wait up to 100 days before you can get your outsourced team up and running. With Cybalink Solutions, that’s down to 2-4 weeks only. Of course, we won’t make any important decisions and changes without your input. To make sure our clients take on the right people, we encourage them to participate in the final recruitment stage. During the second interview round, you get to make the final selection about who to hire for each of the positions available.

3. Specialist Knowledge 

Most outsourcing and offshore providers attempt to cover multiple industries at once. Because of this, they might not have a full understanding of what’s required in the construction industry. But not Cybalink, as we specialise in mining, engineering, and construction. Cybalink’s founder and managing director Kim Lombardi spent five years on a wide range of construction and engineering project sites. This gave her first-hand knowledge of the challenges that these businesses go through. She spent another 11 years working with a burgeoning construction and engineering company. With her help, the company grew to a one-billion-dollar business. Since the founding of Cybalink, she has been using her knowledge to help many businesses achieve their goals. This put Cybalink in the leading position of providing mining, construction, and engineering businesses with workforce solutions. When you work with us, you have a provider that understands your specific challenges. More importantly, you have a company that can help you overcome them.

4. You’ll Get a Dedicated Team

As mentioned, our goal is to smoothen your processes and remove inefficiencies. Toward this end, we’ll be doing a lot more than providing you with an offshore team. Through it all, you’ll have our ongoing support regarding all outsourcing matters. We’ll help you bring new people on board and make sure that everyone understands their role. In addition, we can guarantee that every person we connect you with will be working exclusively for your company. You won’t be sharing resources with other businesses, which is how outsourcing should ideally work. You can expect an outsourced team dedicated only to your needs.

5. You Get to Save Money

Cost-effectiveness is near or at the top of the list for any company that chooses to outsource. This is even more prominent when going offshore, where lower labour costs are to be justifiably expected. Hiring a remote team can bring significant cost reductions right away. However, this is not the only way that our services can help you save money. As mentioned, we handle all aspects of the recruitment process. Once we’ve gotten familiar with your business, we’ll go above and beyond to find the right ones in terms of offshored team members. Not having to deal with recruitment will save you both time and money. Moreover, the professionals will become an integral part of your team. They’ll understand your company culture and communicate it to future team members. This will help your remote team to integrate better with your onsite team. Of course, there are other things you can do to further ease the integration, which we’ll fill you in when the time arrives.

6. Long-Term relationships

Skill shortages aren’t going away any time soon. You’ll need a reliable outsourcing provider that can help you with this in the long run. We believe in establishing fruitful long-term relationships with our clients. As a result, many of them have been with us for a number of years. Best of all, we’re proud to say we’ve played a role in their success. When you work with us, you’ll find out why this is the case. We’ll do everything in our power to help you find and retain the best professionals.

Don’t Allow the Shortage to Hold you back

Although skill shortages are certainly a major challenge, it doesn’t have to prevent you from achieving your goals. Working with a specialised outsourcing provider can help you break through the barriers put up by the shortage. If you haven’t yet, it’s high time to put together a capable remote team. You’ll get to work with increased efficiency and grow without interruptions.

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Get in touch today to book a confidential call with our co-founders Kim Lombardi and John Rodgers.