The Importance of HR For Your Engineering Firm

Eric Mochnacz
June 20, 2022

Having an experienced, functioning HR department in your engineering organization is essential for its success.  Working with such a specialized and skilled workforce, having an effective HR function is directly linked to your ability to find, grow and retain talent.  The ability to remain a competitive employer in an industry competing for talent is to have people programs and processes that enhance your employer brand and help you stand out as an employer of choice.  In other words, you want to position yourself as a company where experienced and skilled industry professionals want to work.  The primary way you do this is by putting a premium on human resources, and working with a company that has the skills and expertise to drive your business forward through innovative people process and complete HR process overhaul.

Why Your Engineering Firm Should be Working With a Dedicated HR Consultant

There are a variety of ways a dedicated HR consultant directly benefits your engineering firm.  Generally speaking, an HR consulting firm can manage your HR department more efficiently and at a cost savings compared to going to market for an internal hire.  In this blog, we outline the specific ways that working with a strategic HR consulting firm like Red Clover helps your engineering firm elevate itself in your industry.

Provide HR Support

Whether your engineering firm is a start-up with a few employees or you’re a trusted name in the business with years of experience and a large workforce, working with a dedicated HR consultant allows you to scale your business successfully.  The consultant can focus on creating sustainable, scalable people processes and implementing them organization-wide as you, the business owner, focus on growing the business.  Committing to ongoing HR support, your consulting partner can serve as your one-person human resources department, managing the entire employee life cycle, from recruitment to onboarding, and all the HR functions in between.  Leverage the HR support with your consulting partner by integrating them into your leadership meetings and let them contribute their expertise to the direction of your business, with attention to how your growth will impact your people and people processes.

Help Create an Effective Recruiting Process

In a competitive and complex job market, you want to be able to quickly identify talent with the specialized skills required for the open roles in your engineering business.  Through Recruitment Process Outsourcing, your HR consultant implements impactful change at every step of the recruitment process.  At Red Clover, we work with hiring managers and business leaders to review and revise job descriptions to ensure accuracy and attract the right applicants with the right skills.  We streamline the interview process, with candidate experience in mind, so they aren’t sitting through endless rounds of interviews.  We focus on quality conversations at three different levels of the organization and work to close open roles quickly and efficiently (we’ve been averaging a month from posting to close!)  With our experience in behavioral interviewing, we train your team on asking good questions to get good answers by inviting applicants to speak about their past performance, as it’s the best predictor of future behavior.  And to further support your company’s recruiting efforts, our HR team provides you access to some of the most qualified candidates on the market through access to our firm’s LinkedIn Corporate Recruiter License.  And to top it all off, we don’t charge a commission or mark up for candidate placement – our reward is placing the right people in the right seat at your engineering firm.

Streamline the Onboarding Process

If your HR consulting firm provides full-service HR support, they are equipped to guarantee a smooth transition from candidate to new hire.  A streamlined onboarding process is one where your new team member becomes comfortable in their position, learns how to do their job successfully,  and integrates into the company culture over the span of their first three months.  A new employee’s first impression of the company is critical, so qualified HR professionals also focus on streamlining administrative onboarding processes to ensure a new hire’s first day is seamless – from completing new employee paperwork to having a functioning laptop, to being able to access their company email and other platforms and software.

Implement Effective Training and Development Programs

As you grow your engineering firm, you want to attract top talent, but also want to retain your top performers.  One way HR for engineering firms can support retention initiatives is by implementing effective training and development programs.  Red Clover specializes in developing training and learning curriculums for the trades industry, construction companies, and engineering firms – since they have been traditionally underserved by traditional, corporate HR.  A tailored training program for your company connects learning outcomes to industry standards and opportunities for your career progression in your company.  Red Clover embeds our consultants into your organization to learn from you and the other business leaders about the engineering industry and we develop and implement a training curriculum that enhances your workforce’s knowledge and skill and keeps them engaged in company growth.  They see as their knowledge increases, their opportunity to grow in their career and make more money are intrinsically connected.  Working with trained HR consultants with direct experience in curriculum development gives your engineering firm the competitive edge it needs to stand out in your industry.

Is Your Engineering Firm in Need of HR Support?

Regardless of your company size and years in the industry, you need experienced HR support to grow as an engineering firm.  If you are just starting to consider building a strong HR foundation, your junior HR resource isn’t ready to manage the more strategic aspects of your HR department, or your HR Manager recently departed – Red Clover is uniquely equipped to step right in and help.  Schedule a chat with us and we can talk about how we can serve your engineering firm as its complete, outsourced HR solution!

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