This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel, Jose continue the ongoing discussion of the Installation Crisis, proceeding to take steps towards improving our industry.

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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

hey what's up everybody Welcome to the huddle we'll come at you every Tuesday to

discuss maintaining forward progress in your flooring career I say this every week but it's really

kind of uh business General stuff and we dive down deep on flooring every week so

a little bit different um so I want to thank everybody for coming

and joining us uh with me today as always

well yeah I should say as always you guys have covered here as always our

Staples damn we got Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from preferred flooring up in Michigan

so we get together every week talk about some topics that we feel important uh or

uh has been sent in to us and um are applicable to the flooring industry and

that we find is uh you know worthwhile talking about so this week

one of the um this is probably

the biggest topic on our industry's mind and has been for a long time so these

words installation crisis um we've all heard and this week's

discussion is on the installation crisis but what can we do now

so that being said I I wanted to bring up obviously

um we're short there's a shortage of Labor of trade labor in general and we have that in flooring

uh kudos to the the organizations out there

trying to tackle the problem from a uh uh personnel's perspective like bringing

in more people uh more youth into the industry getting them trained people

like uh you know uh Kim and and uh Jim over at the fcef I

know that a lot of the other organizations are working with them on that from the ntca nwfa you know all the

acronyms of our industry and the branching out from them right yeah yeah

so if you can remember them all I'd say them all but I could probably throw a few in there and you wouldn't even notice as far as the acronyms are

concerned uh that being said we wanted to talk about a concept of

efficiency in labor um other Industries

um really hold this as like one of their key metrics uh we'll use uh like the

automotive manufacturing industry that is one of their key metrics what is our efficiency rating

right um just about all manufacturing is that way

now I'm not in efficiency and labor in particular so I'm not saying that we are like the

manufacturing industry but I thought I'd pick up some of their metrics so as an industry they look for somewhere around

depending on which article or survey what piece of research you look at but

it seems somewhere around 68 efficiency in labor so

what that means to them or what it means is just you're they're getting 68 of the

value of 100 of their labor right and as an industry they feel like that's pretty good like that's that's

acceptable that's pretty good now you take individual organizations

like Toyota and they aim for like I believe it's 96 or 98 efficiency

all right now Toyota's a jug or not and is known in in uh the business world as

being one of the most efficient efficient companies on the planet um there's books written about them uh

and you can kind of uh see why there's they were so successful as the world's

largest automotive manufacturer but then you take Tesla who is the up and comer

who's out there kicking everyone's rear again labor efficiency is one of their key

metrics I never hear this talked about in our industry uh all most of us most of the flooring

contractors in the United States use 1099 subcontract labor

now that being said how do we monitor or kind of look at the labor as a pool and

our efficiency in that uh particular metric

so would you guys say like on average just a a a a big average that

a crew maybe uh loses eight hours per week in

either the job got moved or you know materials didn't show up on time or they

get to the job and it's actually not ready even though the GC told you yeah it's 100 ready for you

that should have got a laugh out of you Daniel for sure whatever the reason is is that they lose

uh eight hours a week on an average now I get it sometimes it's more you know

maybe three or four days or you may have a crew that doesn't get a day off in months but is that reasonable to make

that assumption yeah it's probably more than that yeah and I think um you can find separation

too right like they did lack of efficiency from the cruise or

lack of efficiency from um other contractors so I don't know there's a way for that but if we're

adding it all together yeah I would say yeah so if you took that's a good point but if you just took uh the

efficiency of the people that utilize the labor the how efficient are we as

flooring contractors Across the Nation at using our labor the labor that's out there uh if we say

eight hours and we have two guys on a crew and I know this is not every crew I'm just trying to get to some some some

math here to to start a conversation but if we said two guys lose eight hours

a week then that's 16 hours a week right

now would you guys say it's reasonable to put the total crew number worse that 10

000 Crews would be certainly low that's not you know

or or do you think there's more or less than 10 000 Crews across the United

States uh flooring installers I believe there's going to be more than 10 000 Crews if we're breaking them up

into two but I would say that that's an easy number to use just for for some roundabout

numbers probably it's not outrageous right I mean I'm not yeah I'm not overblowing it would you say no right

I'm not saying 60 000 Crews I'm just 10 000 Crews okay well

I can do math pretty well but just for a little bit of uh emphasis here you know

obviously then that's a hundred and sixty thousand hours weekly of lost

production in our industry if we took that and divided it by 40 as

an average work week we're losing 4 000 hours or 4 000 work

weeks every single week in flooring

right I don't know about you that's pretty damn inefficient it seems like

that's a lot that means 4 000 work weeks every single week is lost that's the

equivalent of adding 4 000 quality Crews to our industry if we're six or eight

thousand short as has been proposed by some of the research

we're over halfway there just by becoming efficients now

I'm sure one of you thinking like yeah we're not going to get to 100 efficiency if if freaking Toyota cannot and I get

it like I agree uh We're not gonna be 100 efficient

but if we took just the Delta between Toyota and Manufacturing in general it's

about 30 percent so could we get 30 percent better and gain 30 percent back into get 30 percent more flooring down

every week because we're 30 percent more efficient I think um taking advantage of 30 of

