During times when the economy is robust and there’s plenty of good construction work available, what holds your company back from reaching its full profit or growth potential? As your company grows, business owners and managers tend to do too much themselves. The only option is to hire people to accomplish the increasing workload and expand to additional opportunities.
Can’t Find Any Good Trained Help?
There are plenty of good people with the right talent in your marketplace willing to work. To get people to want a lifestyle your company provides takes a high pay package above competitive wage and benefits. Remember, you are competing with every other similar type of business in your area.
Make Talent Your Top Priority!
Company leaders must find, attract, retain, develop, train, motivate, inspire and keep talent wanting to work for your company. Do you spend enough time recruiting, finding and hiring? Does your company have:
- Someone responsible for finding and hiring enough talent to manage and perform all the work you can win?
- An ongoing proactive recruitment program?
- Hiring incentives to attract the best talent?
- A budget to retain and train top talent?
- The top pay and benefit packages?
- A program to build a great place to work?
- Opportunities for career growth and a secure future?
- A written training and advancement ladder?
- A program for non-English speaking employees?
- A program to become the employer of choice?
Are You Afraid to Hire?
The number one reason companies don’t grow is fear of hiring. Managers are often afraid of making a bad hiring decision and therefore don’t take a chance on hiring new people. But without people, companies can’t grow or make more money.
How To Find, Attract and Hire Top Talent!
1. Determine what players you need to hire or replace.
Draft out your workflow chart and make sure someone is assigned to every position required to complete all of your projects without anything falling through the cracks. Many tasks can be handed by one person. Often hiring assistants will allow people to leverage their time, add more value and handle more important work versus administrative tasks.
2. Put someone in charge of your hiring program.
Assign a hiring coordinator responsible to manage the hiring program including place ads, set and screen interviews, be available for applicants, keep recruitment files, know compensation packages of local competitors, sort and rate resumes, schedule interview appointments with supervisors, attend local hiring fairs, stay in touch with local training schools and seek qualified recruiters.
3. Pay top dollar.
Offer above market benefits to attract the best talent. It’s the classic chicken or the egg dilemma: Hire and pay top dollar so you can grow your company and make more money. Or wait until you get enough backlog to pay someone what it takes to work for you when you think you can afford it.
4. Attract top players.
Seek players with experience, talent, intelligence, potential to perform or learn, willingness to work hard, have a positive attitude. Remember: people won’t change. Look for who they are, not what you hope they can become.
5. Promote and reward recruiting.
- Prioritize recruiting.
- Pay referrals such as a hiring bonus to new employees and a referral bonus to employees of $500 to $1,000 for referrals.
- Offer employee referral incentives to subcontractors or suppliers.
- Give everyone recruiting business cards.
6. Make it easy for recruits.
- Allow field foreman to hire on the spot. Give them a few questions to screen new hires including: name, address, social security number and driver’s license. Put them to work now and check them out later. You can always terminate them later after the office screens them.
- Use a simple short application form. Don’t make applicants fill-out a lengthy application located on some website that’s hard to find.
- Have an employee applicant voice mail extension with a recorded message.
- Hold a first short interview and screening process on the phone.
- Post a regular time for applicants to apply.
- Always take a photo of applicants to remember them.
- Always have a hiring phone number and email.
7. Develop and manage a talent outreach program.
- Give seminars or workshops at your shop on weekends for potential applicants.
- Get involved at high schools and trade schools.
- Offer summer intern jobs, part-time jobs and craft training.
8. Place compelling ads in all the right places.
- Online.
- Job signs, banners and truck signs in English and multi-languages.
- Put a hiring page on your website with exciting videos.
- Place ads in multi-language newspapers and websites.
- Have hiring brochures available and post on job trailers, in trucks and at job sites.
- Promote your signing bonus.
9. If all else fails, pay professional recruiters.
Offer the standard 20% of first year pay, do not give them an exclusive, and get a guarantee that recruited people last more than six months or they will replace them at no additional cost.
George Hedley, CSP, CPBC, helps contractors grow and profit as a professional business coach, popular speaker and peer group leader. He is the author of “Get Your Construction Business to Always Make a Profit!” and “Hardhat BIZSCHOOL Online University,” available on his website. Visit www.hardhatbizschool.com for more information.
