Using Vendor Management Systems to optimise skills mobility in joint ventures

Engineering skills are increasingly difficult to find, and even more difficult to keep on long-term projects. In the current climate, retaining experience should be a central part of any workforce planning strategy. 

Yet it's frequently overlooked in joint ventures - especially in larger projects with many partners. Where opportunities are shared by word of mouth, they inevitably get overlooked and skilled workers may be lost. 

A shared service model using a Vendor Management System (VMS) offers immediate benefits.

Retain project experience

If you're halfway through a five-year project and your engineer isn't needed for six months, chances are they'll find another job quickly. And you'll need to bring someone new in. This has knock-on effects on the efficiency of the whole project.

Whoever you bring in needs to get up to speed with the project, get to know the team, and understand their role. Even though they have the skills, the project will need to take a step back. Wouldn't it be better to use your existing engineer's skills in a different part of the project, and have the option to recall when you need them again?

Using a VMS makes it easy to flag that worker's availability across the project. And if those skills can be used elsewhere, you simply transfer them - saving hassle for you, the other hiring manager, and the contractor themselves. 

Faster hires, bigger savings

Big projects often hit the deadlines for overspending massively. This tends to happen because when they fall behind schedule, they throw staff at the problem to avoid financial penalties for missing deadlines. In fact, as much as 30% of the spend can be on a contingent workforce for these large projects.

With a VMS, you can find those skills within the broader project. This provides big savings when it comes to soft costs such as interviewing, onboarding, and compliance processes.

Simply transferring the contract means a much quicker speed of hire, greater visibility, and a slicker process. All of which help keep the project on track.

The alternative? With skills and experience lost, you're in a rush to hire and rate cards go out the window. Unfortunately, when agencies sense your panic, many will increase their margins. On top of that, you have lost productivity and may need four engineers instead of two to catch up.

Assure compliance

If you've got someone already on a project, the compliance checklist is done. A new hire is a whole other story. Onboarding needs to happen again and someone needs to take the time to gather all that info, check references and get them on the system. All the while, your project is not progressing. 

If all that information is already there in the centralised system, you have guaranteed compliance. You simply make a small contractual change in terms of the job scope and you have someone ready to get to work. 

Doing all of this within the project is wise. If a worker leaves and then joins a partner on the same project, you could face issues - there may be an assumption they would be compliant, but this is not always the case. 

Up to 20% of contingent workers can be misclassified, causing potentially huge financial penalties. Using a VMS, this can all be monitored with ease.

Engage the best talent and maintain morale

On a major joint venture project, you'll have some top talent enlisted - but they will move on if they're not being utilised properly. By using a VMS to transfer their skills across the project, you keep them engaged and prevent them from looking for more lucrative contracts elsewhere.

You can offer long-term appeal when hiring too. Since you can be confident, that they will be used for the full project duration, you can potentially help workers broaden their experience by getting involved in different aspects of the project.

Ultimately, skilled workers would rather not have to go hunting for new positions. By transferring them within your projects you keep them happy and keep production moving. 

Want to know more about using a VMS to optimise skills mobility? Talk to us about your needs.