that is that are you guys following me here no 100 following you on that and and obviously you know the the

automotive industry is more of a controlled area a lot less uh um I would say

variables inspired human uh mistakes right but they still have maintenance they still have robotics they have all

that to worry about and I think that uh we can

strive to get 30 better um but not knowing what variables to use

for those type of metrics can be hard to to Cipher exactly what route to take to

get to that point but um is definitely definitely missing a lot of things in

our industry as far as structured to get us to that point um yeah it could be double that guys I

mean we're just shooting off the hip as far as like having a discussion but just in all the travels to the different

shows talking to different people even talking to you guys having you know a

guy and I have it happen in my company where something happens and they're not doing

that job for two or three days and then they need they they're so they're gonna wait or sorry not the wrong term they're

they're those are dead hours for those three days right

um so I'm just wondering what can we do about the shortage now like what can be

executed upon now so I wanted to start a conversation with the industry

I would love to have just kind of push this out there I think it's irresponsible of us as

Leaders to not at least discuss this consider it discuss it and kind of mull

it over uh so I thought we'd go just kind of talk about it today and maybe in a month we can have a full panel

discussion with some experts and some different people uh in our industry and outside of our industry uh but all based

around um all based around

efficiency and do we agree that this is a problem I've talked to plenty uh

plenty of people in our travels and it appears to be a major problem so what's

your thoughts Daniel I think that uh

even if like you you started talking about subcontractors and stuff like that but even us as uh you know we have

in-house Crews and our efficiencies are still like that right because in the mornings if something's not ready our

crews are lagging behind those are lost hours as well and then when we show up and something's not ready that's a whole

nother story but a lot of the guys um a lot of the guys on the Facebook groups

talk about you know showing up and when something's not ready or if something small is in the way then they just walk

away from that job so they're kind of

making the problem bigger right because it's either you know I'm I take 20 minutes and move these few things or I

just walk away and lose all that labor for the day and a lot of the a lot of the guys out there

will just be like up that's not mine I'm not doing I'm not moving that well that's pretty uh that's a that's

interesting to talk about because just my quick take and is

if it's egregious but if you could move it like using your example of 20 minutes it's pretty silly to walk away from that

20 minutes of hard work earns you the ability to do eight hours of your

profession um I realized that it was probably someone else's job and there's probably

other things to consider but come on like and I know it happens too Daniel

you're you could the Facebook group seemed to be pretty ripe with that kind of conversation what's your thoughts

Jose on on what Daniel just talked about so so I agree with Daniel right like I

had every situation is individualized um and yeah we've been on both sides of

that 20 minutes of moving things like mood right depends on your mood right

part part of part of the issue is that as an industry we don't have like a set

of standards in place we don't have a system in place like a big giant template a holy grail of flooring to

follow as a template so therefore the the systems there is no trickle down and

then as far as the the items being in the way and you know GC thing it's ready

it's not you have an installer or as a crew leader or whoever showing up at the job

site understand that there might be very minimal effort um involved into making sure that you or

your crew or your guys have a full day's worth of work and you can still remain profitable

um and I think that goes back to not having the systems in place which means you don't have a contingency plan

in place if you don't have any contingencies in place like plan a plan a is this by plan b c and d is this

it just makes it harder to have those readily available uh if they're not

talked about beforehand or readily available if your mindset is not readily

available because going in after some bad jobs and seeing that or working with a general

contractor where that's their normal and you're like you know I've had enough of this I'm done yeah every time I go to

this contractor's project it's always this way yeah I'm done I'm out of here you know and

I think I don't know when our turning point was but we did start looking at it a little bit differently

like take pictures of it get out of the way we'll uh you know we'll raise the issue

but we're gonna keep moving forward well it just helps out in the in the big

picture right because we've been on projects where that's happened we take pictures and then they come back to us

and they're like they try to complain about something it's like whoa what you complaining about look at what we did

for you already yeah we went I I uh I share your guys's

uh fight and the the result a lot of times we'll have the guys take pictures

and load it up into our software and then um not only do you have it later a lot

of times and I would give this advice to any flooring company if your hat if it happens more than once or twice and

you're on a bigger job where it's going to be months spanned or something everyone gets amnesia at the raw at the

end of the project and forgets all these no I I would encourage to send uh notice

of delay to your GC uh we we have a template letter uh it's

just a notice of a delay of delay and we tossed a couple pictures on that PDF we actually put it on the PDF and then send

it to him just say notice that delay they don't like it but you've done your job and if they call you all mad say

look man I'm not doing nothing I'm I even I'll even move this stuff today but

I'm just telling you you're delaying us they don't like that uh they tend to clean up a little better after you've

done that a time or two uh but the ones that don't you get down to the end of the job and they're like you're behind

you're behind and you're gonna get liquidated damages right if you say listen I've sent you eight

delay notice notice of delay letters um

there's no reason to to elevate this into a uh worse situation but I'm pretty

sure that I I have the documentation I've alerted you to the delays I've checked all the boxes on the contract to

make sure I'm protected so that's my only goal let's work together to get this job done sir but at the end of the

day that's what it's for right Jorge right here he's on LinkedIn he says that uh he gives

