TOOLBOX
THE #1 COMMUNITY OF SUCCESSFUL CONTRACTORS
CCN
JUNE/JULY 2021
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Learn From Crazy Times CCN’s April conference offered valuable lessons in how to communicate with members going forward.
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Communication Key to Customer Satisfaction
Resource For 4 New Recruiting Challenge
This new Department of Defense program makes it easy for you to attract exiting service veterans.
in the Pocketbook 6 Pain High, unstable materials prices make for longer lead times between contract signing and the start of installation.
the Employer of Choice 9 Be Your consistent, interested attention to the welfare of employees gets around, and will make your business an attractive option for job-seekers.
SCOTT SIEGAL
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e had a great conference in April. It was a little scary but turned out well. There were challenges and we met them and pulled together a successful public event at a time when companies of all types are trying to figure out how to do that safely. One challenge was how to manage an in-person event for the first time since WE’RE PLANNING FOR the pandemic started. We did that via FUTURE LIVE CCN EVENTS temperature checks, social distancing and masking. A second, just as big, was how BECAUSE AN IMPORTANT to manage people’s fear around possibly catching Covid-19. PART OF OUR MISSION
What Color Is Your Lanyard?
IS MEMBERS HELPING
We’re approaching the point where almost half of American adults have been MEMBERS BY SHARING vaccinated. Add to this number the more EXPERIENCE. than 33 million who’ve had Covid-19, and therefore natural immunity. So, it’s safe for many people to mix and mingle, but they’re still plenty wary. A CCN member passed on to us what turned out to be an excellent idea. He’d been at another conference where organizers had attendees wear different colored armbands. The armbands signaled just how comfortable people were with close contact. We ordered lanyards—that neck cord your conference badge is clipped to—made in three different colors. A green lanyard meant you weren’t worried and were comfortable having people around you. A red lanyard signaled the desire for social distancing. A yellow lanyard indicated the wearer was somewhere in between.
Not To Worry We called each of the 135 people registered for the conference and asked what color lanyard they wanted. Every attendee chose green. Great, but it left me feeling somewhat anxious. Yes, we took people’s temperatures, set up hand sanitizer stations everywhere, and required mask-wearing when you weren’t eating or drinking. Still, there was some outside chance that someone unknowingly infected could then infect others. Covid-19 is seven times more contagious than the flu because you’re most likely to get it by inhaling what someone who’s infected just exhaled. We didn’t know, a year ago, that it was primarily an aerosol virus. We know it now. Luckily, enough of us were continued on page 2
CO N T R AC T O R S . N E T
TOOLBOX THE #1 COMMUNIT Y OF SUCCESSFUL CONTRACTORS
MISSION STATEMENT To enhance the professionalism, performance and perception of the construction industry. We promote ethics, education, leadership and innovation, so that the construction industry and the community achieve mutual benefit. CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS 6476 Sligo Mill Road Takoma Park, MD 20912 301.891.0999 800.396.1510 866.250.3270 fax www.contractors.net STAFF Scott Siegal, President scott@contractors.net John Martindale, Principal johnm@contractors.net Catherine Honigsberg, GM catherine@contractors.net Anthoy Brooks, Director of Sales anthony@contractors.net Sindy Wohl, Director of VIP sindy@contractors.net Denise Metheny, Accounting denise@contractors.net Troy Timmer, CCN Business Consultant troy@contractors.net Craig Leary, Director of Marketing & Sales craig@contractors.net Toolbox is a publication of the Certified Contractors Network. Toolbox is a member benefit. Non-members may subscribe for $75 annually. editor: Jim Cory design: Stacy Claywell www.thatdesigngirl.net thank you to our: contributing writers
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vaccinated or had natural immunity that, together with safety measures, it wasn’t an issue.
Virtual Training We did something else we haven’t done prior. We livestreamed the conference on Zoom for members. Members could see and hear speakers, in real time, with the help of two 65-inch conference monitors in front of the stage. That got me thinking. The pandemic has forced us to reconsider a lot of things and I’m thankful that the audiovisual technology enabling anybody with a laptop to reach anybody else with a laptop is available today. I also don’t believe that the future of conferences is exclusively livestream. We’re planning for future live CCN events because an important part of our mission is members helping members by sharing experience. So, we’re planning our next conference in September, in Denver. We’re moving full steam ahead with it. I’m hoping that many more people will be vaccinated then, but regardless we’ll put together a conference that takes every precaution on behalf of participants.
