How do you recruit, train, and retain skilled tradespeople?

Question

In furniture restoration and repair, one of our biggest challenges is finding and developing skilled craftspeople. Many experienced technicians are nearing retirement, while fewer younger workers are entering the trades. As business owners, we’re not only trying to grow our companies but also preserve valuable skills and knowledge for the next generation.

What strategies have worked for recruiting, training, and retaining skilled workers in your industry?

Have you implemented apprenticeship programs, internal training systems, partnerships with schools, or other successful approaches?

’d love to hear what’s working in your business and what lessons you’ve learned along the way.

hugehomepros · Answer

I think you have to have a different compensation system than straight hourly. i definitely don't have this all the way fleshed out btw but you need to have some sort of perfromance/ accountability bonuses built in to the pay for the team. This will be attractive to those skilled people because most of them are used to working for people that just pay them hourly. Keeping the compensation fresh also makes them want to stay.

When I'm recruiting skilled guys, I make them take a prehire test, and prove they can do what they do at the shop or on a job with no client present before I start giving them all the hours. You need to make sure they can do what they say they can do.

I haven't done a training program but I definitely am looking in to implementing! It's just something you need to have a large pipeline of jobs and some money to invest in it.

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How do you recruit, train, and retain skilled tradespeople?

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