Outsource Telecom: The Benefits of Temporary Wiring Staffing
The ability to bring in the right person or an entire crew for a specific cabling job not only makes sense, but it can also save a contractor or builder a lot of money.
That's because with its ebb and flow climate, the electrical and cabling industries are nothing if not cyclical. Dependent on various factors – as well as seasonal variances – the workload of the average contractor can vary greatly month to month. These fluctuations often lead to a hire/fire pendulum in which companies permanently hire workers only to lay them off in leaner times. The same firms may also find themselves scrambling to find qualified electrical or cabling installers during big projects and peak demand seasons.
“It's a fact that the wiring industry is a project-based business,” says John Lowell, C.E.O. of Outsource Telecom, Inc., a specialty-staffing firm exclusively dedicated to the installation of electrical and structured cabling systems. “Contractors may have a project in a particular job site that has a finite end date. By using us, they can staff up for that particular job. Then when they're done, they don't have to worry about the stress of laying off their employees and the unemployment liabilities that inevitably follow.”
Outsource Telecom charges the contractor a simple hourly rate, depending on the specific position. This means that the contractor doesn't have to worry about down time when business is slow because they can send the worker back so we can deploy them to another project. Just a couple of extra weeks of carrying crews of installers on payroll during down times can really cost a company money, especially if they have to go through the process of laying off good people, having them collect unemployment, and then having to re-hire them down the road. It can be an administrative nightmare. By using a temporary staffing service such as Outsource Telecom, contractors are finally able to realize a truly flexible workforce that is robust when they are busy and lean when they are slow.
Outsource Telecom offers holiday pay, 401k along with a health benefits option. “It's good for workers and their families,” Lowell says. “It gives them peace-of-mind, and our people are constantly working because we have a wide range of clients.”
Outsource Telecom covers all the costs associated with personnel tasks, such as background checks when a clients requests, drug testing, reference checking, hands on skills assessment, and in-person interviews.
In addition, they also handle all of the payroll and liability issues, including tax filings, workers compensation and liability insurance. “Basically, our people come in, do the job, and leave,” Lowell continues. “It's a win-win for our clients and for their job profitability.”
Using outsourced labor is typically a function of need. “For most contractors, the rule of thumb is if they can keep workers busy all the time, they'll hire on permanently. If the duration is less than 12 months, and most of this specialty work is, they prefer to use us. We have a lot of wiring contractors who like to use Outsource Telecom because we handle their human resources and payroll functions, which coupled with recruiting, can be a real time saver, especially for smaller companies,” Lowell explains. “It also lets smaller companies bid and work on projects that are larger than they'd normally handle. These companies might have a finite number of workers on staff, but during peak season they can expand and contract day-by-day by using our services.”
According to Lowell, smaller companies aren't the only customers using their services. “Many larger companies use Outsource Telecom when they want to get in and finish a job faster, or when they need specialty talent, ranging from telecommunications installers to telecom RCDD engineers, project managers, estimators and security system or fire alarm system installation. We give them the capacity to get in and get out, bill their client, make more money, and get onto the next project.”
Many firms agree that the biggest benefit of working with a specialty staffing company is not only a more specialized workforce, but also less paperwork, which, when talking about unemployment compensation, also translates into money paid out. “The unemployment rate is a big issue,” says Lowell. “They're going to pay unemployment on new hires anyway, and they're going to pay benefits on top of it – so they end up paying a lot. When they hire somebody through us because the job needs 10 extra guys for a month, it saves them all that cost, all of that hassle.”
For larger contractors, times savings can be a bigger influence than finances. It might take four to eight weeks to get someone hired on with the company. With Outsource Telecom, they can have somebody or an entire crew in as little as a day, and generally not more than a week, depending on the skill set that they need.
One of the keys to success for Outsource Telecom is a full array of on-demand workers in a wide range of specialty areas so their own database is stocked. “We recruit all the time,” Lowell says. “So we're ready to fill a position, for a day or a month, compared to companies that just recruit when they have to. It's hard to start the recruiting engine when the train is stopped and at the station. Our biggest advantage is the niche itself. We only recruit for personnel that work in the wiring industries. So unlike many of our competitors, we do not search for electricians and structured cabling installers one week and then spend the next searching for plumbers, carpenters or ditch-diggers. Our commitment to the wiring industries truly sets us apart.”
The long and short of it is that outsourcing labor for specific jobs makes sense, and saves money. It's not easy being in a business that is cyclical by nature. Outsource Telecom helps by finding the people you need now who leave the job site when the job is finished, leaving you to do the other things you need to grow your business. The truly enlightened business owner understands that the time they save by using Outsource Telecom is the real value because they channel that time into growing and improving their business as opposed to placing ads in newspapers, scheduling interviews, performing reference checks, coordinating drug tests and executing new hire documents. Anyone can do it, but why would you want to when you can outsource it to professionals that truly know your industry so that you can take that saved time and invest it back into growing your company.