Education Live and Online That said, we’re also planning to make further use of audiovisual technology in other areas, namely online training and education. Livestreaming educational sessions is an efficient and effective way to help you get your staff trained. Last year, we responded to the pandemic by moving CCN education online via livestreaming. Members like it better because they can get the same positive results without sending people across the country.
Livestreaming also makes this training more manageable. We can break the time up into shorter segments, so that people viewing it can better manage working the program into their individual schedules. For instance, Sales Boot Camp used to be five days. When we put it online, we cut it to three days, then scheduled the rest as one-day sessions, one per week. Members also like it because they don’t have to pull people away from a desk or out of the field for three days. This is especially true for Admin and Blue Collar Management. Admin employees, for instance, might be mothers or wives, responsible for raising kids and more besides. It was tough, even pre-Covid. Now we’ll make this information available as programs focused on one task or a set of them. For instance, for Admin, we put together a 1.5 hour segment on how to answer the phone correctly, essential to setting leads and booking business. In Blue Collar Management, we can schedule a session for production managers and foremen so they can learn how to sell change orders.
Bite Sized Pieces We’ve broken the education and training up into pieces and offer it now all the time instead of at in-person events conducted at intervals. It’s there when you need it. And outside of possibly adding a few live boot camps as the pandemic winds down this fall, I don’t think we’re going back. Sometimes changes forced on you by circumstance become permanent because they were already a good idea anyway, you just didn’t know it. 2
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Communication Key to Customer Satisfaction Effective paperwork prevents the mistakes that can wreck customer relationships. BY CATHERINE HONIGSBERG
Customer Satisfaction Goals This is a good time of the year to review processes and procedures and how they affect customer satisfaction goals. Start by evaluating customer feedback via surveys, customer correspondence and referrals. One point that usually surfaces with a less-than-satisfied clients is lack of communication. Good communication directly corresponds to high customer ratings. Standardized paperwork helps open the lines of communication. Every company job packet presented to every homeowner should be universal in format. Each estimator’s proposal should look the same. This enables the office to process contracts more efficiently because handling becomes standardized. For production, all the necessary information can be conveyed in the same way for any job.
Same Page, Same Package
It’s a typical morning when I get this call from a foreman. “Katy, we have a little problem.” A small shiver down the spine, but I bravely ask what’s going on. “Well, our customer came outside and told us we are on the wrong roof. Katy, we are almost done with the tear-off.”
What Went Wrong? Day off to a great start. Now what? You get the neighbor’s phone number, call, and explain that he’s getting a new roof today. Our customer’s relieved that we’re going to do the right thing for both of them. What went wrong? Here’s the contract, with both parties agreeing on scope, pricing, and timeline. Unfortunately, it happens to have the wrong address. This happens easily in a city where the house numbers are even and odd, stop and start in different number sequences and have A’s and B’s.
Picture It We find the best way to ensure the house where we’re working is the correct house is to have a picture of it on the front page of the contract. This also personalizes the relationship and is an excellent selling tool. Sound simple? Yes, but it’s one step in the paperwork process and each step is necessary to convey enough information so the company and the customer are on the same page. When that happens, you have happy customers and more profitable projects. They key to 100% customer satisfaction is communication, and effective paperwork is how to get there.
To help organize a standard package, you can use “The Paperwork Approval Checklist” to check off the contents of your job package. The package can then be put in order and copied or scanned in a uniform way. The checklist is a coversheet for other forms contained in the contract package. Checklist items can include the following: • Signed contract and specification manual • Customer deposit and when due • Project pictures with notes • Map • Materials list • Special order quotes • Detailed scope of work • Color coded roof diagram of work to be performed. • Signed Contract Review List. • EPA lead form This checklist is then approved by the sales manager for pricing, administration for all items complete in the package submission, and production for project acceptance. Each has a section for notes or comments that must be answered before an approval signature is given and passed to the next manager. The items listed above work because all components are reviewed by estimator and customer before being submitted for review and approval. The customer now knows what the problem is, how it will be solved, what it will cost, and the materials used. They’ve seen a Good, a Better, and a Best solution and have the information to make an informed decision.
