A tower section shop employs four welders trusted with the root run on thick flange plate, the kind that must survive ultrasonic scrutiny. A new tower plant opens an hour away. Within a quarter, two of the four have gone. Their exit notes say the money was better. The owner matches nothing, because by the time he hears, the joining date is fixed. Delivery slips while the remaining two work doubles.
Units across solar and renewable equipment know the pattern. Good welders, lay-up leads, soldering hands, pack technicians and commissioning engineers are wanted by every plant that has just broken ground. Recruiters hunt through trade contacts, ex-colleague groups and the tea stall outside your gate.
Which roles get poached first
- Welders who read a fabrication drawing, grind a bevel and hold a bead on thick plate.
- Lay-up and resin infusion leads who can run a blade mould crew.
- Stringer and laminator technicians who can tune recipes and clear stoppages.
- Hand soldering and rework technicians who can lift a QFN chip off an inverter control board without scorching pads.
- Spot welding and BMS fitting technicians in pack units.
- Commissioning engineers who can connect, configure and hand over a storage system at site.
- Firmware engineers who know why a MOSFET gate driver or a PWM frequency was picked.
What a poached hand costs
The direct costs are recruitment time and a slower replacement. The bigger cost is everything around the gap. Output falls on the stations that person ran. Their juniors lose a teacher. The remaining specialists cover overtime and start taking calls themselves. A customer delivery slot is missed. In a project-led business, one missed slot can hold up payment on a whole order.
Why people move
Money is usually part of it. In a fast-growing sector, a pay band set two years ago is almost certainly behind. But the offer that wins often carries more than a number. It might be a lead title, a day shift, fewer site weeks, or a clear next step. The unit losing the person often has none of these written down. Nobody knows what the next level is, what it pays or how to reach it. Promotion therefore means a resignation.
Poaching also follows a calendar. A rival's commissioning date, a turbine maker's new order or a gigawatt-scale cell line breaking ground nearby all trigger hiring sprees. Watch the local press and supplier chatter. When a neighbour's foundation stone goes down, your welders' phones will start buzzing within weeks, so review their bands before the cranes arrive.
Three questions before redesigning pay
- List your scarce roles and the people in them. For each, note their pay, last raise and time since the last step up.
- Gather local rates for those roles from recent joiners, recruiters and interviewees.
- Sit privately with each scarce-skill person and ask what would tempt them away.
Building the ladder and the bands
- 1
Define three or four steps per scarce role
For a welder: helper, welder, senior welder, lead. For a commissioning engineer: trainee, engineer, lead engineer. Fewer steps are easier to explain.
- 2
Write a test for each step
Practical and observable: a weld coupon passed, a blade crew run unaided, a storage system commissioned with a senior watching, a recruit trained to sign-off.
- 3
Price every rung
Set the band from a market check, with room to grow inside it. Publish the band to the people in the role.
- 4
Check the market twice a year
Scarce roles move faster than others. Gather what nearby plants pay and adjust bands before people start leaving, not after.
- 5
Agree a counter-offer rule
Decide in advance whether you will counter and how. Countering everyone teaches people to resign to get a raise. Countering nobody loses people you could have kept.
- 6
Grow your own
Put a trainee or apprentice behind each scarce person, with a route up the ladder. Over time the pool you draw from is partly your own.
Ladders and bands of this sort are the bread and butter of our reward design. Pricing scarce roles against nearby plants is benchmarking work. See it applied to blade and tower shops on the wind component page. Purlin and rail fabricators have a mounting structure version.
Role: for example, commissioning engineer.
Step 1, trainee: what they do, pay band, test to move up.
Step 2, engineer: what they do, pay band, test to move up.
Step 3, lead: what they do, pay band, what they teach.
Market check last done: date, by whom.
Current people at each step and dates of last move.Beyond the pay band
Some levers cost little. Rotate nights and site weeks fairly, so the scarce person is not always the one on duty. Put a title on the visiting card that reflects the real job. Let senior hands choose some of their learning, such as a new cell chemistry or a different weld position. Talk to them twice a year before they talk to a recruiter. And when you hire to fill a gap, our guide to talent acquisition in this group covers where to look and how to test fit.
