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.

chi_cleaning · Answer

One thing that’s worked well for us is partnering with local community colleges and career centers. Students in trade and technical programs are often looking for hands-on experience and are eager to learn, which can create a strong entry-level talent pipeline.

I’d consider creating some form of apprenticeship or cohort-based program and marketing it directly to those schools. That gives you access to people who are interested in developing skills and building a career.

We recently launched a small cohort program and worked with a local career center to recruit participants. The participants were eager to learn and get hands-on experience. There was definitely a learning curve in building the program and creating a good experience, but once the structure was in place, it became much easier to recruit and onboard people.

You can also leverage some of your more experienced craftspeople to help lead the training. It gives newer workers someone to learn from while helping preserve the knowledge and skills that experienced workers have built over the years.

We’ve also found that people are more likely to stay when they can see opportunities to learn new skills and take on more responsibility over time.

stevestidyturf · Answer

Every time I've hired anyone, or trained new employees as a lead or GM. Its a series of questions and communication. Anyone can say they're good at something, I believe it when I see it.&nbsp;

bethererepair · Answer

Great thank you.

blandscapingmb · Answer

This post is really helpful as we are struggling to find employees. It seems as though no one wants to work. Currently we’ve been using temp agency employees and it is huge expense. A benefit is that they are covered by worker comp and such by the temp agency so we don’t have to worry. Our one actual employee is getting older and want to have a team going before he retires. I’d be interested in learning more on how you go about doing all that you mentioned!

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

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