Check List Back Up To further this communication, the Contract Review List is part of the package. It consists of a checklist for the customer and estimator. Running through it works like a pre-construction meeting. The customer is introduced to how the company works and other details that will make a project go smoother. Permits, parking, change orders, scheduling and information for production crews are all included. Sound like a lot of paperwork for a roofing or window job? If those initial conversations between customer and estimator flow through the company to the final product, you’ll have a happy customer.
—Catherine Honigsberg is general manager of Maggio Roofing and of CCN. C C N T O O L B OX J U N E /J U LY 2 0 2 1
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New Resource Helps Meet Recruiting Challenge The production manager we recently hired came to us from the Air Force, courtesy of a new Defense Department program. BY MICHELLE HANN
Like many contracting companies, we’re seeing fewer strong applicants when we post a job. Production jobs are typically the most difficult to recruit for because they require some level of construction experience. Naturally we’re always looking. We use as our HR software tracking system a program called Bamboo HR (see www.bamboohr.com). From there our ad posts to Facebook, Indeed and Glassdoor and is shared by all those platforms.
Preemptive Recruiting Our usual timeline from job post to hire these days is anywhere from three to three-and-a-half months. If that sounds like a long time, there’s a reason. We now do a much stronger vetting process before we get to the phone interview. We first do a personality test, then a background check, and then a driving check. Essentially, we do the vetting before the interview, rather than after the interview, because we don’t want to waste time on the phone if the person applying isn’t qualified. It takes longer but we end up with more of the right candidates when we get to the interview.
SkillBridge Program We recently had someone apply for a production manager job we’d posted. He came to us through a new Department of Defense program called SkillBridge.
THE IDEA OF SKILLBRIDGE IS TO PLACE VETERANS IN GOOD-PAYING JOBS WHEN THEY EXIT THE SERVICE. Our candidate was leaving the Air Force after 20 years’ service and wanted to relocate to his hometown, Charleston, SC, which is where we’re based. To make hiring discharged veterans as risk-free as possible for potential employers, the Department of Defense will pay that person’s armed forces salary, along with health insurance, workers comp and other benefits, for the first six months of his employment. We supply a company vehicle and gas.
Do Your Homework The ability to hire someone with organizational skills, and a great attitude, and have the government pay that person for six months, sounds like a dream come true. It is a great program. But you must do your homework if you want to get involved with it. To hire someone through SkillBridge, you must prove you’re a legitimate business, provide a tax ID number and be interviewed, in this case by the Air Force. You’ll need to document, month-by-month, the training that person is going to receive at your company. That documentation doesn’t have to be tremendously detailed, but you will need to show what he or she is going to learn, and when. It’s a three-part process: phone interview, vetting checklist, and six-month training schedule. That schedule, in our case, includes orientation, concrete/supply chain management and documentation, siding, windows and doors, and decks and porches. The way this is structured, our new production manager will be thoroughly familiar with our production process as it affects all the different aspects of our business.
Making It Ongoing Now that we’ve done it once, we’re eager to do it again. So, we’ve applied to be a SkillBridge business partner, that is, one of the companies that exiting veterans will look at as they contemplate a post-armed forces career. To me one of the strongest parts of hiring someone with a service background is that an armed forces career tends to produce people whose values align with our company values, which are integrity, honesty, communication, professionalism, accountability, and family. Our production manager manages our project leaders, who in turn manage the subcontractor crews. We needed someone who could manage crew development and perform safety inspections, as well as direct the production traffic, flow of materials to the job site and all the requisite duties and responsibilities of keeping production smoothly on track. It’s not a small job. I’m happy to say he is already bringing new ideas to the table and making a positive impact on what we do and how we do it. So, we’ll be looking to make use of the SkillBridge program again as soon as someone is available.
