Why Summer is a great time to review your

Summer - projects are in full swing, warehouses are running hot, and your FM teams are stretched to keep everything ticking, half the country currently has one eye on the World Cup, the other half is wilting in a heatwave - and the last thing on your mind is reviewing your recruitment supplier. And that's exactly why you should.

This summer is anything but ordinary. With record temperatures hitting outdoor sites and facilities hard, and a World Cup pulling focus (and the odd unplanned sickie) from the shop floor to the screen, the pressure on your workforce has rarely been higher. The businesses that come out strongest in Q3 and Q4 are the ones who use this moment to take stock - tightening up their supply chain and making sure the people powering their operations are coming from the right place.

Recruitment is no different.

Here's why summer is the ideal window - and what to look for when you do.

This Summer is different - and that's the point…

Add a World Cup and a prolonged heatwave into the mix, and you've got a summer that's already testing workforce resilience in ways most businesses weren't fully prepared for.

World Cup tournaments historically see a spike in unplanned absences, late starts, and reduced focus - particularly in shift-based and site environments where there's less flexibility to absorb it. If your workforce planning is already tight, that's a real operational risk. A recruitment supplier worth their salt should be helping you think about contingency cover, not waiting for you to call in a panic.

The heatwave adds another layer. Working in high temperatures on a construction site, in a non-air-conditioned warehouse, or running an FM operation across multiple buildings isn't just uncomfortable, it carries genuine health and safety implications. Are your current workers adequately equipped and supported? Is your supplier proactive about welfare, or are they simply focused on filling seats?

These aren't abstract scenarios. They're happening right now, and how your recruitment partner responds to them tells you a great deal.

The mid-year opportunity most businesses miss

By summer, you've got over six months of data. You know which roles took too long to fill, which placements didn't stick, and where your labour costs crept above budget.

You've got a real picture, not a forecast, or a projection, of how your recruitment partner has performed under real conditions.

That's genuinely valuable. But it's a window that closes fast.

Wait until October and you're rushing to plug gaps before the year-end push. Wait until January and you're firefighting from day one. Summer gives you the time and the evidence to make a considered decision - whether that's doubling down on a supplier who's earned your trust, or making a change before the pressure builds again.

What good recruitment looks like across your sectors

The needs of a construction site, an industrial facility, and an FM operation are meaningfully different. A recruitment partner who truly understands all three isn't just convenient - it's a competitive advantage.

Construction

Summer is peak season. Groundworks, roofing, civil engineering, fit-out - projects don’t slow down for anyone. If your supplier is scrambling to find skilled tradespeople in July, imagine what September looks like.

And this summer, the heatwave is adding real pressure. Working outdoors in sustained high temperatures means welfare considerations, rest breaks, and hydration protocols matter more than ever - and clients expect their contractors to be on top of it. A good recruitment partner should be placing people who are properly briefed, not just bodies through a gate.

A strong recruitment partner in construction should be able to demonstrate:

Speed without compromise - filling roles quickly without cutting corners on CSCS cards, right-to-work checks, and trade qualifications
A genuine candidate pipeline - not just reacting to your vacancies, but maintaining relationships with labourers, skilled trades, and site management professionals year-round
Flexibility across contract types - whether you need a gang of groundworkers for three weeks or a long-term site manager, the response should be equally sharp

Ask your current supplier: "If I needed ten skilled operatives by Monday, what would your process look like?" The answer tells you a lot.

Industrial

Warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, production - industrial businesses face a different kind of pressure. Shift patterns are complex, throughput targets are unforgiving, and the cost of a poorly filled role shows up fast on the floor.

This summer, that pressure has two new dimensions. Warehouse and production environments during a heatwave can become genuinely uncomfortable - and in some facilities, genuinely dangerous. Temperature management, worker welfare, and the ability to maintain output when conditions are difficult is where strong workforce planning separates itself from reactive scrambling. On top of that, the World Cup is a proven driver of unplanned absences in shift-based environments. If your supplier isn't helping you build cover into your planning, they're not thinking ahead.