if it happens on a regular basis he only gives the contractors you know twice he I'll do it twice from then on you're

paying me for whatever I'm moving yeah and we we share that I mean a

couple of times you send him a notice that you know I'll do it a time or two and then I'm like I'll tell my manager

send a notice of delay um and if you do if we do that if our

managers execute on that just putting you in a more risk off

situation when it comes down to the end of the job we particularly have to deal

with this in in flooring right I mean still manufacturers I I actually got

into a lawsuit long time ago and I wasn't being sued I was just a witness on a suit uh but it was the steel

manufacturer had delayed a project or the steel the steel subcontractor had delayed a grocery store project we were

doing in Wichita by four months and they did not end they did not change the

end date and they uh as usual tried to shrink everybody's

durations down to make it happen put us on three shifts we come in it we work

they wanted us to work from like seven to three four to like two or something

like that and like this crazy not even real first second third shift is like weird shift but three shifts every day

for three weeks to get the job done on time I was like okay well we we need to

change order for the additional labor this is gonna well you're still getting they're

separate Crews you shouldn't be in Crete incurring overtime or anything I'm like yeah you're putting me on weird night

work stuff and the crews aren't near as efficient and you know you go through all that but the point is is that

General Contractors no offense you guys are our clients if any are on here and we don't hate you we love you but the

fact is is that they're trying to hit an end date and be damned if everybody's

durations have to shrink down because something happened with the steel or the

earth work or whatever the problem was on this one as I said it was still the still erection

um but yeah so and your your comment Daniel about

um employees what do you guys do when when a job cancels for your employees what what do

they well that's that's what I was gonna kind of get into too because you talk about like Toyota and the automotive

industry when they have these huge factories and if something goes down over here they have placement like

there's always something to do right and that's kind of what you have to to look at

in your business as well because are you on the job site today no but you

know can you clean the van can you organize this can you do something else and take that off the plate that you

don't have to do later and we've been working on that so um like there's been times where

you know stuff happens it falls through or or you you have to push something up and then you don't have anything for

tomorrow and it's like we've got practice boxes out there we've got a warehouse that you know

um we don't have a warehouse guys so if we're not the ones taking care of it then it's a huge mess so we we tell the

guys you know everything is a team here so if you guys aren't doing it guess who

who has to do it yeah and you know that just puts more stuff on us so if you

have the opportunity to come in here and do some cleaning and organizing and learn where stuff goes let's take that

opportunity let's you know bring a box down spend half the day cleaning half the day learning a cut that you have

been uh struggling with you know work on some bass work with the material you've never

worked with before do something repetition you do try to find something that can be

productive in either training or setting themselves up to be more efficient because what you mentioned a lot of it

is right back to efficiency cleaning your van and getting it ready is gonna make it more efficient on on your your

work we can all agree on that I know because you guys installed my installed I guarantee you organized van where I

can go grab uh patch trial and not dig through 17 buckets underneath stuff like

yeah it makes it more efficient but so you you find uh placement for them guys

you find something we do our very best yeah we're trying to find an uh opportunity for them to to do something

like that yeah you try to keep some back burner projects that you know are are I want to say willy-nilly right where uh

the customer or the client you can get in here anytime no notice like an empty Suite uh and a strip mall that may have

you know they don't have uh attendant ready yet but you know that there's some demo or some string or some grinding

that's got to be done try to keep those ones on the back burner but when you slow down and a project moves for a week

or two weeks you can burn through those little projects fairly quick and once those are done you have to you have to

build those back up those are those are hard to find when you're not operating from volume and you're more or less

trying or doing your best not to overload your schedule for the crews that that you have available or the

guide you have right because you don't want to overwork them but you don't want to underwork them uh so those are the little diamonds like

that are kind of hard to find but we do get lucky with those through the year and

like Daniel said though if that doesn't work out we have nothing there nothing available then you know you you got time

to lean you got time to clean you gotta there's just just get to get better um at the crap and some guys are all for

it man some guys just rather stay home and they all make money and but then complain that they don't make the money

and you know it's not this is this is in general as far as what we've experienced over the the

years in the industry we've all the way back to when I worked um you know at the other company this

everybody's different everybody's wired differently some people want to get better and get the practice and people

are content where they're at you know and I wish somebody had practice boxes for me when I was uh getting I was gonna

say like the training piece I never experienced anything like that when I

was working by the irf we didn't know if the job got canceled you just went home we didn't have vacation pay now that you

just went home

and when Jen zern actually has a she said something on the chat

uh you know kind of comparing the the industries and how they're

they're oh yeah I see friends to compare right but if you look at the automotive industry the the consistency and work

performed day to day but it's it's the same thing right like I said if you're not over here you can

be doing something else and that's what she said she said uh they told their crew if you got time to lean you got

time to clean I love that Jen I'm still in that I'm just telling you right now

if you got time to lean you got time to clean uh yeah so I'm looking at that too

Daniel she just uh brought up we need processing protocols for

um increased efficiencies right and we could talk more about those uh opportunities uh maybe on the panelists

talk uh there's some some ideas and and things I think that could be executed on immediately in the processes and

protocols area I think also I'm not I want to be clear I'm not trying to compare our industry to the automotive

