Should I hire employees or use 1099 subcontractors for better quality?
We have 6 subs full time and it's burned us a few times. We go behind them on ~25% of jobs. We just got CompanyCam and that'll help operationally. But, I am considering going the employee route and paying hourly. What do you feel works best -- to maximize profitability, ensure quality, and reduce headaches?Ask-an-Expert: Want advice on Job Posts, Interviews, Training, or Retention...send them!
Your job posting is often the first impression a Job Seeker gets of your business, and most owners don't realize they're turning people away. Hey, I'm Rich Camacho, CEO and co-founder of BlueRecruit. BlueRecruit is a Jobber Partner and works with trade businesses across the US and Canada every day to help them find and hire exceptional talent. Next week, I'm bringing that expertise straight to the Home Service Community. From May 20-26, drop a link to your job posting or any questions concerning talent acquisition in the comments, and I'll give you personalized feedback on: The effectiveness or ineffectiveness of your job post(s) How and where to find talent What today's trade workers are looking for Don't have a job posting right now? Ask me anything about your hiring process, interview questions, or recruitment strategy! 👇Who is a better employee, old school or new school?
I have 2 people who are interested in a position I posted for a apprentice/helper. I took each of them on a one day ride along to see what they thought about the position. One is an old school guy, hard working, knowledgeable, rough around the edges, "get it done" mentality, just your typical guy who grew up in a different time. The other is a 24 year old, energetic, absorbing of information, helpful with technology, very much one of those cell phone kids. I would say that those are are the pros of these two but they also have cons. The older guy is set in his ways, smoker, hard headed, know it all. The younger guy showed up 10 mins late, on his phone all day, had to stop for lunch, complained about getting dirty. I did like them both and saw advantages to both, but also disadvantages. I wonder if anyone else has experience with these types of guys? Am I missing something that I should reconsider? Maybe neither one is the right fit? Maybe for context also, I am 40. I maybe have a foot in each each of their worlds which is why the decision isn't as easy as I thought.Do You Train Your Team to Think or Just Work?
Every Monday, we hold a short training session with our team. We train on communication. leadership. & mindset. The reason being most tradespeople aren’t struggling because they can’t do the work. They’re struggling because they were never taught how to: Speak with clarity Handle conflict Lead a crew Represent the business professionally These tend to be the issues I see bottling up, either from our exit interviews or customer feed back or when things are misunderstood. Thats why I'm curious: Do you train soft skills with your crew?Upsides and downsides of hiring a summer helper?
I am thinking about hiring someone to help me in the busy season and the idea of a high school kid as a summer job sounds like a promising idea. I wouldn't have to pay them a crazy salary, they are like sponges with information and they are typically more physically full of energy. I wouldn't be able to send them on their own, but they could help me get a few more jobs done in a day. I am wondering if anyone has tried this and what would be the pros and cons of doing it?Promoting from within - is someone who is primarily money driven, a good candidate for management?
So here's the situation - I've hired two different operations managers and had to let them go for various reasons. The reason I was seeking outside the company was for a fresh outlook and a new way of doing things. Although I think there were things I could have done in the hiring process to sniff these bad candidates out, I'm now feeling like I should be promoting from within with someone already familiar with our systems and company culture. The obvious choice would seem to be the guy who's been here the longest. He's the site super on all our bigger jobs and everyone recognizes him as the most senior person, the person they call if they have a technical related question. I offered him the position (which is a healthy base salary plus incentive bonuses for gross profit, customer satisfaction, and clearly outlined administrative task goals) and he's very hung up on the money. Objectively, it's more money overall than he earned last year plus the bonuses but the weekly base is lower than if he worked in the field that week. He earned roughly $82k in the field (working roughly 80% of the available hours we COULD have worked him, because of slow weeks), this is a base of $88k with incentive bonuses that should definitely take this north of a size figure position. People should obviously care about the money they earn but he's basically super worried about the guarantee of money instead of the opportunity to earn a lot more with the bonuses. I tried encouraging him that this is something he can do but he keeps going back to the guaranteed money. I definitely want this position on performance pay so a high flat salary is off the table. My concern is he will be a few weeks in, working harder than he did before, getting paid less in the immediate term, and will not be giving it his all. He doesn't view this as a good offer. Question is - if someone isn't excited at an opportunity like this, should I take the offer off the table? Or is there a different way I could be thinking about this?When to hire a General Manager?
I am a painting company. Have any of you hired a general manager and stepped away from the day to day operations of your business? How did you go about it? Was there a revenue metric you aimed for? Break it down for me in detail? Did it help you grow and go to the next level? How did you find your general manager? What did you set as the pay/salary? Bonus structure?
