Recruitment and the Engineering and Manufacturing sector

Published date: June 18, 2020

​I have worked in the Technical and Engineering market for the past 21 years and I am incredibly proud to lead one of the largest Technical Recruitment departments in the East of England. 

The COVID-19 pandemic had and is still changing how a number of businesses are currently operating, with some of them modifying their hours and shifts patterns, some promoting remote working and some allowing people to be back in the office with social distancing measures in place.  

The good news is that a high number of manufacturing businesses have remained open throughout the pandemic and are finding new and creative ways of working and realising the ‘new’ norm is actually increasing their production levels and employee engagement. 

Businesses are still looking to attract and recruit skilled individuals to join them, from CNC and Workshop based roles to impact production rates through to Senior Management to deliver key strategy and drive the businesses forward.  

Automation, Robotics and Lean Manufacturing remain at the forefront with continuous improvement being key for businesses throughout the Easy Anglia region. 

Both virtual interviews and virtual site tours are becoming the ‘new’ norm.  Businesses which tested them during lockdown realised that video-screening is a great tool to assess skills set, personality and team dynamic. Moreover, creating video tours of their factories to send to external bodies is a great opportunity for businesses to promote their working environment to candidates.

It has been astonishing to see how factories in our country have been able to rapidly change the products they normally manufacture in order to produce ventilators and PPE.

I truly hope this will translate into an increase of UK based manufacturing as I believe both the skills set and the knowledge we have in the UK are some of the best in the world.