Finding and Keeping Skilled Workers in the Trades
Finding good help is tough, especially in the trades. What’s your approach to hiring people who not only have the skills, but also fit well with your team? And once you’ve got the right people, how do you keep them motivated and loyal to your business?
Let’s talk about hiring techniques and retention.
It will vary depending on the industry, but most recently we have hired people with no previous lawn care experience. The bulk of the work is pretty basic, and we have specific work methods and have found its easier to train someone who's green, than to retrain/correct someone who has bad experience. That's the only trap when looking for someone experienced, it's not always good...
Now we are on the search for someone who does have experience, it takes a lot longer and I feel like it's going to take more initiative on our part, more than just putting a job ad out there and waiting.
But the right attitude and a good fit within the existing team is the most important thing.
If you want to grow a great team you really need to have a clear vision, mission and values. As this is what differentiates you from other businesses. If you don't have that, you'll be in a position where pay rate is the only differentiating factor and that's when you'll struggle to attract and retain great staff as they will only be loyal to the pay cheque. If you do it right, you can attract and retain great employees for less than another business would be willing to pay them. This is why culture is so important.
These are great points, Conrad. I completely agree that hiring for attitude and fit is keyyy, especially when it comes to building a strong culture. Do you have any hiring questions/process in mind to identify candidates who are a good cultural fit within your business?
I've found that people who have a hobby or other interest outside of work tend to be a good fit for us because it shows they can stick at something.
Some of the questions we ask:
It's also important to speak with references that candidates list. You know that these people are prone to saying good things, so it's more effective to avoid straight "yes/no" type questions. Instead ask things like "on a scale of 1-10 how likely would you be to hire this person again?" Anything below an 8 is generally a no go. It gives them an easy way to be more honest without saying bad things or being negative.
I would love to learn more about this! We really need to hire but haven’t yet, I don’t think we are clear enough.
Job Adverts - Inspire to Hire
We changed our job advert about two years ago and we're getting better quality techs and far more of them. We've even had to turn a few away, which is an odd problem to have after struggling to attract just one in years before. Here's two of the main changes that we've made that have made a difference:
Sell Them on Your Company and Give Realistic Expectations
I used the wording and language that Simon Sinek uses in his book "Start With Why". Although it's a book about finding the core drive behind your business and why you turn up everyday, it gives some great examples on how to effectively communicate to others and pull them along with you. We also found a contact through a business networking group that offers a whole bunch on benefits for employees at relatively low cost to ourselves (our employees would never be able to get these services for anywhere near the price that we're getting them for). One of the things that Simon tells you to do is to give your prospective employee realistic expectations of what they going to get themselves into, there's no point in selling someone a dream that falls flat the moment they come for the interview or join you.
If you want a good example of these kinds of job adverts, look for the more innovative type of companies, like a Mindvalley for example. They may not be in home services, but when you look at how they sell their company and their jobs, it's very compelling (Check out a few adverts from each company; companies like Mindvalley seem to let each department pull together the job advert rather than doing it through a centralized HR department).
A lot of what Simon and Mindvalley (I'm sure they're following Simon's playbook) are doing these days is to give the prospective employee a reason, or even a calling, to join your team so that they can feel proud of and feel like they're contributing to something bigger than themselves. No matter what service you offer, you are making a significant difference in the lives of the people you serve and it's not to mushy to say that. If you believe strongly against working over time or on weekends and you believe that spending quality time with family is of primary importance to you, then make that clear to them - you will find someone that resonates with that and it could make them choose you over a higher paying competitor.
Basic job adverts from years gone by are proving ineffective these days, unless you're offering a whopping, industry leading salary or your company has such a big brand, you almost want to scare some applicants away if they're not already committed to finding your jobs and applying.
Offer Security Incentives - Family's Are Very Important
Life and injury insurance have been a big one that people have mentioned when they come for an interview. We also have health insurance that provides doctor appointments online for children for free, with free prescriptions. These benefits seem to attract a family man or woman who are looking for security for their families rather than a quick payday. Younger people wanting to have a family one day seem to be attracted by these benefits too. The fear of getting injured or dying and having no way to support your family is a big motivating factor for a lot of people that have applied to us in recent years.
Google Reviews Are King
Other than the two changes that we made (above) that have worked very well for us, something that is mentioned again and again by people who have joined us within the last two years, in particular, are our good Google Reviews.
People seem to try gauge how good a prospective employer will be based on their Google Reviews. If you can rack up a whole bunch of 5-star reviews it says that you're a successful customer with a lot of customers. It also gives them a feel for what you offer your customers and the manner in which you treat your customers (never fight or argue with a customer on the reply to a review - even if they're completely out of line). I just pretend that I'm in a big corporate and I'm give a very airy, "Thank you for taking the time to leave us feedback. I'm sorry to year about your poor experience with us. We pride ourselves on offering a high level of service and we want to make sure that you're taken care of. Please contact our Store/Company/Shop so that we can resolve your issue." It doesn't matter if you've already had a blow out with this customer in-person or over the phone, no one reading will be any the wiser. Everything public is all about marketing yourself to prospective customers and employees and tells them what type of experience they could expect to receive from you should something go wrong. My trainer once said it best, "If I don't see a 1-stat review on Google, then I don't believe it's a real company. Everyone knows that there are some unreasonable people out there, so if it's a real company, I expect to see at least some bad reviews."
I hope at least some of these help. They've made a big difference for us.
Retention Through Increased Earning Incentives
Regarding retention, we have historically relied on our culture and benefits to keep people who could earn more with corporate service providers but as we're growing our team, we're finding more and more that when we get high ability youngsters (up to 35) that they're hunger for earning more outstrips what we can make through them.
In the past we have had times where we increased salaries to attract more talent to allow us to scale, but where we are now, we want to find a way to provide techs of all experience levels the opportunity to earn more but we want them to give us more in return, essentially. I get the feeling that they appreciate the pay to start with, work hard to get to the next band and then dramatically drop in performance - leading us to go through the process of weekly or monthly performance management which is a pain for all involved and then I feel like I'm paying more for nothing. Ideally I would like to reduce return trips, to try sell customers on other services and products, and encourage them to make an effort to increase reviews so we perform better on Google results.
Does anyone here have experience with these kinds of payment incentives and how you implement and track them? Even if you have a good book or course that you could recommend, I'd really appreciate it.
