Warehouse Staff Agency in Lochgilphead

Whisky, aquaculture and renewables give the market around Lochgilphead a mix of bonded, chilled and heavy-lift work that is unusual for a rural area.

The freight geography around Lochgilphead runs on the A9, A82, A835 and A96, Inverness Airport, the Port of Cromarty Firth at Invergordon and the ferry routes to Orkney, Shetland, Skye and the Western Isles. Operators draw on Scrabster, Gills Bay and the northern terminals serving Orkney and the employers booking temporary staff here are typically seafood, aquaculture and agricultural hauliers.

The visitor season lifts grocery, drinks and hospitality deliveries steeply from Easter to September and the operators serving it cannot hold that headcount through the winter.

Ferry-timed shifts booked around a sailing, including very early departures to make the first crossing.

Warehouse cover runs around the clock on large sites — mornings, afternoons, twilight and nights, with 4-on-4-off and weekend blocks. Peak brings additional twilight and weekend shifts.

Chilled and frozen are a different job under the same job title. There is issued PPE, a different break structure, limits on time spent in the chamber and a physical reality that nobody enjoys on their first afternoon. Somebody who was told they were picking ambient and finds themselves in a freezer does not come back after lunch.

Hours are logged against the booking rather than against somebody's memory of the week. Where a shift is cut short because the volume did not arrive, or extended because it did, the change is recorded at the time and approved by whoever runs the floor, which is what stops a timesheet disagreement turning into an invoice disagreement.

Workers on assignment for 12 weeks in the same role qualify for equal treatment on pay and basic conditions under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010. We track that week count from the first shift and tell you before it lands, rather than after.