Based in New Roads, our client is a major energy holding company headquartered in Louisiana with over 1,300 employees. Their remit has a capacity of 3,035 megawatts and operates 946 megawatts on behalf of its generation partners, with assets exceeding 1,300 miles of transmission lines and 12,000 miles of distribution lines.
The Challenge
Prior to engaging the services of NES Fircroft, our client had a large portfolio of suppliers for their engineering talent. The client was experiencing all-round poor service and poor communication from these suppliers, resulting in escalating contractor rates and hidden charges.
We have operated in Louisiana for over a decade and through our strong reputation in the chemicals and energy market, the client initially reached out for our support to streamline their Big Cajun 1 operation, and to bring transparency back into their hiring.
Our Solution
Our local team in New Orleans appointed a dedicated Account Manager to the scope of work. Our support included:
Providing the client with a single, dedicated point of contact for clarity and consistency in all communications and logistical matters
Reducing the response time for any queries, through appointing accountability to the Account Manager
Delivering significant cost savings of up to 40% on contractor fees
Streamlining the client’s workforce set-up; our first scope of work involved transitioning 5 contractors across to our rates and management, and following great success, the second scope involved transitioning 8 contractors
Facilitating a better communication process with all contractors, explaining the benefits and support that we offer in detail and guiding them throughout every step of the transition process, and what they could expect under our management
Introducing ETZ timesheets, an online system which helps to reduce the amount of human error and speed up the process through a degree of automation. This also achieved payroll simplicity through managing the timesheets through just one channel, as opposed to several
Continued success
We have been asked to source several new contractors. Job titles we have provided include:
- Shift Supervisor
- Environmental Specialist
- Accounting Specialist
- Plant Equipment Operator
- Laboratory Technician
- Mechanical Specialist
The results of our support
We enabled the client to achieve a much cleaner and transparent process in regards to their contractor management, providing a more comprehensive level of service at a reduced cost. We have also enabled them to access expertise skillsets for their plant through connecting them to our developed talent networks.
Through demonstrable success the small initial scope of work has continued to grow steadily:
- Our partnership began at just one coal fire power plant in 2017, and has grown so that we are now their preferred supplier for technical and operation requirements (non-craft and non-union roles) working across 3 of their facilities, and have placed over 20 contractors to date.
- The client recognises NES Fircroft as being able to connect them with high quality candidates and so we now also partner with the local university to bring on and evaluate new process operators for the client, qualifying only the very best prospects, and helping to bridge the traditional energy talent gap in younger generations.