Outsourced staff keep industry working – Print21 magazine feature

Outsourced print and finishing workers keep the industry wheels turning, particularly when the training of staff for specialist or seasonal production is often uneconomical. Tom Stockdale’s PrintStaff is celebrating its 10th anniversary of providing the printing industry with much-needed back-up.

Tom Stockdale, managing director of Stockdale PrintStaff, has seen the shifting trends of the industry over the past decade. Adapting his business offering to outsource skilled labour throughout Sydney and Melbourne, he has met the needs of the industry as it changes.

“When we first started, our business provided offset printers and printers assistants. That was the core of our business ten years ago. It was the biggest need within the industry at the time,” he says. “Starting with a team of trade qualified printers and printers assistants, we supplied staff to run night shifts and weekends at printing companies through­out Melbourne. As our business grew and our clients were happy, we started providing bindery and prepress staff.”

Emerging after 12 months with a corporate re-branding, the industry outsource company has repositioned itself with a greater understanding of identity.

“The best thing we got out of the whole marketing exercise wasn’t actually the marketing itself. It was a better understanding of who we are and what we do. Of what that makes us unique,” explains Stockdale.

PrintStaff’s successful expansion into Sydney five years ago means it is now comparable in size to the Melbourne branch, although work volume shifts between the two at various points of the year. The company has broadened its core offering to accommodate each state’s needs, providing a wider range of services to clients and employees.

Pictured: Sydney PrintStaff team (l-r) Daniel Collins, Sean Cathie, Sharon Walker, Miguel Mercado, and Don Wardrop.

“Every company is different, and there are always ups and downs in production,” he explains. “The clients know what times of the year their work volumes start to drop off. We deal with some packaging companies that are busy when commercial printers are quiet. Their busy time of the year is opposite as the product offering targets different markets.

“We have seen a lot of variance with our clients’ needs and it depends on the contracts that they have. For a year or two a client will have a certain type of work that requires more bindery staff as there is a lot of finishing involved. If they lose that contract, the next year they won’t require that staff.”

Printing businesses need the right amount of full time and casual staff to remain at optimum capacity, says Stockdale. This ensures their production levels match their staffing needs.

“We have seen a steady shift from permanent staff towards casual over the past ten years, more so every year as companies look towards lean manufacturing and staffing.

“With the ebbs and flows of production, it doesn’t make sense to have a static workforce. We advise printers to estimate their quietest time of the year and plan to have the right amount of full time staff on then,” he says.

Demand for digital staff

According to Stockdale, binderies seem to be hardest to find quality staff, while it is becoming apparent that prepress operators make the best digital printers.

“If an employee is lucky enough to have an employer who will pay for a Fuji Xerox two-week course then you can get a qualified iGen operator in two weeks. Those from a prepress background who understand compositions, layout and colour can earn a good income as a digital printer.”

PrintStaff is becoming inundated with requests from digital print companies looking for experienced digital print staff as the sector continues to grow.

Pictured: Melbourne PrintStaff team (l-r) Michael Hall, James Stockdale, Steve Varadi, Marian Stockdale, Karina Geraghty and Garry Apps.

Catering to the Sydney and Melbourne markets are four Stockdale consultants in each state, each with a background in a particular field. The prepress and digital printing consultant is a prepress tradesman, the printing consultant is a printer by trade, and the bindery and finishing consultant is a bindery trades­man. These ex-supervisors and managers from within the industry understand what it is like to be in the clients’ shoes and are on call 24/7. If a client in digital printing needs an operator at 5am Monday morning or 5pm on Saturday night, they call the same person on their mobile every time.

“We have structured it that way because that’s the need of the industry, which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Stockdale. “It’s a unique service we provide as a recruitment business, offering the consistency and continuity that clients need. If you need an extra hand in whatever field, you need to know that the recruitment agency you speak to has been to your factory and knows what your culture is like so that the staff sent in are going to fit. We provide consistent service with everybody being on call.”

Looking at how far the company has come in ten years, Stockdale considers himself lucky to have such a committed team of full time staff.

“We have had people working for us for ten years, since the start. Sometimes they come and go, they might do different things and come back, but we have also had a very strong core of casuals that work predominantly for Stockdale PrintStaff.

“We’ve all got the same sort of values, all passionate about helping our clients and committed to looking after our casual employees. In turn that has enabled us to fulfil a loyal client base that has been dealing with us for a long time,” he concludes.