This week the guys discuss their methods and protocol for hiring, what works for them vs. what doesn't, and what new tactics they can try to make sure they are choosing the right person for the job.

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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

what's up flooring family welcome to the huddle coming to you every single Tuesday at 3

00 p.m Central to discuss maintaining forward progress in your flooring career

I say every single and uh except last week and a few times before we try to

make it though yeah I think we're hitting a 95 98 percent uh

hit rate that's pretty good with me today is Daniel Gonzalez from

preferred flooring via Nashville down there

down there hanging out with the protect all folks it sounds like yep I just got here uh

probably two hours ago three hours ago something like that so

I had enough nice so you guys are down there kind of I haven't even seen that one yet

gotcha all right I got up here I put everything together and then just went

and checked the pool out real quick and then hopped on well we appreciate you being so diligent

not leaving me alone today so uh today's topic is hiring and uh

training installers um look if we had the exact answer

um you know we we would be proposing the solution to the entire industry but I

think this is more of a discussion um about successes and failures on

um my you know what I've experienced uh being in flooring for over 20 years you

know and what Daniel and if Jose jumps on here uh what preferred flooring kind

of their their side I'll also speak kind of what it took for me to get in the industry so

um I want to open with this you know one of the things that I found is a good

common denominator on ins on good installers guys who have been doing it for quite a while and do good quality

work almost always they love the finished product like it's it's

that's what they love that's the part that they love they love like walking into a building or a home

and transforming it within days or weeks of them being there because we're the

fine uh finishing touch that was certainly one of the one of the things I still enjoy when I

go out um I just enjoy it vicariously through other installers uh who uh work for us

now you know I go out to a job site and I see something the before and afters

um still something that really gets me going and it seems to be a pretty common thread so to stand a reason do you guys

kind of see the same thing on your side Daniel like

I'm sorry I'm trying to get this link over to my brother oh gotcha

well I think it stands to reason if if this if this is part of us it's kind of like

an artist and seeing this thing come together and a project kind of come together from uh well

um you you unfinished yeah because you just think of people in general and we

like that instant gratification right we would touch on this numerous times and there's nothing better than being able

to see what you've done from the start of the day to the end of the day and

knowing I'm the one that did that right I think that's that especially like early on that's how it started with me

it's like that I always wanted to do flooring

absolutely not but there was that point where you do something and you finally do it yourself and you're like

I did that yeah dude it's a satisfaction of of completing something or doing

something that's kind of uh maybe a complicated layout or something that that finishing that product

um it's just something you can't get hey Jose it's just something you can't get

uh by pushing a button in a factory um or you know being on a simply line or

something like putting the same cigarette uh you know thing in a in a in a car for 40 years uh

so I think that you're looking one of the things in hiring installers you're looking for someone who finds

satisfaction in completing things and you can formalize and this is kind of

geared more towards employee installers so uh for everybody who use Subs we use

Subs they do too but for everybody using Subs uh this is probably more uh pointed

to the employee installer side but finding people and asking the

questions that can in an interview that can kind of bring out that like do you

how do you find satisfaction in completing projects or uh you know

what what's your favorite part of starting a project a lot of them will say finishing it you know

um so there's there's a lot of ways of hiring um we've done a bunch of different things from

the monsters and indeeds and things like that all the way to

um you know Craigslist and but I think Daniel and I was talking earlier I think word of mouth is paying the best out for

you guys and you know frankly it tends to pan out the best for us as well so

you know is there something to have in that lead yes sorry for being late guys I couldn't

find you can link up with my computer so I was about to try my phone and then it then it populated but word of mouth has

no worries it has been probably the best right because nobody ever wants to ever really let a friend down

um but it does happen and when it does happen you're always a little bummed out more than you would be if it wasn't a life uh

time friend right or someone you got to deal with the rest of your life but you know everyone's got to live their

life and you can only be upset for so long but it's one of those I'm here to learn for

it from everyone too because there is no foolproof way there isn't no

this there that's what I think I I wanted to point out this is an art there is no science to this

um we are trying a new method we're going to launch a web page it's going to have a questionnaire on the second page

and then we're going to send them through a video interview to try to weed out what we found when we

we go with the Craigslist or an indeed is you get so many people who are just

applying to trying to every single job that they see yeah dude and it's like a mountain of

applications and resumes and you might get two out of it maybe and that's if

you are diligent enough to stick with it and go through the entire pile and not start like

you know so I don't know that those sites are the best uh we haven't had a

lot of success on them we just get a lot of Tire kickers to be honest with you

but this is uh manipulate the the technology and use it and to their

advantage right like we actually get I think someone who hits from like people like across the country saying hey I'll

come work for you you know I have experience but then it's like

I can't pay for your relocation costs like we're we're not big enough to do

something like that and that's what someone's looking for they're looking for like

to to help them out so to come over here and start and we're just not not at that level to be able to offer something like

