Aerotek Fuels Aircraft Company’s Growth with High-quality, Reliable Talent

Client Profile

Our client is an American owned and operated aircraft company that designs, develops, manufactures, markets, services and supports the world's most technologically advanced business-jet aircraft. 

The Challenge

Due to increased aircraft demand and new product lines being released in the upcoming year, our client needed to scale their Savannah, Georgia operations to keep up with production schedules. At this facility, operations were segmented into two groupings: Aircraft Production and Aircraft Post-Production Servicing. Despite operating under the same roof, the skill sets needed by each group were drastically different due to the unique needs required for assembly versus aircraft servicing. After working with our client for nearly a decade, hiring over 1,200+ contractors with a 96% retention rate over the previous five years alone, our client knew they could trust Aerotek to support their growing business. 

Aerotek's Solution

To ensure our client could efficiently and successfully ramp their operations, Aerotek’s solution had to address all aspects of the contract talent lifecycle. Aerotek needed to utilize our aviation industry expertise to source the highest-quality talent, ensure proper recruiter allocation to find the volume of people needed, and maintain a high level of service post-hire to keep the workforce engaged and retained. 

Aerotek developed a robust support model involving both local resources and the support of our Aviation Industry Strategic Recruiting Center (SRC). Aerotek’s Aviation Industry SRC is comprised of 25+ highly experienced, industry-aligned skilled trades recruiters, who specialize in sourcing qualified talent for our aviation client’s. To achieve the high-volume needs of our client, Aerotek’s dedicated support team consisted of the following roles: 1 Account Manager, 2 Account Recruiting Managers, 1 On-Premise Manager, 3 Local Recruiters, and 2 SRC Recruiters.  

Due to our client’s siloed operations, each of our Account Recruiting Managers were designated to support a specific operation – Aircraft Production or Aircraft Post-Production Servicing. This structure allotted the bandwidth needed for in-depth conversations with hiring managers about their unique needs and the ability to spend time on-site to learn operational rhythms. These steps gave Aerotek’s recruiting team an in-depth understanding of each department’s inner workings, enabling them to effectively find the right talent for their needs. Additionally, to ensure that our local office was prepared for any further volume increases, our Savannah, Georgia office had all recruiters undergo DER certification, which Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation require to staff aviation roles. With this support structure in place, Aerotek immediately began filling our client’s open positions for structural mechanics, aircraft technicians, avionics techs, interiors and cabinet support, and other operations support roles. 

To further streamline our hiring processes and increase retention, Aerotek added an on-premise manager dedicated to facilitating our onboarding and orientation processes, as well as providing our contractors with an easily accessible point-of-contact for any needs they may have. This consistent presence for our contractors and our client’s onsite management team, contractor retention improved significantly – as issue resolution and performance feedback could be delivered in real time. 

Results

During an 11-month period Aerotek’s dedicated support team was able to grow contractor headcount from 192 to 359. This was accomplished by providing our client with at least 16 starts per week, which ensured the necessary staffing levels to hit all production and servicing goals. Additionally, our focus on contractor engagement ensured that program retention remained at or above 95%. Due to Aerotek’s industry expertise and specialized support model aligned to our client’s operational structure, Aerotek was able to find high-quality and reliable talent – leading to 194 of Aerotek’s contractors being converted to full-time employees with our client.