CASE STUDY

McCarthy Stone

McCarthy Stone

CHAS helps McCarthy Stone plug the subcontractor skills and labour gap with dedicated meet-the-buyer events

High-quality construction is a core principle for McCarthy Stone, the UK’s leading developer, and manager of retirement communities.

 Establishing a supply chain of experienced and qualified subcontractors is key to achieving this principle and upholding McCarthy Stone’s reputation for building beautiful, affordable and sustainable places to live. However, finding suitably qualified and skilled subcontractors is an ongoing issue for the business, which the current skills crisis has potentially exacerbated.

Andrew Wood, Northern Commercial Director at McCarthy Stone, outlines what many in the industry currently face: “It’s becoming an increasing challenge to balance the need to find labour while maintaining standards of workmanship and ensuring work is carried out safely.” Trades where McCarthy Stone have seen shortages of available labour include carpentry/joinery, plumbing, electrics, bricklaying, scaffolding, roof tiling and wall and floor tiling.

Skills & Labour Shortage Hotspots

Moreover, McCarthy Stone recognises that there are skills and labour shortage hotspots in various regions across the UK. Recruitment challenges are amplified in these areas due to a limited pool of available subcontractors and tradespeople. Andrew explains: “The labour shortage has worsened in recent years, making it particularly difficult to find subcontractors in less populated locations where we lack an established supply chain.”

Nonetheless, McCarthy Stone recognised the need to address their recruitment challenges and turned to CHAS for assistance in expanding their subcontractor base. They were already working successfully with CHAS to streamline their prequalification processes for their existing supply chain, so working together on a recruitment campaign was a natural progression of this relationship.

According to Anne Smales, the Group Commercial Director at McCarthy Stone, the decision to collaborate with CHAS was based on their personalised approach, which has been crucial for helping their SME contractors to get on board with the company’s prequalification campaign.

CHAS has not only assisted subcontractors in completing forms and navigating the assessment platform but has also demystified the prequalification process. This has led to a better understanding of how adopting a more efficient approach to prequalification can benefit everyone in the supply chain. One notable example is the introduction of subcontractors to the Common Assessment Standard, an industry-wide prequalification designed to prevent duplication of assessments, saving contractors time and money while benefitting the entire industry.

Anne explains: “The Common Assessment Standard is a great innovation, but it is not yet fully understood by the industry. CHAS has done a really excellent job of communicating the benefits of the Common Assessment Standard to our supply chain and they deserve accolades for that.”

The Solution

With their relationship going from strength-to-strength McCarthy Stone was confident CHAS could also help them with their resourcing challenges. The solution was to initiate a series of Meet the Buyer events, reaching out to CHAS’s database of subcontractors, getting them to attend the events with a view to becoming part of McCarthy Stone’s supply chain. The main aim was to allow McCarthy Stone to network with relevant local firms, enabling them to fill some of their resource gaps.

Four events were held across the North, with CHAS taking care of the marketing and co-creating the event’s agenda.

Anne explains: “We’ve held Meet the Buyer events in the past with mixed success, but the events we have run with CHAS have been really effective. They have been well organised, and we’ve benefitted from CHAS’s ability to market the events to a wider number of supply chain companies than we would normally reach, which brought many more subcontractors through the door.”

Challenging Misconceptions

CHAS also provided expert support at the events to help trades who attended understand what is involved in prequalification and overcome any misconceptions that might have been an obstacle to new contractors coming on board.

“There are a lot of myths and misconceptions that can put subcontractors off prequalification,” says Anne. “SMEs, in particular, worry they don’t have the time, knowledge or resources to meet prequalification requirements. However, CHAS is good at supporting them to overcome these concerns and taking subcontractors on a prequalification journey.

Andrew agrees: “It was invaluable to have CHAS there to map out the subcontractor journey.”

Andrew adds: “Sometimes subcontractors can also be held back from applying to work with housebuilders because of preconceptions that they won’t get paid on time or they will be exploited as part of a larger supply chain.” Andrew stresses this doesn’t ring true for McCarthy Stone’s subcontractors with the CHAS Meet the Buyer events providing a valuable opportunity to get this message across, adding: “We always strive to be a good supply chain partner – we have prompt payment terms and are easy to work with. As builders of a high-end product, we are also a good match for subcontractors who take pride in their work and once we’ve onboarded subcontractors, we expect to consistently engage with them over the medium to long-term, thus providing a regular workflow.”

The Outcome

The events have proved successful for McCarthy Stone, enabling better engagement with local workforces in the communities where they are developing new sites. McCarthy Stone are now resolved to roll the solution out across other divisions. Anne explains: “A number of contractors who attended the Meet the Buyer events have since gone on to get their compliance and prequalification where we needed it to be and have received invitations to tender on the back of that.”

For example, the CHAS Meet the Buyer event in Gosforth attracted around 30 subcontractors, 22 were of interest to McCarthy Stone and some have since received orders for work.

Meanwhile the Meet the Buyer event held in Beverley was also attended by around 30 subcontractors with 19 of these meeting McCarthy Stone’s requirements including joiners, renderers, plasterers and tilers.

Anne Smales sums up: “Working with CHAS has helped us expand the depth and breadth of our subcontractor base and given us confidence in our supply chain’s compliance. At the same time, our subcontractors now better understand what prequalification looks like and what it means because they have had the benefit of CHAS’ support.”  