that oh well and even if you were it's really risky right because you pay the

relocation costs and you can do it in a way that

um you know is tiered we've done it before not for installers but for project managers

um but to be frank with you I lost 3 500 bucks not five months ago

um on a very that on that deal we learned our lesson like okay

we've done it this was was our third or fourth time doing this um first time we got burned this way but

the guy poofed after he got the money so we we decided okay if you can't

afford to get here then we will we're willing to reimburse your costs but not

pay for them up front so that's what I would recommend to anybody is if you are

gonna do it they they come get themselves there on their own accord

and then you can reimburse some of the costs whatever you guys feel uh you know you can work out but you know paying up

front has bit Us in the rear end we lost like 3 500 bucks you know to me I always look at how big of a job I have to do to

make thirty five hundred dollars you know we do the same you know what I mean and I'm like God dog I just did a you

know twenty thousand dollar job for free right or Twenty or thirty thousand dollar jobs for free you know and

um that's kind of how I quit in my mind so that's one thing I would say is like

reimburse travel costs if you are going to pay or help somebody relocate I also

say I I've never paid for somebody's uh complete cost like if they're in there's

a reason there in that dire of the street that they can't get here then it's they typically come with a ton of

baggage right and leave a bit that reimbursement we've been talking about that too with even with training because

uh we've just seen money fly out the window these past few years where it's

like hey we want to they say they want training and then you send them to training and then like they're gone and

that training stays with them so absolutely we'll do you know we're thinking about doing that reimbursement

to where it's like all right you you pay The Upfront cost and then you'll get it back you know on a weekly or monthly

basis that way we're not out of pocket for everything and then that way if you end up leaving tomorrow

that's not yeah expectation anyways yeah because because here's the truth like

you're not gonna get a non-compete on an installer to stick you can't do it I

don't care where you're at in the country how strong in in Kansas non-competes are pretty weak from the

way the legisl legislation looks at it like court cases and stuff uh plenty of

them get overthrown uh the courts just don't like to hamstring employees from being able to do their job and in the

skilled trades they they're they're not going to work so you're best from

working yeah that's like like well how are you going to have a stronghold over someone's uh career right like they've

earned that no matter who they've worked with we'll never do we'll never do that to anybody because even though

it's hard to accept the loss of the dollars and cents invested I know me as an individual I would

really really be upset if I felt like someone was trying to control my direction yeah I wouldn't have it

yeah we'd never do it for installers we have done it with uh PMS uh but our

non-compete is written in a way that's very

um defensible because we only have six months and that's it like give us we just need six

months to get our feet around the projects you've sold and and contact our

clients and and you know make sure they know they're still going to be taken care of uh we need six months so it's

six months and no like I I beat one uh for a guy competitor of mine had a

non-compete on and we won but it was two years 250 miles

judges aren't going to uphold that this is people's livelihoods so uh

non-competes are good if you can get them enforced I wouldn't say they're good for installers I would never put

one on installer but um you know if you have a client facing

person like a salesperson or a or a project manager or something they can be enforceable I would just say make them

really um short time frame and small radius like

you can't make a guy move away from his home to me that just is ridiculous first

off secondly like it doesn't need to be two years six months is plenty of time for you to

get your your your footing with your clients and make sure they're taken care of and then that guy goes work for

someone else and starts calling your clients and trying to get work well you just got to be better than that so unfortunately that's just part of being

a business owner when we're talking about installers I mean you know the old way of hiring

unfortunately is starting to dry up and that's why I think this conversation is is is needed and that is the the dad

having a son coming into the business or a couple of nephews or something that's is just

drying up man it just like I shouldn't say it's drying up it's it's

dried up and so we gotta find new creative ways to hire people and I know

that the fcef is doing a lot of good work so reaching out to them

would be a good thing uh coming down the pipe we have some some new things with

go Carrera that will help called jumpstart where any once we launch jump start

uh any uh installer in our Network can hire off of that jumpstart board but so

can company so if for example if jumpstart's good and you get a couple of new helpers that come on the jumpstart

board that have went through some level of training through the scef they'll go on our

jumpstart board and if they're they're close enough maybe you guys as a company can hire

them Stuart and Associates as a company could hire so we're trying to foster a

way to get new people in onto a board where we're not having to decipher through

line cooks and and and you know what I'm saying like right it's specific to to

our needs and our industry and that's everybody else has it they 100 have it

so I think there's some new ways that we're trying out at

Stewart Associates like I said if this works out I'm gonna share with everybody like

for free I just want more installers in our industry so if it works out for us I'll I'll be putting it on the Huddle on

exactly what we did and how you guys can do it and but we're going to spend the money to to to

you know test it out we think we got a good method um

and uh yes yes

when they're brand new it's hard to to qualify them right because they they still need to get a taste

yeah even if they've went through some level of training the success rate there you just gotta expect it's gonna be a

little bit lower because they they haven't been out in the field and really gotten a taste of what the what the

industry is is so but anything that starts to work

um I'm going to share so we're hoping that that we attract uh like in our

video interview we're asking questions and that only an installer would really know