—Michelle Hann is Vice President of Shared Services at Contract Exteriors, a CCN member company in Murrells Inlet, SC. 4
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MEMBER NEWS
Outback Deck Profiled in QR 500
Energy Swing Named ProVia Platinum Dealer CCN member Energy Swing Windows, in Monroeville, PA, manufactures and installs its own window products. Like many window replacement operations, Energy Swing also replaces doors. Doors have become an ever-expanding share of the company’s business, thanks in part to its relationship with a supplier up the road in Sugarcreek, OH, namely ProVia. Energy Swing, which has steadily increased its sales of ProVia products, especially doors, recently hosted a visit from ProVia president and CEO Brian Miller, who came to the Pittsburgh area to present the company with a glass statuette as a member of ProVia’s Platinum Dealer group. Qualifying for membership as a Platinum Dealer involves the length of time a contracting company has been a ProVia customer, the volume and type of products it purchases, and whether the company avails itself of the monthly three-day installation training program ProVia offers at its location in Sugarcreek. In the case of Energy Swing, the company has not only sent its installers to ProVia’s headquarters for training, but its service techs and salespeople as well. This is the sixth year Energy Swing has qualified as a ProVia dealer. On this visit, Energy Swing founder and CEO Steve Rennekamp welcomed Miller to the company offices with not only a catered lunch but a cake thanking ProVia for its relationship as a valued supplier.
Every year, since 1978, the trade magazine Qualified Remodeler publishes its QR 500 list. The list ranks contracting companies by volume. For the 2020 QR 500, CCN member Outback Deck, in Atlanta, which specializes in constructing outdoor living spaces, placed #252, with sales of $6.845 million, higher than some other CCN members, but less than some others (see below). The difference is that Outback Deck earned a full-page profile in the April 2021 issue of the magazine. That’s on top of the March, 2021 Outdoor Living issue of QR, which showcased the Atlanta company, with co-owner Bryan Miller offering readers insightful points about how deck builders conform to today’s far more stringent building codes. Outback Deck’s John Gwaltney told QR that the company “designed and built more six-figure decks in 2020” than in the previous 10 years combined. Other CCN members listed in the latest QR 500 include: • Brothers Services Co., of Hampstead, MD, ranking #38, with $37.072 million in sales of both replacement products—roofing, siding, and windows—and full-scale remodels. • Marrokal Design & Remodeling, of San Diego, CA, #83, a design/build company with $18.5 million in sales; • Absolute Aluminum, in Venice, FL, #99 with sales of $17.963 million; • Franzoso Contracting, Inc. of Croton-on-Hudson, NY, #157 with sales of $12.221 million; • Jancewicz & Son, of North Walpole, NH, #222 with $7.269 million in sales listed; • Contract Exteriors, of Murrells Inlet, SC, #255 with sales of $14.424 million; • Capizzi Home Improvement, Inc. of Cotuit, MA, #263, with sales of $6.142 million; • Fick Bros. Roofing & Exterior Remodeling, #292 with sales of $5.512 million; • Save Energy Company, of Petaluma, CA, listed as #349, with sales of $4.495 million; • Hi Tech Window & Siding Installations, of Methuen, MA, listed as #360 with sales of $4.257 million; • Mr. Roofing, of South San Francisco, CA, listed as #375, with sales of $3.950 million; • Krumwiede Home Pros of Bensenville, IL, listed as #390, with sales of $3.716 million; • Panda Contractors, of Vero Beach, CA, listed as #393, with sales of $3.706 million.
Virtus Employee Wins Conference Drawing Ken Lapierre, a production manager at CCN member Virtus Family of Companies, in Atlanta, won the drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card, held at CCN’s Orlando conference in April. This recent project by CCN member Outback Deck was front and center in Qualified Remodeler’s Outdoor Living issue, this past March. The three-level deck, built to conform to fast-changing building codes, is engineered to carry the weight of an outdoor kitchen and a hot tub. Co-owner John Gwaltney says Outback Deck constructed more six-figure projects in 2020 than in the prior ten years of the company’s history. C C N T O O L B OX J U N E /J U LY 2 0 2 1
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Pain in the Pocketbook
The two questions your client never fails to ask—when can you do it and how much does it cost—are now more difficult to answer. BY JIM CORY
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onsumer prices this April were 4.2 percent higher than a year earlier, with increases in the cost of housing and cars far exceeding BY BRYAN MILLER that average. Economists point to at least two factors: the release of demand held in check by pandemic lockdowns, and chaos in the supply chain, particularly within food and energy. Businesses in all segments of construction contracting, including residential replacement and repair, have seen prices of certain products soar, feeding a rise in overall costs. The Producer Price Index published by Associated Builders and Contractors in April shows “construction input prices are 19.7 percent higher than a year ago.” A chart published by the group, sourced to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows one-year price jumps for non-residential construction of 121 percent for softwood lumber and 67 percent for steel mill products.
