RES Offshore

Renewable energy developer Renewable Energy Systems Ltd (RES) started over 30 years ago and nowadays the company has around 1,000 employees working world wide from 100 offices, in 10 different countries. The company’s portfolio includes 127 projects, both on and offshore, worth 7.5GW. Most of these projects are done in joint ventures but 700MW is fully owned by RES.

Through its subsidiary RES Offshore, the company has been providing end-to-end services to the offshore wind industry since the beginning. During those years the company has built up a strong working relationship with Céntrica. They worked together on the UK Round 1 Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farm and they are now working on the Round 2 Race Bank and Lines projects.

Initially starting of with a handful of employees, the offshore wind team has steadily grown over the years, in the last 18 months even by 33%, to the position today where they have 100 employees of which the vast majority are based in the UK. For the Lines project the company has set up an O&M base at the port of Grimsby where they currently have 5 people working. There are plans though to expand the O&M services. It also has a small team based in France and a team in the US that are looking at the possibilities in the future development of offshore wind there.

Offshore WIND spoke to RES’ HR Director, Gary Robinson and Recruitment Specialist, Natalie Hailey. The jobs at RES Offshore are mainly management and specialist roles such as environmental, engineering and cable specialists that require people with higher educational backgrounds. On the recruitment policy Ms Hailey explains: “We prefer to find new colleagues directly, through our own website and employees, or via word-of-mouth within our network. We also use social media and, only as a final resource, recruitment agencies.” RES’ work ethic is to build up capability within the company. As RES Offshore mainly offers permanent roles there is only need for recruitment agencies when it gets really difficult to fill certain vacancies, such as offshore engineers or senior roles. “For these roles we look for experienced people. There are not many out in the market and the competition is high,” she adds.

The core of experts initially required is now almost complete and the industry will soon have to look to other related industries to find their personnel. Beside the obvious choice of offshore industries in oil & gas, new personnel could also be attracted from onshore industries such as, for example, the automotive and services industries. Other European countries such as Northern Ireland and France could be good sources for these. Wherever possible RES Offshore tries to employ local personnel.

Mr Robinson: “We are a young, dynamic, and independent company with a strong reputation. The company has incorporated a lot of resources that other companies have to buy in, we can therefore offer future employees cross functional development possibilities. Most importantly though, we have strong ethics. RES is value driven and is fully and solely committed to the renewables industry. This attracts a lot of people who strongly believe in becoming less dependent on fossil fuels!”

Women seem to have a surprisingly high concentration at RES counting for 30% of the total employees in the company. “We see a growing number of women entering our market. There has been a trend where the UK industry has made an effort through the Government-backed STEM initiative to encourage young people, and especially females, to follow technical and engineering studies.”

The company is also trying to reach these students at an early stage. He continues; “For our jobs we need mainly academically trained people so we are in touch with the key universities and offer a graduate programme for 6 to 12 students a year.” These students will get the chance during a 2 year programme to get introduced to the different disciplines within RES. They will work in each department to find out where their strength and interests lie. Ms Hailey adds: “Our graduate programme actually is a strong proof that we are an attractive company to work for. We receive several hundreds of applications even though there are only a few positions to grant. We are careful to make sure that we pick the best qualified so they might end up working for RES in the future.” RES is also working on an internship programme.

As to the future outlook both think that there will be enough jobs to fill in the near future. The industry is still relatively new and it is still looking at best practise, such as the best foundation design, best project design from an environmental point of view and also best O&M practise. However, it is difficult to predict how the industry will develop though in the long run. Mr Robinson: “The market has not developed at the pace that was expected. We are looking 2 to 3 years ahead at the moment. More certainty and consistency is needed with regards to policy on offshore wind. We hope and anticipate that the current slow down is only temporary.” However, RES is a global company and will also look for other opportunities world wide, such as in the US and the Far East.

Sabine Lankhorst