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BLOWN AWAY BY THE RECRUITMENT CHALLENGE OF OFFSHORE WIND
A CASE STUDY OF THE SHERINGHAM SHOAL OFFSHORE WIND FARM RECRUITMENT PROJECT
Building an 88 turbine offshore wind farm with 2 offshore sub-stations in the North Sea between 9 and 17 miles off the coast of North Norfolk was always going to be a challenge, but finding engineers, marine co-ordinators, health & safety inspectors, and finance and hr managers for this emerging industry sector in a quiet corner of rural North Norfolk became a challenge of a different kind for Cooper Lomaz Recruitment.
SCIRA OFFSHORE ENERGY
Scira Offshore Energy, owned in equal shares by 2 large Norwegian companies, Statkraft and Statoil, had been working on the £1bn Sheringham Shoal offshore wind Farm project since it gained its licence from The Crown Estate in late 2004 and had made considerable progress by autumn 2010.
WELLS-NEXT-THE-SEA
The tiny, picturesque town of Wells-next- the-Sea in North Norfolk had been chosen as the operations and maintenance base for the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind Farm, a new outer harbour had been constructed by the Wells Harbour Commission. This was needed to give better access for the personnel transport vessels which would be travelling out to the wind farm on a daily basis for the next 50 years.
ONSHORE WORK
A 22km underground cable had been laid from the coastal village of Weybourne, where the 317MW of electricity generated by the offshore wind farm now comes ashore, to Salle near Norwich, where a new sub-station had been built to distribute the electricity into the National Grid.
MANAGEMENT TEAM
Towards the end of 2010, it was time for Scira to start recruiting a core management team. Having won a competitive pitch to
manage the recruitment process, the brief to Cooper Lomaz Recruitment was to say the least, daunting: meet demanding people specifications in a new industry by recruiting as many local people as possible, who could be in post by late March 2011 at latest.
RECRUITMENT EXPERIENCE With over 20 years’ experience in engineering recruitment for companies in all East Anglia’s key industry sectors; Cooper Lomaz has a detailed knowledge of the employment marketplace in Eastern England. By maintaining regular contact with highly experienced personnel in the oil & gas industry, manufacturing and logistics and supply chain functions, it was felt that the appropriate transferable skills would be found in these sectors.
Cooper Lomaz’s Jane Lovell said: “We had been receiving expressions of interest from a growing number of mechanical and electrical engineers who wished to explore the opportunities in Norfolk and Suffolk offered by offshore wind for some time.”
COMMITMENT
Scira Offshore Energy’s commitment to the North Norfolk economy, the employment of local people and the use of local businesses within its supply chain, resulted in Cooper Lomaz running two large recruitment advertisements in five regional and local newspapers in December 2010 and January 2011.
LOCAL SKILLS
Scira’s faith in the availability of locally sourced skills and talents was well justified. General Manager Einar Strømsvåg was delighted with the response: “The interest in employment in renewable energy in East Anglia was shown by the quantity and quality of the applications received. Cooper Lomaz Recruitment discovered an amazing range of experience and capability, which resulted in the appointment of a number of local Norfolk people.”
SELECTION PROCESS
The interview and selection process was led by Cooper Lomaz in partnership with Norwegian members of the Statoil project team. Candidates needed to match the norwegian firm’s values of integrity, diligence and a passion for its work, as well as being a committed team player. By March 2011 7 permanent staff and 3 contractors had been appointed and were in post - 3 weeks earlier than the deadline!
Since recruiting those initial Scira employees, Cooper Lomaz has continued to provide a pro-active service to the company, recruiting daily rate contractors and permanent members of staff.
RECRUITMENT DETAIL
The construction of the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind Farm was completed in late 2012, by the time Scira moved into it’s operations and maintenance phase in early 2013, Cooper Lomaz had recruited 14 permanent members of staff; these include the HR and Communications Manager, the head of Finance, the hSE Manager, Mechanical, Electrical and Commissioning Engineers, Wind Analysts, a Marine Manager and a number of Marine Co-ordinators.
BLOWN AWAY
Jane Lovell summed up the success of the project: “We were totally blown away when we realised the huge number of opportunities that exist for the East Anglia economy as a result of the development of offshore wind farms in the southern North Sea up to 2020 and beyond.
“We have now established an offshore renewable energy and wind engineering recruitment team who are working with a rapidly growing number of offshore wind farm operators and their first tier suppliers and contractors.”
Cooper Lomaz Recruitment Ltd
Image supplied by Scira Offshore Energy (Courtesy of CHPV)
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www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
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