industry I think everybody got that I I realize like that's a juggernaut of a

machine they're in controlled spaces if you're on this line and that line goes

down you just simply go over to this line or to another place and so I realized that but Daniel brought up I

mean in in Jose you talked about as well is that we can have them uh train more

clean the van organize their vans take a course like what about

you know cim those types of courses like this is that's a good chance for Education

um it made me think like dang what if I put together like some training courses for the crews because we have our

training portal uh that on down days sit in the conference room and and go

through these trainings and complete the trainings even though it's online stuff a lot of what we like to teach on our

hourly Cruise because most of our hourly guys are highly highly skilled hand guys but we always want to continue to teach

them how to be um you know have the right attitude in dealing with difficult people in

difficult scenarios so training is a great way to do it and so is uh you know I had a guy

um when was that that would have been right at the beginning of covet actually uh we

just repainted a a big portion of the office and had the guy's doing painting um we didn't you know hindsight's always

20 20. I wish I would have just uh you know had our uh uh uh installation managers

pull down the box and do more training but even painting uh you know we just

tried to keep them busy but that's still um do you guys

put your hour make sure your hourly crew stays busy and then supplement with subs or does everybody isn't all equal

opportunity because we always look at like we're gonna keep our airlies busy and then any of the other work is going

to be done by sub so we don't have a lot of downtime except for an extenuating circumstances on the hourly Cruise we'd

do the same thing we do keep the guys busy um there are certain things that we

don't touch like uh we weren't busy when we was at like a week or two ago but it was a wood

refinished job and we don't do wood refinishing so there was no way out we were going to be like all right we're

just going to take care of this now yeah you know what it's a little slow

I'm gonna start window tint right no I get it um

you know at least one thing with the hour at least is you have they they're they're in a more controlled position

Subs aren't and and right and most I I didn't have the subs painting my office or sweeping the warehouse right I had

the hourlys do that because I wanted to get there keep their hours up and when it got slow but

you don't do that for Subs so we have to consider and I'm I'm not saying we're

we're not going to come up the solution right this minute or whatever I just wanted to pose the thought-provoking

question of how can we increase our um increase our efficiency

maybe that's only 10 but anything any portion of 4 000 work weeks would be

better than nothing so can we do it and how can we do it and what are some ideas and let's get a panel together to have

an open discussion that may be result in some new stuff the new uh approaches on

how we do business that we could Implement quicker than waiting for uh

the the new wave that's coming in something more immediate let's fix the

the stuff that we have now become more efficient we talk about it all the time from the tools when we talk about tools

and equipment what's it based in efficiencies right I mean like having a

good a good grinder or the the right you know the right tool for the right job because it's more efficient and um

efficiency is what justifies the majority of the purchases and the majority of the investment into the company

um you know you're not you don't buy things well maybe me sometimes but you know buy things

because they're cool looking all right but uh you buy things because what it does is it gives you time back

and you know you get more time back the more efficient you are uh the more efficient you can become the more

efficient tools can make you um or even the right person can make you

um you have the tendency to invest more into that aspect and it's just one of those machines right

like efficiency is is the oil and you got to keep you got to keep that machine going

and a lot of the times we're talking to to guys who are always

in the field right they they're they're working 12 hours a day they're coming home and then you tell

them hey you should work on efficiencies and they're like man that is not something that I want to be working on

right now it's just a lot of the times uh

especially like I well I always refer to the groups right because I see a lot of conversations happen but anytime someone

asks a question it they always come back with not always most of the time majority of

the time these guys come back with a dumb answer that don't doesn't make sense anyways or well if you don't know how to do that you shouldn't be doing

that it's like man like it's it's the same thing if that's why we're doing this and talking

so that way other people can realize hey if they're

looking at it this way maybe I should be looking at it this way and working on myself at the same time because

we're not perfect and we're still working on things right so that that's what that's what it is it's taking the

industry where it is now realizing that something has to change for for the new

people to be more attracted to it changing that and then bringing them in right now what's happening with the fcef

and and they're kind of pushes they're just trying to bring as many in as they can

without fixing what's wrong already yeah and then they're in that Silo of

bringing new in we just we're leaders here I've accepted it like I'm a I've

been a leader in my company for for years but from the industry perspective we're we're standing up and trying to do

something some people are following our lead that makes us leader so let's accept that and

let's go to the the fact that um operational efficiencies from from

the industry standpoint is personal efficiencies is another leg

down or another um another level up from that my my son worked at

uh Amazon for a short time uh he was between jobs and flooring and

now he works for an excavation company as an estimator uh but he worked at Amazon for maybe four or five weeks

something like that they train on which way to turn to grab

something me you want to talk and I'm not saying we need to do that so I'm not say but it's

interesting when you look at these really like extremely efficient

Industries and businesses there there's something we can learn from it like they

teach you you turn this way and you grab here and they have everything at certain levels so for safety and efficiency and

green light red light blue light for different things that you grab put here do that like it's all about efficiency

and it and they the only metric the main metric they measure when you're out

there uh I think he was called a packer or a picker one of the two there's someone that

worked at Amazon on the call like correct me I think it's a picker but

when you um that you you they they uh judge you on

how many items you pick in an hour and and uh how many like mistakes you made

in an hour on your picking and and they're they're monitoring your movement and everything uh it's really

like we're not getting there and I'm not even suggesting we go there I'm just saying think about that like think if

they can be that efficient surely we can get a little more efficient and uh as an industry as an entire labor industry

um you know I got a call this morning uh maybe I don't know two hours ago so it

wasn't really morning uh but it was hey man uh I ain't got any work from a crew

that I haven't heard from in years probably two years and uh I ain't got any work you got any work

