Our strategy is simple – to develop mutually beneficial and enduring partnerships with:

• Our clients – through our ability to deliver significant benefits to their business;
• Our workers – based on our ability to provide them with excellent work and our commitment to treat them in a personable, fair and supportive way.

By doing so, we aim to create a positive experience for everyone involved. This partnership approach has delivered over 25 years of business success to date. In all of our business dealings, we aim to adhere to the following principles:

• Transparency: in all aspects of our business;
• Communication: we work closely with our clients and our workers;
• Accessibility: 24/7/365 – no answer machines, just real people who care;
• Decisiveness: no long, multi-layered chain of management – we can make appropriate decisions, fast;
• Passion: about what we do and about doing a great job.

At Rapier, we are committed to creating a safe, fair and honest working environment by promoting best practice in people management as well as health & safety procedures and education.

Rapier offers a complete range of workforce solutions to meet all your needs. These include:

• Outsourced workforce
• Ad hoc labour
• Consultancy services

OUTSOURCED WORKFORCE

We have a proven track record in providing dedicated, full-time warehouse, production line and all-class driver workers to major third party logistics organisations and major supermarket retailers. We can source and place suitable workers to fulfil all roles:

• Drivers: Cat C , Cat C+E, PSV, 7.5 tonne, cars, fork-lifts, vans;
• Warehousing: Warehouse operatives, order pickers & packers, etc;
• Other: Production operatives, waste disposal, etc.

In some instances, we provide the entire workforce within a client’s facility. In others, our staff work alongside the client’s own employees. Either way, our workers provide full flexibility in terms of both hours and shifts worked to ensure business and seasonal trading peaks are achieved effectively and efficiently.

We often also assist in new operational or site start-ups, working alongside clients’ implementation teams to ensure all recruitment needs are achieved.

Our solutions are tailored to meet the specific needs of each individual client – we can take care of everything from on-site management and the provision of dedicated trainers to arranging transport and accommodation solutions for workers.

We are also able to assume responsibility for managing all the various agencies that might be tasked with providing a client’s labour resources. We will use a single price rate matrix, supplying our own workers or those employed by our network of business partners.

AD HOC LABOUR

We have a substantial register of long-standing drivers, who are assessed by some of the most demanding companies throughout the UK. And you don’t have to work with us on a contract basis to benefit from their experience and expertise.

As well as enabling you to take advantage of a totally flexible workforce, you will find that using a temporary driver from Rapier on an ad hoc basis offers many other benefits.

You can instantly access any number of fully experienced, checked and referenced, and regularly appraised professional drivers – available 24/7 at the end of a phone line.

You won’t have to worry about payroll or HMRC procedures or holiday accrual, and it is often more cost-effective to pay wages by the day, when you actually need a replacement or extra driver, rather than retaining full-time staff. Knowing the cost of such drivers in advance can also help you price a job when you are looking to take on or win new business.

CONSULTANCY SERVICES

In addition to outsourced workforce and ad hoc labour solutions, Rapier also offers a comprehensive range of consultancy services.

We are experienced in scoping new projects, site start-ups and compiling recruitment studies that include labour market comparisons, productivity reviews and the recommendation and application of any improvements. We have also worked with clients to deliver major business and network changes and the implementation of technological innovation.

There are many benefits of choosing to work with Rapier. Here are 10 good reasons, just for starters:

• We are passionate about what we do, responsive to your needs and always deliver on our promises.

• We have a reputation for excellence and a proven track record of meeting all the workforce needs of a wide range of leading industry clients.

• Our management team are all ’industry insiders’, with in-depth understanding of your specific challenges, a practical ’can do’ attitude and outstanding attention to detail.

• We are expert at sourcing, supplying and placing permanent and part-time workers in a full range of production and logistics positions – high quality individuals who are all well briefed, professional and motivated to add value to your business.

• We are able to manage your staffing levels for optimum efficiency, maximum cost-effectiveness and total flexibility to meet specific demand during busy or quieter times.

• You can look forward to reduced employment risk, greater efficiency, better value, improved compliance, higher productivity, ’more management time’ for your manager and the peace of mind that your workforce needs are being professionally managed by a specialist partner.

• Our in-house training team provides a wide range of skills training for both our own workers and client employees to ensure optimum return for your business.

• You can make significant cost savings on your contingent workforce costs and see typical warehouse fulfilment rates of 99% for Rapier workers – often higher than your own workforce.

• You can benefit from improved productivity – one large retailer’s produce picking operation recorded a productivity increase of 35% with Rapier workers; another large retailer that uses over 300 Rapier staff tracks our productivity at 6% better than our closest competitor.

• We regularly monitor and review the performance of our workers and provide detailed management reports on issues such as fuel utilisation, productivity and absence reporting on either standard or bespoke templates.

As a people business, we understand that our success is largely due to our ability to attract and retain the very best quality contract workers – people we trust to further enhance our reputation.

Our industry leading levels of retention reflect the close and supportive relationships we enjoy with all our staff and the excellent benefits and welfare packages we provide for them. In fact, many of our workers have been with us for over 10 years – and some over 20 years.

Because our management team is hands-on, we can ensure that all of our workers are well briefed, professional and motivated to complement any of your own staff and add value to your business.

When you first contact us, we will take the time to understand your specific requirements, your staffing levels, your trading peaks, business environment and health & safety requirements – in short, your complete workforce needs.

Before taking on any project, we will ensure that it is meticulously scoped, costed and that detailed implementation plans are in place. Then we will take a full brief and person specification for the role’s and search our extensive database of quality assured candidates to find appropriate matches.

We take responsibility for briefing workers about the specifics of each assignment, including health & safety issues and working practices, and for handling all of the relevant reference checks, employment and payroll admin.

We will also conduct an appraisal at the end of every assignment to ensure our compliance – and your complete satisfaction with the service provided.

Over the years, Rapier has developed an enviable reputation for excellence. The ongoing quality of the service we deliver is demonstrated by our many long-term partnership arrangements with some of the industry’s most prestigious companies.

Working to our clients’ specified or our own web-based KPIs, we undertake regular satisfaction surveys to ensure we continuously achieve our own high standards of customer satisfaction. We also regularly achieve scores of excellence in our clients’ own stringent performance and compliance audits.

Our team of regional managers works closely with both our clients and our workers to ensure quality standards are maintained at all times.

To ensure that we deliver quick and accurate information to everyone involved, we have made significant investments in IT infrastructure, including time and attendance systems, KPI reports, local knowledgebase, web-based payroll and online driver booking sheets.

We also operate comprehensive audit trails to validate full regulatory compliance and total quality control.