A repeatable project workforce model for a regional water infrastructure contractor
A water infrastructure and civil construction contractor needed complete project delivery teams sourced and mobilised for a growing portfolio of regional water treatment projects. Infrastructure People operates as an embedded resourcing partner under a 12-month agreement, building the core team for each project and staying involved across the whole workforce lifecycle.
Overview
The client is a water infrastructure and civil construction contractor delivering a growing portfolio of regional water treatment projects across Queensland and New South Wales. Infrastructure People partnered with the business under a 12-month partnership agreement, providing three days of dedicated support each week. The partnership began on a single regional water treatment project, where the client needed a complete project delivery team to be sourced and mobilised.
The challenge
The client needed long-term workforce and resource management support across a growing portfolio of regional water infrastructure projects, rather than help filling a single vacancy. The partnership commenced on the first project, where a full project delivery team had to be sourced and mobilised at pace. The defining challenge across every project was location. Regional sites call for a proactive approach to identifying, attracting and mobilising experienced people who are genuinely prepared to work regionally, a group that is always in short supply.
Our approach
Infrastructure People operates as an extension of the client’s business under a 12-month partnership agreement, providing three days of dedicated support each week. For each major project we manage the recruitment and mobilisation of the core project team, typically a project manager, a project engineer, two site engineers, a contract administrator, a supervisor and a project administrator. Beyond the professional team, we provide ongoing support across blue-collar workforce requirements as each project progresses, and we remain involved from mobilisation through to project completion and offboarding. The work spans workforce planning, project mobilisation, market mapping and candidate engagement, candidate management and coordination, onboarding, ongoing workforce management, blue-collar resourcing, offboarding and forward planning for upcoming projects.
The outcome
What began as support for one regional project has developed into a repeatable project workforce model the client can deploy as new projects are awarded. The same approach has been replicated across several regional water treatment projects, with Infrastructure People building the core project delivery team required for each one rather than simply filling individual vacancies. By remaining involved from mobilisation through to completion and offboarding, the partnership provides continuity across the entire workforce lifecycle. It gives the client dedicated resourcing capability that scales with its project pipeline, without the cost of maintaining a larger permanent internal recruitment function.
How we partner
Regional infrastructure rarely stalls for want of a job advertisement; it stalls when experienced people will not relocate to where the work is. An embedded partner who plans the workforce project by project, mobilises complete delivery teams and stays involved through to offboarding gives a contractor the capacity to take on the next regional project with confidence.
The hardest part of a regional project is not the build, it is putting the right team on the ground and keeping it there. A repeatable resourcing model is what lets a contractor scale into new regions.
Director, Infrastructure People