I'm like that's an inefficient way to try to find

work too because like how do you what are you gonna call 30 of us until you

find something I mean that's the only way that that's how you do it right now but there was only a platform where you

could find what really means yeah there's only something available for that

very true like we know that and we've gotten to you know jumping on maps at go carrera's

uh uh a very efficient way for installers to find new work but the the interesting thing with him or

the interesting thing I just realized was he's going to call somebody until and then go to the office and talk to

people until he finds a job so there's these times of desperation when it starts to slow down I feel like

I've talked to a lot of people this last month or so it we always we were everybody was so busy and it does seem

like everybody's starting to slow down a little bit uh part of that's probably winter another part of that is just I

think that the economy is cooling off a little bit um but it's interesting to me is that

there when time when they don't have when when a sub doesn't have any work they'll go to a lot of links to get it

you know what I mean a lot of links to find it um but trust me I understand that firsthand

yeah we call it scramble mode man like when things get shifted so bad and you you don't have a a plan B plan C right

scramble mode like you know I think for one to actually I think it

was this year when we had a large project um that was going to soak up everything we had on the labor side so and again it

put all the eggs in that one basket and it slid them up and I found out like like four days before our start date

foreign

the economy and stuff right and you got to kind of play off that too and it's

almost like we kind of should have seen the writing on the wall because there was a few months ago where uh we do a

lot of Hospital work right and one of the hospitals put a capital freeze on everything and projects just started

falling off and you know when the last time that happened was coven

so well they follow Trend too and and that could help anyone be more efficient

as as following the right tread and it's funny you mentioned the automotive industry of the automotive industry is

actually one of the main components that actually sets the trend I'm spending as well it's one of the the top industries

to look at if you aren't following trends you said Automotive right yes

so is that on delivered cars or what what production production right so if

they in production of the number of vehicles is dropping

um that means that factory production is going to drop which also means that spending is going to drop because the

factory industry is a lot of the factory industry is our is the modern day coal

industry I I believe right like without cold back in the day people couldn't operate their the heavy

machinery no trains were running that means nothing was being delivered nothing was being delivered that means the world yeah not much not much was

happening right so I just kind of look at it like that I mean that's only my assessment by comparison that I did if I

had like right now two seconds ago but that's uh one of one of the industries

that uh some of the local groups here follow for um spending trends for the economy

gotcha

so I was just reading a comment it just it was uh from Jen again just kind of

clarifying that you know it is tough to compare industry to

Industry directly I'm just saying uh I think that if there's one industry that

can be that efficient you can borrow something from them right yeah there's there's just some light to be seen

there's exactly there you can borrow something from them some of the and at least it should encourage us that

we know that there's Industries out there that are that efficient we can realize and and look

at the end of the day we're just having a conversation a good conversation and in a in a month if we had a a good group

of panelists together and we're all just kind of going through this and and there's no clear like way to do

it at least our brains are thinking creatively about solving what we know is a problem

I think Jen knows a little bit about efficiency too I think she knows somebody that's very close to her that might have made a spreadsheet on

efficiency fuel efficiency and dollars saved by switching from one type of

vehicle to another now just just throw that out there really

from switching the gas to diesel yeah I don't remember exactly what vehicles

but I do remember uh her making fun of MJ because he's a spreadsheet master

well the um

sorry let me shut this thing down so anyway the um the the labor side of of

our industry we we get the three of us talk every week about how we're dependent as an industry on

the guys putting the stuff on the floor guys and gals putting stuff on the floor and if we can train them better and make

them more efficient and I feel like the reason that it's such a to me a a great

I uh thought process or something to think about is we are getting better I I

feel like you know a lot of the organizations out there they're standing up and doing stuff I mean there's new

organizations that have been formed over the last few years but they can't there's not one organization that can

solve every problem you know what I mean when it comes around to that so if Jim and fcef and Kate and them are working

on bringing in new and you got CFI you know ntca tcna you know not tcna but uh

nwfa and these organizations um training them up

they they can't be everything to everyone um so we're having the efficiency talk

and see what we can do about increasing our labor efficiency even if we could

get some good ideas I have some I'd love to share that with the panelists here in a month I know you guys do uh Jose and I

talked a little bit I know we've talked kind of chatted about this in the past so right I think we kind of tipped all

around the subject a little bit right because because we know that we can be better and nobody likes to point out

nobody likes to point out or admit weaknesses unless it's going to be the topic and it's the the conversation is

going to be beneficial to somebody for some bodies right but um it is the sad truth in our injury is

that we could all be more efficient at what we're doing and you just uh you just made me think of a a good point

um with all of the what the fcef is doing as far as bringing in uh new talent and younger uh more able-bodied

