Keeping the UK's Covid testing sites staffed, seven days a week

The situation

Round the clock shifts, no fixed end date.

When Covid hit, the UK needed testing sites up and running fast, and kept running without gaps. That meant filling shifts seven days a week, twelve hours at a time, with no end date in sight. A national security and outsourcing provider, contracted to run the sites, needed a way to find, vet and deploy a temporary workforce at a scale and speed the moment demanded.

What we proposed

3,000 workers, fully compliant from day one.

Source and place more than 3,000 workers across the UK for an 18 month programme, compliant from the first shift. Every placement tracked and reported back to the client daily, so staffing levels never became a guessing game during a national emergency.

What we did

Internal recruitment teams were mobilised into hubs, each covering a mirrored region of the UK. Working in parallel, the hubs continuously sourced, vetted and repositioned temporary labour onto regional, local and mobile testing units, keeping pace with demand as it moved from place to place.

What changed

Communication with the client stayed continuous from start to finish, and both the government and armed forces end clients came away satisfied with the result.