30 Year Employees Don’t Exist Anymore

Always Be Recruiting

The num­ber one prob­lem I have been hear­ing about from clients this year is not a lack of leads. No, leads have been strong across the U.S. The prob­lem has been a lack of good peo­ple. I have actu­al­ly been asked if I can pro­vide recruit­ing ser­vices, not mar­ket­ing! If you do need help find­ing good help, I would rec­om­mend con­tact­ing my friends at Sum­mit Ser­vices. They pro­vide head­hunt­ing ser­vices for esti­ma­tors, office staff and, I believe, help with hir­ing field employ­ees too.

This brief post is a refresh­er to some of you and maybe some­thing new for oth­ers. It is quite sim­ple: Always Be Recruit­ing. You’ve seen this con­cept before on vehi­cles, web­sites and store­fronts: ​“We’re Hir­ing!” or ​“We are always look­ing for tal­ent­ed peo­ple to join our team!” Some of these post­ings stay up year round for busi­ness­es. It should real­ly be no dif­fer­ent for the home improve­ment industry.

Find­ing and keep­ing good employ­ees in the trades today is hard­er than ever, espe­cial­ly for the paint­ing indus­try. I’m not sure why that is, although I have my opin­ion. I per­son­al­ly think a grow­ing num­ber of painters, car­pen­ters, framers and so on do not take pride in their work today. They look at their job as ordi­nary and non-extra­or­di­nary with every­thing else the world appears to offer them. Per­haps there are also a few more of these trades­men who just were not raised with good work ethics. What­ev­er the rea­son, it appears there is no real end to this prob­lem of find­ing and keep­ing good people.

A Long Term Employee?

The days of a long term employ­ee are over. I’ve read a num­ber of sta­tis­ti­cal reports over the last decade that say if an employ­ee stays with you for 5 years, that is con­sid­ered a long term and loy­al employ­ee. If this is the norm, then we should all stop think­ing about how to find a 30 year employ­ee and just know that the employ­ment expectan­cy is 3 – 5 years for a decent employ­ee. If some­one gets past the 5 year mark today, con­sid­er rolling out the red car­pet for him/​her! Just don’t be too shocked if he gives his notice at year 6 to look for ​“green­er pas­tures” else­where! Remem­ber, you are always recruit­ing. He can be replaced; even though it can and nor­mal­ly is painful. 

My dad is good at find­ing and keep­ing good peo­ple. He is always on the look­out for peo­ple that will be a good fit for his com­pa­ny. I remem­ber one time at a restau­rant, my dad hand­ed one of the servers his busi­ness card and gave a quick sales pitch about his com­pa­ny. He also recent­ly hired a new employ­ee with no paint­ing expe­ri­ence who he met at my broth­er’s new brew­ery (side note: my dad does­n’t even drink! but he does prospect!). The new painter is work­ing out well and his staff real­ly likes him. A keeper!

Don’t Let Employ­ees Dis­cour­age You

There will always be a turnover of employ­ees. There is not much you can do about this as I’ve men­tioned above. There are, how­ev­er, plen­ty of things you can do to help keep employ­ees hap­py and pro­long their employ­ment. Anoth­er tip I’ll share from work­ing with my dad: spend time get­ting to know your peo­ple. My dad cares about his peo­ple. He runs a small paint­ing com­pa­ny in San Diego with a very low turnover rate. Though he is small, he is prof­itable and nation­al­ly rec­og­nized by paint com­pa­nies of all sizes. I think it is because of how he runs his busi­ness and treats his employ­ees. He keeps tabs on how his staff is doing. He pays them above aver­age wages. He also has tak­en many of them out for break­fast just to talk.

I hope this post will just inspire you to press on as a busi­ness own­er. Hir­ing, recruit­ing and keep­ing employ­ees is just a part of what it takes to cre­ate and run a fan­tas­tic com­pa­ny. It real­ly should be treat­ed as being just as impor­tant as sales and marketing.