Summer is also when many industrial businesses begin planning for peak - whether that's back-to-school, Christmas, or sector-specific demand spikes. If your supplier isn't already talking to you about that, they're behind.

What to look for:

Volume capability - can they scale from 10 to 100 workers when you need them to?
Retention focus - not just placing people, but placing the right people who stay and perform
Sector knowledge - do they understand your site's PPE requirements, induction process, and shift structure, or are you explaining it every time?

A supplier who treats industrial recruitment as a numbers game will always let you down at the worst moment.

Facilities Management

FM is the sector where recruitment pressure is most invisible - until something goes wrong. A missed cleaning shift, an absent maintenance engineer, a gap in security cover: the client notices before you do.

In a heatwave, FM operations face their own specific crunch. HVAC systems working overtime, increased demand for reactive maintenance, cooling and ventilation issues across managed buildings - the workload spikes and the margin for error shrinks. Having the right people, reliably in place, isn't a nice-to-have in July. It's what keeps your contracts intact.

FM recruitment demands reliability above almost everything else. Soft skills, presentation, professionalism, and the ability to work in sensitive environments (healthcare, education, defence) are just as important as technical competence.

Review questions worth asking:

Are placements being properly vetted for the environments they're entering - DBS checks, safeguarding awareness, client-site protocols?
Is your supplier proactive about cover, or reactive when you call in a panic?
Do they understand the difference between hard services and soft services, and recruit accordingly?

A good FM recruitment partner doesn't just fill a rota. They protect your contract.

Five questions to ask your current supplier this Summer

You don't need a formal procurement process to do a meaningful review. Start with these:

What's your average time-to-fill been this year, and how does that compare to last year?
What percentage of placements have completed their assignment or passed probation?
How are you sourcing candidates right now - and what does your pipeline look like for our sector?
What do you know about the labour market conditions affecting our business specifically?
What are you doing differently to the recruitment agency we used before you?

If the answers are vague, defensive, or heavy on jargon, that's useful information too.

The candidate perspective (which is really a client concern)

Here's something worth understanding: the quality of your recruitment supplier's candidate experience directly affects the quality of people you receive.

Skilled workers talk to each other. A supplier with a reputation for ghosting candidates, slow payment, or disorganised onboarding will struggle to attract and retain the best people in your sector. That gap flows through to your site, your warehouse, your managed contract.

Thorn Baker Group has always believed that looking after candidates well isn't separate from serving clients well - it's the mechanism by which we do it. Workers who feel valued, communicated with, and paid accurately and on time show up reliably and perform better.

That's not sentiment; it's operational fact.

Why Thorn Baker Group?

Thorn Baker Group has been placing people across Construction, Industrial, and Facilities Management for over 30 years. We're not a generalist agency that dips into your sector when it's convenient - these are the industries we've built our business around.

That means:

Dedicated specialist consultants who know your sector's language, regulations, and pressures
Established candidate networks built over decades, not scraped from job boards
A genuine commitment to compliance - CSCS, right-to-work, DBS, PPE, site inductions - handled properly, every time
Regional presence with national reach - close enough to respond fast, wide enough to source talent wherever you need it

Whether you're looking to benchmark your current supplier, explore what a switch might look like, or simply have a frank conversation about your recruitment challenges, we're ready to have that conversation.

Ready to Review?

Summer won't last - and neither will the World Cup or the heatwave. But the gaps they expose in your workforce planning will follow you into autumn if you don't address them now. If you've been meaning to look at your recruitment supply chain, this is the moment - before peak season, before the year-end push, and before another gap costs you more than it should.

Get in touch with the Thorn Baker Group team today: https://www.thornbaker.co.uk/contact-us

We'll tell you honestly what good looks like - and show you what it feels like to work with people who genuinely know your sector.

Thorn Baker Group | Specialists in Construction, Industrial & Facilities Management Recruitment