Residential construction businesses face similar. That means the two questions your client never fails to ask—when can you do the work and how much will it cost?—are now harder to answer.
that can cause disruptions in the flow of materials from manufacture to distribution and sale. These include natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and wildfires; transportation failures, geopolitical instability, price hikes and cyberattacks. It matters a lot because stability in the supply chain is fundamental to business success. Home improvement contractors, coming off a year that saw business gyrating, find 2021 bringing with it a new and different set of uncertainties. Pete Scudder, owner of longtime CCN member Scudder Roofing, in Marina, CA, speaks for many when he cites “supply shortages, as well as high unstable pricing from manufacturers and vendors” as, taken together, the number one challenge “we and other contractors are facing right now.” Why is this happening? Industry expert, writer and speaker Craig Webb, publisher of Webb Analytics (www.webb-analytics. com), points out that the causes for materials shortages “vary with every product.” That’s why the price of plumbing parts is stable, relative to, for the moment, highly volatile vinyl or wood. In the case of lumber, for instance, devastating insect predation on northwest forests, and, in the early stages of the Covid pandemic, the shutdown of lumber mills in Canada and resin plants in Texas making the material that holds together OSB and plywood, contributed to a supply situation unlike anything seen since World War 2. “I think we’re seeing, in a lot of industries, people questioning the notion of whether ‘Just In Time’ supply can hold up, given the supply chain problems we’re having,” Webb says. Behind that skepticism, he points out, is the same factor driving big increases in materials costs: a “phenomenal demand for remodeling services.” Which is even more intense when it comes to roofing, siding, and window projects, typically driven by necessity.
Perfect Supply Chain Storm If that work involves wood in any way, things have really gotten wild. The National Association of Home Builders projects that increases in framing lumber, plywood, and OSB have caused the price of new single-family homes to rise approximately $36,000 from a year ago. That’s without changing a single item on the materials list.
Causes of Disruption A pandemic like the one now receding is one of many events 6
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It’s the suddenness of this transformation that’s surprised many. “If you go back 13 months ago,” says Charlie Gindele, president of longtime CCN member Renewal by Andersen of Orange County, in California, “the world we knew was coming to an end. We were talking about having to shut the company down. No one was traveling. The airports were empty. The freeways were empty.” RBA/Orange County remained open because it was deemed an essential business. As the lockdown eased earlier this year, demand “went through the roof,” Gindele says. “Companies that thought they were going to shut their doors last April are now busier than they’ve ever been.” That’s
made for longer lead times. In 2019 four to five weeks elapsed between signing and install at RBA/Orange County. Now “we’re running at eight, nine or ten weeks.” Busier than ever describes what’s happened at CCN member Energy Swing Windows, in Monroeville, PA, where, in the middle of May, founder and president Steve Rennekamp reports his company just recorded the two best sales months in its history. Comparing two figures gives an overall sense of the situation. The U.S. economy shrank 3.5 percent in 2020. While that was happening, spending on home improvements and repairs grew more than 3 percent, to $420 billion, according to Improving America’s Housing 2021, a new report issued by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The report notes that the Covid-19 pandemic stimulated the need or desire for “modified living spaces for work, school, and leisure.”
Supply And Demand The sudden proliferation of demand generated a supply problem. While customers clamor for product, manufacturers, who cut back operations in the pandemic, suddenly face a situation in which shortages by even a small number of downline suppliers will throw production schedules off. Remodelers recently surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), in its Remodeling Market Index cited shortages (either “serious” or “some”) of framing lumber (77 percent), windows and doors (65 percent), plywood (63 percent), roofing materials (37 percent), and vinyl siding (29 percent). The NAHB also polled remodelers on price increases. A quarter of respondents said prices had gone up by 20 percent or more, 24 percent indicated prices rising by 10 to 15 percent and another 15 percent reported increases of 4 to 6 percent.