uh individuals to add to the industry to kind of help mitigate the uh shortage

what are we going to do if all these people do join and they are trying to be successful and we don't have

the efficiencies in place to help them Thrive what what are we going to do like

you know that brings up do you guys remember I know you guys were both in the

um the women in flooring uh where was that

at if I convention do you remember uh it being brought up

that the young people aren't lazy they're just looking for the easiest

most efficient way efficient yeah it came up today too in that uh that Summit

I was attending and um the guy who broke it down uh is studying like a

Neurology in the brain like there was there's I wrote some notes now there's a way that he broke it down to

to make more sense he said the the old brain right like the the evolved

brain so we take our brain way back it wants to find the easiest way to do

something doesn't mean and we perceive that as lazy now right but the brain automatically wants to find the easiest

way to do it another word for lazy or easy is

efficient so no perspective on on how you want to view it yeah and

the younger generation grew up with some of the most efficient ways of doing I

mean we can send emails and uh phone calls and

let people know where we're at and like this thing is got more power than the

space shuttle has sent us to the Moon you know and they grew up with that

efficiency in their hands and so it doesn't surprise me that they look for those efficiencies so to your point

Daniel I'm coming full circle here is if if we've been told and it's been uh

reiterated that the younger generation looks for those things should we not as

an industry then also realize that we have to approach uh our labor shortage our labor problems

uh from that efficiency lens as well I I

think I said this earlier but I think it's just simply irresponsible for us as an industry to not consider can we can

we become more efficient first I know we're adding people in but if we have the 10 000 Crews that we just talked

about which we can agree that's way low but that's what to use if we had those

10 000 Crews and we can make them more efficient just by filling their dead dead hours

if we can do that to some measurable number that increases our ability as an

industry automatically so interesting conversations guys

um we got like

Luis uh is on here and this was a while ago and he thinks

that we would get more people interested if a lot more people would actually

classify them as employees as opposed to just 10.99 and having them

deal with everything and we've we've touched on this you know previously too um about young people knowing that hey I

don't want to work for you on the 1099 because I know I'm going to have to pay my own taxes at the end of the year and

that's not something that that they want to do so I I think he's right there um I tell you what I'll hire you if you

want to be an hourly employee I that's the hardest position I've had to feel I mean literally probably seven or eight

of the few hundred Crews we have came from being our lease and they came

to me and said hey we want a sub who am I to tell them no you're not doing that and that's totally fine it's

just because we we know we have an emphasis on training and stuff like that and when you can get in with a company

that's gonna send you to training or train you themselves why not go learn as much as you can before you go out on

your own Point well taken because they are awesome Subs the ones that came out of

our hourly crews are awesome so that's a damn good point I mean um man just everything we're

talking about right now kind of Blends right into what I said in all day

all day um you know they they took they just did professional sports right just for a quick uh comparison is uh do you

think that uh Kobe stopped practicing once he made it to the NBA you know do

you think uh or along the blade there was a balance between Education

and Training education was uh uh learning the the why

um and the training was the the Hands-On The Experience because the training is the experience but if someone isn't

being educated whether it's Hands-On or efficiency

then they won't be able to apply that education to to the long term which is the training whether it's Hands-On or in

the field experience so and that that really um I like the format in which he

presented that it was it was a really good really good portion of today's session it was just for all of our

benefit what what um what was the um

I don't want to say seminar but was it a seminar what was you in today were you where it got you inspired it was a it

was an event uh by our local chamber um it was uh the uh the speaker's name

by the way is Steve Robbins Asian guy um really really cool cat but um the event

was for uh diversity and um and talent

in town yep so it was uh it was a lot of different walks brought

together for for one common goal and and everybody the basis was was all the same

subject but everybody had different views and their their different views helped paint one large picture instead

of individual pictures and and obviously that's my perspective right that's my take away from it but it was uh

absolutely it was a good event today that's awesome

Jen had uh and thanks thank you for your uh participation Jen this is awesome so

uh she said the next generation wants benefits they don't want to struggle like their parents and grandparents

um I kind of agree although I think Grandparents were were um you know pretty much employee union

like ours the subcontracting and flooring really caught steam in the 80s

and 90s and now it's like it is the way it is uh

but I I wonder what kind of benefits um

you know the installers at their own when when you

are the owner of your own uh job basically that's what a 1099 sub is they

own their job what kind of um opportunities can be

developed or something for uh for the the industry where Subs have some

benefits I I know there's options out there I know that there's you know group health insurance things that you can buy

into marriage in TCA or whatever I mean so I think

they're the opportunities out there I don't know that everybody knows about them um I know that because I've talked to a

lot of installers that have no idea or have had no idea in the past on where

to even go get trained let alone that those people who are training you actually if you're a member of them you

can get you know discounts on your um on your uh liability and work comp

insurance and you know a better um rate

for um your health insurance benefits and such but I would say that it there's

just just simply you can't have it all your way where if you want

benefits and those things go be an employee please I would love to hire

more employee installers I I know you guys good quality employee installers my hands up bring them in

the problem is we've had more Exodus and we pay well we have full fully paid health insurance

for for the employee we cover the health insurance 100 percent they have seven uh

paid holidays they get PTO based on their time they have all the benefits

anybody in our office has and they some of them have still left to go be a sub

and be a sub for us I mean it's not like they're even going to a different company they just want to own their own thing so

