Range Rover Rush: A rise in sales of popular vehicles means JLR is recruiting staff
Not too long ago, during the darkest days of the financial crisis, Britain’s automotive industry was on its knees. Sales had plummeted, factories were on short-time working and staff were being laid off. It was a grim spectacle all round.
Fast forward to current times, and the story couldn’t be more different. Through a combination of government support, an improvement in global economic conditions, and the development of new products that customers want to buy, the automotive sector has bounced back, enjoying such a flourishing renaissance that it is now held up as an exemplar of modern manufacturing success. Nowhere is that more true than at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which is enjoying a golden period of growth.
Surging sales of popular products, such as the new Range Rover and the Jaguar F-Type, have brought its production facilities to full capacity, with further multimillion-pound investments being made. That means the company is creating hundreds of jobs for engineers and technicians across the country.
Joe McNamara is lean manufacturing manager at JLR’s Solihull plant in the West Midlands, which makes the Range Rover, Land Rover Discovery and Defender, and which from next year will also produce a mid-sized Jaguar saloon based on a new aluminium vehicle architecture. The dark days are long gone, and the automotive sector is now a good place to be, he says.
“I have been in the car industry all my working life and I have always been part of good teams that have worked hard, but that hasn’t always translated into profits and success. In the past few years there has been a complete transformation.”
Success breeds success, he says, and at JLR there is investment in products and facilities, along with the internationalisation of the company’s manufacturing footprint. “All this means that for a new recruit, the company looks and feels a lot different from how it did a few years ago.”
But rapid expansion brings challenges of its own. JLR is spending £1.5 billion on new manufacturing facilities in Solihull, and will take on 1,700 additional people. The first phase of the recruitment is under way, with 500 semi-skilled positions being filled.
The company has now embarked on a second tranche of recruitment, to fill technician-level shopfloor vacancies and engineering and management roles. That recruitment process, set against a backdrop of pan-industry skill shortages, is expected to be far more difficult, says McNamara, who has the responsibility of ensuring that enough talent comes through.
“The recruitment metric is central to the success of the business,” he says. “During the past 12 months, recruitment of two streams of people – the skilled maintenance and trades people; and the engineers, production leaders and supervisors – has been a bit of a worry. At certain times, we’ve not been bringing in these people at the rate at which we have needed to.
“So we have had to regroup and think about our approach to recruitment, working with advertising agencies, the armed forces, companies in distress, and through social media and LinkedIn.”
The company’s existing staff can help in the search, too, he says. “We have tried to incentivise our own staff, with a finders’ fee to refer their friends and relations.”
All that effort has paid off. “We have seen the metric go from red to green – with roughly 16 maintenance and nine engineering staff joining each month. Now the effort is to ensure that metric stays green.”
Attempts at recruiting engineers from the armed forces have proved particularly fruitful, says McNamara. “We want people who are coming to the end of their time in the armed forces to think about JLR as a potential employer. But there are differences in terminology between the two industries. So we have done quite a bit to bridge that gap in terms of the language that is used.
“I’m pleased that we’ve had some success, with 17 recruits from the armed forces recently joining on the engineering side to come in to run production and maintenance teams or to operate in our manufacturing/engineering functions. There are more in the pipeline.”
So why would talented engineers choose to seek out a role at JLR? It’s not always about pay, says McNamara; it’s often about long-term prospects and progression. The company has spent time and money developing its structured learning, ensuring that those who want to move forward with their careers are encouraged to do so.
Over the past five or six years, for instance, JLR has renewed its focus on professional accreditation. The company has formed particularly strong links with the IMechE, signing a memorandum of understanding that sees JLR engineers encouraged to become members, while the institution supports the company’s technical accreditation scheme. Several hundred JLR graduate engineers are now using eMPDS, the institution’s online reporting tool that allows graduates to plot their work towards chartered engineer status.
McNamara says there is now more recognition of the importance of chartered status with regard to career development. “We all have to maintain an employee profile – that is an important aspect across both engineering and business functions. What we do find, though, is that the breadth of knowledge that is demanded of a chartered engineer is useful when they come to make their way to more senior positions within the company. It gives them the confidence to ask the right questions and the knowledge to positively question things.”
To prove this point, he cites a programme initiated at JLR whereby those who agree to mentor younger employees on their route to professional accreditation get
their own yearly membership fees paid. He himself mentors five graduates working their way to chartered status.
“We have a complete support programme in place,” he says. “Where there is additional learning needed, then we can support that person with further learning through our ties with local universities. The company values professional accreditation – and it has put its money where its mouth is.”
Addition to the family: JLR is launching a mid-sized Jaguar saloon to join its F-Type (pictured)
Knowledge will be a vital component for the continuing success of the Solihull plant, as it moves from being the historic ‘home of the Land Rover’ to become a dual-brand plant producing the Jaguar XE, a mid-sized saloon to rival the BMW 3 Series. The XE, set for launch next year, will be the first of a new generation of Jaguars to use an advanced aluminium chassis system dubbed D7A. McNamara is understandably coy about the specifics of that project, being prepared to say only that it is a crucial platform that will underpin “plenty of new products”.
He does say the programme to deliver the XE is progressing according to plan. “We are on track to produce Jaguars here. It’s something we are excited about. The XE sees us move to a different market segment. A key consideration, as we bring aluminium to a broader group of customers, is to make it even more affordable.”
What that process means, over the coming months, is continuous operational improvement, through the development of lean thinking within the organisation. McNamara will be responsible for ensuring that all metrics for quality, delivery and costs are met on the D7A programme. He admits that such responsibility keeps him awake at night, but says he loves the challenge. “It’s a worry. But most of all, it’s exhilarating.”