Home Of Crafters

Home of Crafters is a Dutch group whose stated purpose is to bring vakmanschap, skilled craft, into the Netherlands and to keep it there. Its argument is straightforward: the country cannot manage without vakmensen, whether the work is building houses, building ships or delivering the energietransitie, and as specialists in tijdelijk, technisch personeel the group keeps the Netherlands running. Home of Crafters describes itself as the number one in vakmensen and says it sets the tone in the field of European skilled trades for bouw en techniek, matching skills, motivation and experience to what the labour market needs, for large and small clients and for many thousands of tradespeople. It says it has grown into one of the largest players in international temporary staffing and wants to grow further, either through natural growth or through partnership.

The group operates through its own companies. Oranjegroep has spent around 25 years connecting vakmensen to complex projects and calls itself the zaakwaarnemer, the representative, of tradespeople in construction and technology. DB Work, which the group says thinks in people rather than borders, has been finding the best European vakkrachten for the Dutch market since 2014, and a third company is listed as coming soon. Between them they source motivated painters from Poland, Romanian welders with maritime experience and electricians from southern Europe. The work covers both detachering and uitzendwerk, and it runs from experienced tradespeople through to technicians at the start of their careers.

Home of Crafters is based at Sportlaan 255 in Sliedrecht and arranges everything around a placement, from housing to schooling and from transport to advice, so that the tradesperson and the client are both relieved of the administration. Housing is handled with partner companies: United Homes, which the group describes as flexible and innovative in responding to changing market needs and regulation such as the SNF and Roemer norms, and Rentaroof, which connects tenants with landlords to provide temporary solutions for international workers. The group's own framing is that personnel are the bottleneck in the Dutch construction task, and that without technical craftsmanship there is no energy transition.