In 1932, grandfather René Beel started a blacksmith shop and hardware store. Almost a century later, Firma Beel has grown under the management of René’s grandson Karel Beel into a thriving company specializing in agricultural, harvesting, earthmoving and horticultural machinery. Prevention Consultant Karolien De Smet and HR Officer Tine Verholleman explain how, for several years now, Firma Beel and IMPACT have been successfully meeting the great challenge of finding immediately employable experts.

A family business from grandfather to grandson: Firma Beel has been around forever. With six branches and a good portion of growth plans, business is running smoothly for the company. But in order to continue to guarantee the highest quality of agricultural, harvesting, earthmoving and horticultural machinery, immediately deployable professionals are needed: from welders to technicians. A tough job, because those experts are certainly not in abundance.

After all, anyone who wants to work at Firma Beel must have specific knowledge. Karolien and Tine have experienced the difficulty of finding suitable profiles for years. “One of the most difficult vacancies for us to fill is that of a welder. Just because you can weld doesn’t mean you are a suitable welder for our specific field: you have to be able to make constructions and make adjustments at the customer’s request. So there are no plans available, so creativity is important.”

The most sought-after profiles, however, remain agricultural technicians. “The same goes for this: not every good technician knows anything about tractors or cranes. Everyone has their own competencies and specialty. Technicians at Firma Beel must have a thorough, concrete knowledge and be able to work both electronically and mechanically on agricultural vehicles. That makes you really have to look for those profiles, because the offer on the market is certainly not broad in this expertise.”

And so Firma Beel is making every effort to attract the specialists of tomorrow. “We work strongly with some colleges and send out our vacancies as soon as the students graduate. But of course, you’re not the only company looking to pluck those future professionals from school. And just because of the scarcity in the candidate market, they are overwhelmed with jobs at lightning speed. In addition, you also need a certain amount of seniority and experience on the job.”

So there is a second factor: the speed with which the new workers can be deployed. “What is unfortunately a difficulty for us with the student story is the short time frame in which our specialists have to be able to join. We try to guide everyone as best we can, but it takes us five years to fully train someone before we can let them go completely. Of course someone learns systematically, giving you more and more freedom, but specialists in, for example, harvesters such as shredders, unfortunately you don’t train them just like that in a second.”

To help with that search for experienced profiles, Firma Beel knocked on IMPACT’s door. The two companies have been successfully working together since 2018. “The local candidate market was becoming too small to find the right people, so we decided to look beyond our own borders with IMPACT. That turned out to be an excellent choice: today we permanently employ three foreign employees who first worked for us as temporary workers through IMPACT. They are committed employees and are now following an integration program to learn Dutch. The cooperation continues, of course: as soon as we need specialists, IMPACT helps us look for temporary workers.”

The decision to go for foreign workers posed absolutely no problem for Firma Beel. “Your nationality does not determine the qualities you possess as a person. Besides technical expertise, we expect a good knowledge of French and/or English and the will to adapt to a new environment: nothing more. On the other hand, we are a very flexible and family-oriented employer: we understand all too well that they regularly want to return – either on vacation or due to an emergency – to their native country. We adjust the work schedule according to their needs.”

As a prevention advisor and confidential advisor, Karolien knows better than anyone how important it is for employees to feel happy both on and off the job. “We at Firma Beel do everything we can to take care of our colleagues: they know they can come to us with any problem. IMPACT provides a tremendously good complement to that, because they take away a lot of concerns in other areas as well, both for its clients and for the temporary workers. We can also quickly turn to IMPACT when a language problem arises or confusion needs to be clarified.”

As a prevention advisor, Karolien particularly appreciates the fact that IMPACT supervises temporary workers arriving in Belgium from A to Z. She says. “As a company, especially as a temp agency, you need to have a very clear human aspect. That human aspect is ingrained in IMPACT’s corporate culture. It provides housing for each candidate, but also completely takes over from us a lot of questions that those candidates ask us: that can range from certificates of absence, to buying a car, to applying for a new license plate or filling out a tax bill. We just have to ask the question or forward the letter and IMPACT does the rest.”

The corporate cultures of both Firm Beel and IMPACT are almost twins of each other. No wonder the collaboration runs smoothly. “IMPACT is not only a company, but also a family to whom you can turn and who can offer you the customized solution you need. So far, we have a very smooth cooperation that relies on transparent communication. Is there ever less good news, then we are honest about that from both sides: nobody avoids this communication and that creates clarity and trust.”

This is also necessary because the speed with which both companies must act is high. “We are always looking for specialists who can be deployed immediately. That is also our clear request to IMPACT; we are not going to gloss over that. So far, they have always succeeded with verve. In the meantime, they also know very well exactly what profiles we are looking for. We still have big plans for the future at Firma Beel, so together with IMPACT we will have a great journey ahead of us.”