Let Customers Know For homeowners hoping to quickly get their new roof on or windows in, the prices and lengthening lead time between contract signing and actual install can be a letdown. But not total shock. “Everybody is a little surprised,” says Rennekamp, who notes that jobs which in 2019 typically installed three or four weeks after contract signing may now take as long as four months, depending on product availability. “But they’re hearing things in the news everyday about things taking longer.” They’re also acclimated to the idea that prices go up, that things inevitably cost more now than they used to. Energy Swing has managed the situation in several ways.
When contracts are signed, salespeople let homeowners know that installation could be as much as four months away. “We can’t promise three weeks. It’s not going to happen.” The company also put together a laminated two-sided document showing price increases of materials, so that customers could see for themselves how prices have gone up. And frequent customer contact, via phone, text, and email, between contract signing and installation, helps build a positive relationship ongoing. At RBA/Orange County, contracts with unrealistic start dates are kicked back to sales guys. “I would rather lose a job, than get one and disappoint people,” Gindele says.
Love The One You’re With? So, when will supply chains settle back to some level of stability? Experts can’t put a timeline to it, only say that in the end it always balances out. For home improvement contractors trying to manage such disruptions, options are severalfold. One is to warehouse materials essential for most jobs, such as shingles, tar, plywood, OSB, and similar. But not every company has the facilities to, in effect, act as its own distributor. Though some are and will. “I suspect we’re going to see more stockpiling for a while,” Webb says.
Another tactic is developing multiple suppliers, so that there are alternative sources. If Supplier A can’t fill your order, have backups in place, so that Suppliers B, C or D might be able to. That may seem to be the obvious way to go, but Webb suggests the better way is to develop closer working relationships with the suppliers you already have. “This is the time when you should probably work with the vendors who are your favorite vendors and show them as much love as possible. If you commit to buy because you know you’re going to have X business in a year, they’ll be much more likely to commit to you when they decide who’s going to get product.” His other suggestion is to look at the “relative size of who you’re committing to.” “The biggest companies,” he says, “have more buying power and are more likely to stock” than the local firm. C C N T O O L B OX J U N E /J U LY 2 0 2 1
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ON HR
Be The Employer of Choice
BY ANITA DOMBROWSKI, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP.
Here’s how to retain employees in this competitive hiring environment.
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osing employees or worried you soon may be? It seems like every employer has a Help Wanted sign in front of their business. Candidates for open positions are few, if available at all. Meanwhile, it’s not just home improvement companies you’re competing with for employees, but big retail corporations such as Amazon. If you’ve been recruiting, you already know what I’m talking about. Candidates are scarce, especially at the lower end of the pay spectrum.
First Rule of Thumb Every smart manager is always looking for good workers, and hiring the right people is key to retaining them. So, your goal as owner or manager should be to keep your current staff and all new recruits you bring in the door, unless they’re not supposed to be there due to some performance issue. It’s become more important than ever to keep the workers you have because it’s so hard to backfill the position.
Pay or Benefits? I’m often asked if retention is about pay or benefits. It’s a little bit of both, depending on the individual employee. Whether the position you want to hire for is salaried or pays hourly, right now candidates are in the driver’s seat in this market. They want and expect to be paid market rate. If you haven’t looked at how your market is pricing labor, you need to see what the competition is paying. You can do this by participating in a formal salary survey or just check some online job boards to see what pay rates are being published. If you’re looking to hire a carpenter or a helper, for instance, and you’re not familiar with what other home improvement companies in the area pay, you may price too low and get no response. You need to pay at least what others in your industry and location pay if applicants are going to take your ad seriously. 8
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Out of Pocket Bear in mind that if you’re looking to hire someone who can grow into a position, you’re not just competing with other home improvement companies. The person applying for a roofing position at, say, $13 an hour, knows he’ll be up on a hot roof, doing a dangerous job. If a big distribution company offers that person $15 to walk around an air-conditioned warehouse, or inside a fast-food restaurant, which job do you think he’ll take? Covid-19 has driven up the cost of both materials and labor. Yes, you’ll end up paying more to the workers you hire, but it doesn’t need to come out of your pocket, as owner. Take a moment to look at your budget, overall and per job, and review your calculations, i.e., what you charge, and incorporate your updated payroll costs. What kind of rate would you need to pay the amount per hour, or salary, that meets or exceeds market rate? What margin do you need to achieve to be able to hire for more money?
