Mining and Tunnelling Contractor

Requirement:

A specialist Mining and Tunnelling contractor required an end-to-end recruitment solution to establish their operations in Castro Verde, Portugal. This was their first project in the region which involved the reopening of an old copper and zinc mine in a remote area of Beja, 220km SE from Lisbon. 

Challenge:

The client had no existing presence in Portugal and had a limited understanding of the local labour market. This challenge was exacerbated by a contractual deadline to be operational with 96 skilled resources hired from the local market within a 6-month timeframe. Due to the sensitivities of local mining permits and EU laws, all workers would need to be hired as full-time employees by the client. The client had no existing Portuguese speakers and had yet to establish their entity and operations in Portugal. 

The client brand was unknown in the local market and with the original mine having closed many years ago, with the mine workers having to migrate to other parts of Portugal for work, there wasn't a ready-made labour pool to resource from. There was little local media coverage of the mine reopening so local awareness of the opportunity was extremely low. The client quickly realised they needed help with this task and approached TRS for assistance. 

Solution:

TRS Workforce Solutions immediately realised a Project RPO was the most efficient way of meeting the client requirement. The contracted timescale for the client workforce to be in place meant that the PMO team had to be mobilised on extremely short notice. Our London team executed the Project RPO with our Madrid operation providing the on-the-ground resources and language skills necessary to make the project a success.

The first step was to assemble the governance board with key personnel from both organisations to provide direction and support to ensure that the agreed outcome can be achieved. TRS ran a series of workshops with key personnel from the client to shape the service and establish the critical path in getting 96 hires in 6 months. 

Candidate attraction was clearly going to be key to the successful delivery of the RPO project. This led to the first decision in creating a project-specific microsite to act as the landing page for a full-scale online and offline marketing campaign in the local market to raise awareness of both project and the job opportunities with the client. 

The online campaign was designed around Portuguese video content designed to reach as broad an audience as possible. We used Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, alongside traditional email marketing and local job board campaigns to create awareness. Our online outreach strategy was to first saturate the local market with a high volume of marketing to a very specific demographic based within a 50km radius of the mine. This marketing was to drive attendance to a number of open days we were hosting in strategically important locations of Lisbon, Beja, and Faro. 

The offline face-to-face strategy was every bit as important as what was done online, as these open days allowed the client to present their Employee Value Proposition in person to attendees. Given the client was new to the Portuguese market, it was important they made a personal connection with the local labour pool.

Outcome:

This was a hugely successful project where TRS were able to provide an impressive flow of high-volume high-quality traffic of potential job seekers from the local area. We experienced a surprisingly high conversion rate with those registering interest in attending one of the open days. The client was delighted with the engagement from the local market at the open days and was able to extend offers of employment to many of the attendees on the spot. 

The client was delivered with the results of the project and was able to make all the local hires within the contracted deadline. We are hoping to work with them again soon on another European mine being reopened in the coming months. 

The work we did promoting the client's brand in Portugal was noticed by others in the sector to the extent TRS was approached by another Portuguese mine 200 km away to help with their own recruitment challenges.