I think I would love it to to be a little more

uh on the hourly side but it's just not the reality so um how can we create I think part of it

has to be that the sub has to understand they are their boss they are the owner they are the king cheese go invest make

sure you're charging enough and get a health insurance policy for you and your your helper charging enough that's the

thing Nate says uh he says if efficiency is already built in most installers have

to produce as much as possible to try and make money at the going rate

he is 100 correct but that is efficiency on the individual level right I'm trying to pose let's

think efficiency on the industry level there's certainly Crews like uh don't

get any days off um and then two hours away is

equally qualified Crews sitting on their finger and leaning back on their thumb that nobody knows that is is off for

those two days or three days or a week right you know what I mean that could come in and help that guy not have to

work 90 hours that week and maybe have a Saturday Sunday off uh his point is

exactly what I or he the fact his uh accurate statement is exactly what I'm

I'm talking about there he shouldn't have to do that part of the problem is

in my opinion is the overall industry inefficiency so

yeah yeah and a lot of the the efficiencies have to be done

together right too many other installers out there think it's like you said there's a guy two hours

away that no one knows about it's not them versus us it's we're in the same industry Let's help

each other out you know come over here say hi we have guys stopping by you know just to hey I've never met you guys I

just want to come in here you know shake your hand let you know that we know who you are and we like what you're doing

just appreciate it more people did that and it's

all you got to do is come in and talk to us man we're not against everyone we're for everyone

people think that you know since we're in the position we're in it's I don't want to go talk to them they

think that they're better than everyone I'm not better we're not better than anyone we're just we're not anymore lucrative position we're not in any more

lucrative position either right well even if you guys were look I know you guys you're you're a humble you're

humble first off secondly just because you're really good at something uh does

not mean you think you're better or you're trying to get your message out there it's often when we're on camera and someone's watching on the other side

and we present ideas or we say things in a confident manner that it comes off as

uh you are uh you know you think you're better I don't think I don't think that's the case for anyone

to be honest with you I think you guys work really hard uh to

um I think you you guys people who are in your position work really hard to get

there through training and education and things so I think it's uh

it's a it's taking our lives man we've taken our lumps and we we will continue to take our loans it seems like to me

it's like the the caveman in the in the cave uh with a whole pile of food that's

gonna go bad uh but it's his it's mine uh and and I I I'm not sharing it with

anybody I don't it seems like there's a bit of that that happened I shouldn't

say it seems like there's certainly a bit of that that happens in our industry but um

but if you don't have any furniture inside people don't see it right so

um that's just the outside I don't want people to to judge and I don't judge

anyone in the industry by the outer shell right like give me some information I like to learn I like to absorb it anything that you can do to

help me become a better version of myself it's greatly appreciated um and and vice versa if I have a little

bit of information to share with you to help you become a better version of yourself even if it's for that day or

that week I wasn't happy to share it that's just here's how how we are how I am how I

that's how every every I don't want everyone should be because some people can't do that but it's just

it's nice to know that there are individuals out there willing to help and and because of those individuals

that helped us and those companies that that helped us along the way makes it easier for us to to want to help others

as well yeah and that that goes that's why we do it and that's why we're trying

to do it so that way you know that next Generation can come in and feel more comfortable with everything yeah and and

it was uh I just read that you know I think it was Jen again actually said that that something to the extent that

it's it's not fair to expect uh or to have a young installer to be a 1099 sub

you got my vote I know you got Jose I agree 100

you either need to get with that high quality established sub who has a

history of training themselves if there's anybody new watching on any of the platforms

get a job if you've gotten some lower uh you know some level of training or you want to be

in flooring get with a very well established a subcontractor that has a

history of training and taking care of their their employee installers

or get a job with a flooring company that hires employee installers until uh

like some of our guys over the years until you feel comfortable and if you want to be a sub once you are you get

not only are you trained in flooring but you learn some business aspects of this you know some of the business aspects of

our industry then maybe turn into a sub if you want or stay as narrowly you know we have plenty of older hourly guys that

work for us too you know um I agree 100 Jen and I had a guy call

the office the other day to talk to me and you know he said that he's been uh watching us talk and he loves it he's a

local guy he's probably I think he was from about 45 minutes away or something like that and he said that what he sees

um a real big lack in the industry is on the bilingual side because we don't have

a lot of bilingual people that are going to be able to teach so what he does is he's that kind of that Medium he's a

work room right to where he gets a lot of the work has the guys do it that don't really speak English well and

a lot of them come and talk to him and they're like you know we we don't want to work directly for you and he's like

you know that's fine and I want to help you out but without that communication uh you know a lot of these

companies will come to him and they'll be like if you're not here communicating with us we don't want to work directly

with them there's too much of a separation there yeah yeah and it's not

they're there's uh we have a sub that's that way too he actually hires

um uh you know guys who don't have the best English you

could talk to them and understand in a normal conversation conversation but if you're getting in the nitty-gritty

details of a project you know how you get it Gets Lost in Translation as they say

um you just can't quite get the point across or they can't quite understand you and he's been extremely valuable

