About Us

Worker Direct Online is the brainchild of construction industry veteran, Karl Fairbrother. Karl, a native of Warrington Cheshire, began his career in 1992 as a labour consultant. Though he studied business and law at Priestley College and Pisa University in Italy, it became apparent early on that Karl was excellent at connecting people. He broke company sales records and was the top producer. He continued his success with pairing contractors with the right temporary workers for one other company before starting his own business.

“l stared working for myself at the age of 20, speaking to contractors and placing advertisements with local job centers as well as filling placements. l saw the National wage start at 3.50 and raise over the years to 8.90. It started with faxing placements to job centers progressed to emailing until it was combined into a monster software system called Job Centre Plus. From financial boons to industry depressions, I’ve seen it all!,” Karl explains.

“The idea for WDO happened about one and a half years ago when l was visiting clients in London; l had a overwhelming feeling that the industry l was working with had became old and out dated. It was now too slow and completely unreliable, not only for the worker but for the contractor who needs reliable labour! Workers needs were not being met because the contractor was not able to chose his own temps! One of three things kept happening: 1. the worker turned up on site but walked right back off site because he didn’t like the job or wasn’t skilled enough to do the job! 2. the worker would leave after a few days because he had a better job offer of a few pounds more! And he didnt care what the contractor thought so he would just walk off… 3. and lastly the worker didn’t ever turn up to work! With no notice at all,” said Karl.

WDO began as an idea as simple as the name implies. If the contractor had a way to see the labour pool, to see a photo, read a biography and understand a skill set, they’d be able to choose workers best suited to the jobs they had. The ability to score the workers on their performance and work ethic was paramount, so the Work Reliability Score was devised so that the creme would rise to the top. The best workers would have the best scores. Those with the best scores would command a high wage. Karl and his team began to realize that WDO could not only lessen the headaches of contractors but it could also better the lives of workers and create accountability in an industry that is often without.