Aerotek Scales Construction Solution for Solar Contractor

Client Profile

Our client is a leading solar procurement, engineering and construction contractor in the United States. In addition to installing reliable, renewable energy systems across the U.S., our client prides themselves on providing jobs to the surrounding areas and lending support to communities in need.

The Challenge

Our client is tasked with managing several remote projects consecutively. In addition to facing difficulties identifying the talent needed to execute on the work, they also needed to find a way to manage the logistical challenges related to the hiring and on-going support of multiple workforces. The client needed a partner who could develop and manage a repeatable solution that provided full program support for projects all over the nation.

Aerotek's Solution

To address the challenges our customer was facing, Aerotek’s dedicated account team developed a solution that combined Aerotek’s recruiting capabilities with our construction support services solution to provide a full program solution that allowed our client to successfully complete projects spanning the United States.

Recruitment Strategy: Knowing our client was struggling to access qualified talent due to its remote work conditions, Aerotek developed a comprehensive recruitment strategy to ensure each project had the necessary personnel to stay on-time and on-budget. As a first step, Aerotek leveraged our expansive local office footprint to recruit talent from markets surrounding each project. By leveraging grassroots recruitment strategies, we were able to find qualified talent and support workforce development efforts in the communities we sourced from.

Turning to our Strategic Recruiting Centers (SRCs), we were able to further source qualified talent from across the nation in order to build a pipeline of candidates who were willing to travel to worksites for the duration of each project. After each successful projects with this customer, we identify high-performing employees to be rehired for new projects. This allows us to provide long-term employment opportunities for our contractors, while decreasing time to productivity for our client as we were able to provide employees who were already familiar with our client’s operations. This work-study program resembled “journeyman” programs offered in the skilled trades. Those who participated had the opportunity to gain valuable maintenance skills even if they did not complete the program or if they were ultimately not right for the position. 

Logistical Services: Prior to project launch, Aerotek manages the procurement of assets for our workforce. Based on project requirements, we provide a trailer, Kronos timekeeping system, personal protection equipment, office equipment, and internet access for each site. To ensure our workforce is project-ready on a daily basis, we provide continuous management of all assets throughout the duration of the project. Aerotek’s ownership of the logistical responsibilities of each project, enables our client to focus on other mission-critical tasks.

Enhanced Onboarding & Offboarding: Aerotek’s on-site and health & safety representatives work  with our client to develop customized onboarding and orientation protocols for each site. In addition to general policies and expectations, this allows us to reinforce the importance of safety at the site-specific level. By providing a robust onboarding process we ensure that each employee has an in-depth understanding of both their role and worksite expectations before their first day. This enables our contract employees to immediately have a positive impact on the project, as well as minimizing the ongoing risk of health and safety incidents.

Aerotek prides itself on providing a career partnership to our contract employees; as each project reaches completion, we proactively communicate what rehire opportunities are available to qualified employees, including transitioning to another project for this client. Additionally, we continue to provide support to our client and employees for the duration of the engagement to ensure project scale-down and close-out go as smoothly as possible. 

Reporting & Performance Optimization: To provide our customer with increased visibility into program performance and project costs, our team created customized reporting that allowed for projection into daily/weekly/overall breakdown of hours, spend down to the task-code level. Our team uses this reporting, in addition to bi-weekly meetings with the client’s project team to ensure that projects are both cost effective and running on schedule, and when necessary, identify areas where performance can be optimized through the realignment of contract talent. Once established, this reporting and meeting cadence has been utilized across multiple projects to ensure their continued success.

Knowledge Capture & Transfer: As one of our client’s preferred service providers, Aerotek has been able to document Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and capture lessons-learned and apply them at subsequent projects. By optimizing the knowledge transfer process between projects, we have created consistency from project to project and decreased the time it takes for our teams to mobilize. As a result, we are able to ensure consistent delivery from pre-project through close-out.

Results

We have been able to scale this solution to cover 19 projects across eight states, resulting is 3,200+ megawatts completed. The successful completion of these projects has bolstered our client’s confidence in our construction support services solution, allowing them to continuously bid on and be awarded new projects.  

Knowing that positively impacting communities and providing consistent, reliable employment are priorities to both of our businesses, we have increased our rehire rate on these projects from 4% to 43%, and as our partnership has continued to expand, we have been able to jointly participate in outreach efforts that support the communities in which we live and do business.