over the years and hiring and training uh bilingual or

sorry like um people who are not bilingual or not uh speak very good

English and uh he's done a great job we need more of that right we need people

we need to bring it to the Forefront really because if you look at it we talk about you know the pricing and stuff and

then a lot of people in the groups always refer to well there's a bunch of illegals that are

doing this over here and you know they they always refer back to that and it's like but if if you just help them out

and make them understand then

and we can bring a lot more people in as well and bridge that you know Gap to

where we need installers but we need those bilingual people here

with us so that way we can actually bridge that Gap because he called me and he's like I'm like you I'm bilingual I'm

like actually I'm not so

one of our our installation managers are bilingual as well and so he's able to

you know even with uh some of our the the the the team leads on these for the

subs like you know the sub owner um you know they can have a little bit of

broken English and get through 99 of stuff but there's still that little some of that detail stuff that our guy has to

jump in and explain in Spanish to them and then it makes sense so you know if

nothing else out of this I realize the need to out of this last piece Daniel I realized the need to execute on

um translating a Spanish version of go Carrera immediately

I've seen I've seen the gears turning when Daniel yeah he probably needs facial expressions are totally change

you're like James they need to do something about that um my mom can translate don't ask don't

ask Daniel to translate it don't ask me to translate I use Google Translate you know what's funny if you talk about

that Daniel and I actually just inquired over to Megan at the chamber about some classes to go and and try to learn

because along with some of the guy education on Excel when he called me right and he he's

talking about it and I'm like it's really a comfort level thing because you go to some of these events and you see

someone sitting by themselves and usually it's someone that you know are they bilingual yes but do they feel

comfortable enough to bring that out and talk to you not really so you got to

kind of go out of your own comfort zone to to go over there and talk to them and kind of bring that out and let them know

that you know everyone is welcome in the industry we're not we're not trying to break everything out

and let them know that we need them right now more than ever and you know what it it doesn't always

get the boo heads put themselves in

uncomfortable position to join that group or or go to that um that event and

they just like the most important person about something that you don't even know until you start talking to Jorge said

that he started talking to you in Spanish and you were just like that I'm like foreign

it happens all the time and it well my wife my wife is Hispanic and and

she uh she you know people come up and just especially if we're at a Mexican

restaurant and they'll start speaking Spanish I said honey you just got to tell them hey I'm offended I'm Indian

and dude

it doesn't work it doesn't work no it doesn't get you through it well I thought it was always funny she's like

oh stop it but anyway well guys we've come to the end of our uh time here it

really flew today we're a little past which I never never mind on great

conversation like this

we're we're definitely going to be revisiting this numerous times right because it's it's going to be a constant

thing in the industry where everyone talks about the installation crisis what can we do where do we have to go and

without the constant conversation it's not going to get anywhere yeah instead

of just like uh like our GCS do to us when there's a problem on a job or the

the production they just send more guys is that the answer yeah always is that

always the answer no it's not always answer sometimes it is but that's how we're approaching the installation

crisis right now send more guys we just need more people yeah that doesn't

always work um you know if we do come back to this conversation I do have I do have a

little story that was shared with me a long time ago about efficiency that really stuck with me for for the years

and Daniel's heard it before um because it's something that you can't forget once you hear it well write it

down uh so what I'm proposing and we'll follow up uh through our media channels and and email to everybody but uh I'm

proposing we get a panelist of people whether it's some people from the SEF I

want to bring in a manufacturing I got a really good friend that was the head of spirit

uh which is the largest um aircraft subcontract uh manufacturing

company I think on the planet but certainly in the United States and the

so I know I could get her on she she under like she's that corporate level

person that's dealt with efficiencies in manufacturing so it'd be fun to have someone outside the industry come in and

talk about efficiencies and some of the detail stuff that they might do get all of our flooring guys in here maybe we

can get like uh you know some some manufacturers maybe president of uh EF

contract will join us or Mohawk or Shaw or one of them let's talk efficiencies

let's talk about how we can improve uh as an industry in that manner and I want to tell everybody thank you for your

contributions today YouTube rock I appreciate your uh

oh you guys are always so fun to talk to so okay

um thanks again and we will uh catch up with you guys next week and um be on the

lookout uh for and I'm sure a lot of people have dropped off now that it's a an hour and seven minutes long but uh if

you're still on here be on the lookout for some communication from us I want to get this panelist together and just have

a talk a a full-on full circle conversation

more stuff on social media too to try and draw the crowd I think it's been working out a little bit is there a way

for um is there a way for for other people to send in questions if they're not able to join the the live podcast or

or not able to be a part of it or a panelist if they're somewhere where they can send some questions that can be

brought up and maybe you can get a list of those together and and try to get some of those answered yeah as the info

I go Carrera right yeah you can do you can do uh

there let me give you some resources it's supported go career info go career

Ashland at go Carrera Paul at go Carrera Daniel ago Carrera these two guys at

Daniel or Jose at m i p f m i dot m i

dot team yes sorry so like

following mi.com too but like I said it's too long it's more efficient go the

short way all right guys it's all about the efficiency all about the efficiency I

appreciate you fellas and and to everybody thank you and we'll talk to you guys next week all right all right