What’s It Like to Work Here The next step is to make yourself an Employer of Choice, a company candidates want to work for. That’s a more subtle attraction than salary and benefits, but no less important and probably more important if your pay and benefit levels are at market rate. If a candidate thinking about applying for a job with you knows anyone who works for you now, the first question they will ask that person is: what’s it like to work there? What that often comes down to is company culture and how you treat employees. Do you take their contributions for granted, or is that contribution acknowledged, and when appropriate, rewarded? How much attention do you pay to what employees do, and how well they do it?
Take your in-house roofing crew. Because they work fast, produce quality, clean up the job site, are friendly and polite to the homeowner, you’re able to charge a premium. Why not give them a spot bonus every now and then for the extra effort on a particularly tough job? You don’t have to hand out big, whopping checks. Just give everyone, for instance, a convenience store gift card for $25 and tell them it’s for doing such a great job. How often you do that depends on what your budget can afford, especially as across-the-board raises are not an option this year. Another way to appreciate your workers is by stopping at the jobsite at some point with cold water or Gatorade, or having pizzas, or sandwiches, delivered. Whatever you do, big or small, make sure you are recognizing the extra effort. Spontaneity is key. Do it once and it doesn’t mean much. Do it every day, or on the same day of the week at exactly the same time, and you lose the spontaneity that makes it memorable. You know you have a great crew. Their work is to spec and they do it faster. Well, any smart competitor will know that too. And that competitor’s ethics—we hope this is not the case—may be such that he has no qualms about intercepting your crew in the parking lot of the supply house and offering them more money.
Consistent Recognition Understand that this is not a one-time deal. It’s a way of managing your company to be an Employer of Choice. To retain employees, you need to do it regularly, and in all appropriate circumstances. Say your project manager or on-site supervisor made some smart decisions or just stayed on top of things in a way that saved you a few thousand dollars in gross profit. You’re doing yourself a service when you
acknowledge that. And when you do, do it right away. A verbal on-the-spot acknowledgement followed up by a written note for the employee’s personnel file works best. If you wait two weeks, your crew, or your foreman, may not even remember what it was they did to merit your praise, and you lose the impact.
The Value of Paying Attention So far, I’ve described financial rewards, but when you’re talking about being an Employer of Choice, it’s just as much about employees knowing the boss saw them do something they didn’t have to do and said thank you. Being an attentive and appreciative employer sets you immediately apart. Another element here is to be aware that personal stuff happens, and your response when it does, as the boss or the owner, will be weighed not just by individual employees, but by everybody who works for you. You know how quickly news gets around! You may need five people on that crew, but if someone is having a baby, or a personal medical situation, the smart way to manage that is to do whatever you can to help or just be flexible. Sometimes that may just be giving that person time off or adjusting a schedule. It might be paid time or unpaid time. Remember that what you offer to one, you must offer to every person who works for you. Yes, you need to deal with people oneon-one. But people talk and you want to be mindful that if you give someone three months off, everyone else is going to expect three months off when they have an issue. You want to make sure your good deed doesn’t throw you under the bus.
Retention Results There are other elements to employee retention. For instance, in addition to pay and benefits, employees tend to stay at companies which provide the training that enables them to enhance their skills. They also stay where there is a clear career path with promotional opportunities. The key is not to limit your thinking to just one employee but see the big picture. That is, of what it’s like to work at your company every day, your company culture. You want your company to be the one that has a long list of kudos on social media from satisfied customers and from employees who love working for you. That will make your good employees never want to leave. —Anita Dombrowski is an HR professional who works with CCN members. Reach her at anitadombrowskihr@gmail.com.
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2021 Spring Conference, Orlando, FL
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Running a high
performance organiZAtion
FALL Conference September 23-25, 2021 Brown Palace Hotel Denver
What’s the difference between an old clunker and that sleek machine whipping around curves at the Indianapolis 500? No comparison, right? Well, they’re both cars. But one is old and probably not too well maintained while the other is a high-performance vehicle built to compete, with teams of mechanics keeping it in stellar condition. Contracting companies are similar. Some sputter along awaiting their final breakdown while others move with grace at dazzling speeds. At CCN’s September conference in Denver we’ll show you how to run your contracting company as a high performance organization, one so well-designed and maintained it outmaneuvers and moves past all competitors.
For a full schedule of 2021 events & more details visit contractors.net