A local company's creative outsourcing model is helping put laid-off technicians back to work.
Field Solutions recently announced the completion of its first round of outside fundraising, a $1.5 million investment led by StarTec Investments, whose president, Joy Lindsay, will join Field Solutions' board of directors.
Marty Reader, the company's executive vice president for sales and marketing, says the infusion will allow the company to stay on the aggressive growth track it's been on since it was founded in 2007.
Field Solutions connects large companies with independent field technicians wherever they're needed in North America. The company screens technicians for skills and performance, matches them to the jobs, and handles all the administrative tasks, like pay and taxes.
They're typically small jobs. The average assignment is for less than two hours. A work order, for example, might involve hiring numerous temp technicians to swap out cash registers at several thousand fast food restaurants. Reader says that Field Solutions can save companies 30 percent to 70 percent of what full-time employees would cost.
The company's business has tripled over the past three years, says Reader. It has more than 25 employees at its headquarters in St. Louis Park, but it works with 22,000 independent field technicians.
"This is the working unemployed," says Reader. Scores of skilled people have been laid off during the recession, and many of them, especially older workers, may never find permanent work again. Field Solutions gives them a chance to string together regular work, he says.
Some make over $80,000 a year, and quite a few make over $40,000 a year, according to Reader.
Source: Marty Reader, Field Solutions
Writer:
Dan Haugen