and that's it's hard to Google like and figure it out quickly and the video

interview side of this is basically the the basic setup is there'll be a landing

page about the benefits of getting into the flooring industry and and and how

robust our industry really is but we need more uh installers and come one

come all regardless of sex gender race any of that please consider flooring as

a as a viable option for a career if they go through that and they fill out

our questionnaire it's just questions uh written questions they type in their answers that comes in and each answer

will have us a number of value to it and if they score a certain amount then we will invite them to a video interview

with that video interview it will be um

questions posed on the screen and then they answer them live just like this

but they only have like a minute so you can't you you're not going to be Googling and trying to find the answer

uh you'll run out of time what was the question again [Laughter]

so we try to make it tight so that they can't just you know Google the answer and you'll you'll know if they do really

uh but it's it's meant to um

it's meant to kind of weed out everybody and then anybody who makes it through that video interview would be offered to

come in for a final in-person interview and hopefully we get plenty of those

kind of guys um and we're we're looking for experience guys but we're also looking for people who answer the soft skill

questions well um like how how one of our questions for example is how closely do you feel a

employee should be supervised right we want to know do they feel like

they need that micromanagement or are they you got two ends of that spectrum

and we try to stay away from the two ends the guy that's like I don't want any management or the guy that's like I

I want uh I would like to have input on an hourly basis you know we're looking

for the guy that's a little more centered uh uh the the installer that's

a little more centered like until I know what I a good answer would be something like until I know uh what I

exactly what I'm doing uh I would love to have a resource to um to lean on however uh once I'm

proficient I don't see the need for heavy supervision that kind of a a deal

would be a good answer for example but yeah this thing is an art and we're trying some new stuff you guys got any

great ideas that uh taco party

for a taco dinner and then that's where the final uh interview is I don't know a

taco eating contest we've seen both sides of the spectrum where some people interview really great and then

those are the same people that don't even show up for the first day yeah and then there's some people that

kind of struggle just because that's you know that's how they are and then they come in and

it's like yeah this person is a worker then

yeah references are about the only way to get through that but even getting references anymore is tough you know you

call a company you better be dedicated to getting references because company doesn't have to answer you and a lot of

times you know they're busy and you're like the last person they care to talk to about some other installer that

worked for them back in the day you know and believe in that some of the references that they list are just family members posing as somebody else

and you gotta be able to kind of feel that out

ask the right questions yeah what is your relation to Mr Gonzalez for

example oh that dude oh man he's my ex-employee [Laughter]

well I I do know that you know don't quit like keep if you can one of

the reasons we're trying to do this a digital way is to have that that flywheel turning all the time and always

have candidates coming through um where it's really tough if it's

dependent on Personnel to do it um you know our CEO does a great job but

at the same time how many interviews can they go through in a week and still do his job you know so

I don't know I was getting on here hoping you guys you guys had the magic pill oh man there's no magic Pill Man

there is no magic pill you know but you know to to um uh LEAP program on what Daniel said

there or piggyback is the um he's right the people who do have all the right answers and all that those guys are in

there they're very from our experience it's been they've been very competent

and now that he said that it's making it made me go back through some of that process where they were too confident

right and the guys who were nervous afraid to say the wrong thing and bus up ended up being the ones that would that

worked a lot better worked out a lot better for for a longer length of time or are still here

um and I guess uh moving forward maybe that's the

understanding people skills right like someone who has all the right answers might have all the right answers because they've messed up that many times they

know exactly what to say now um and I never thought about it like that tell them right now so me empowered

we're kind of talking a little bit before we got on here and you know just mentioning

um people that already have experience and bringing them on and how a lot of the

guys are stuck in their ways and even you know we they come to us and they're

like we know you guys do great work I want to learn from you I want to be on that level and then two months later

they're like I just can't do this anymore because they get sick of us saying it's not good enough do it again

yeah can't believe in stuff like that no shortcuts look at this cut right here you can't leave that why would you think

that's good and you know that gives me some ideas on some more questions like you know if

something could take you 10 minutes doing it close to the right way but it's going to

take you 30 minutes to do it the right way which do you prefer which way would

you go yeah right well that's Integrity too right like almost posing at that like it's okay to

go the shortcut though that way they don't think the setup you know like um

it's like you know doing it the the shortcut way will still produce a great result but

doing it the uh industry recommended way um produces a warranted result which

which would you go to in in stressful times or something just yeah formulate

questions like that you know what I mean that's a good way to put it because sometimes sometimes the the way that it

looks the best isn't the way that it's warrantied sometimes yeah you know and that's that's what what sucks and some

people don't understand they're like oh it looks like this well I just do it like this well well that's not the right way and you

know that's a good question that's that's a way to to kind of sift through some of the uh

the corner to or the people who like to cut corners um well we're going to try some stuff

because I certainly didn't come on here with this topic and you know as some

someone who has all the answers I just don't it's a tough thing to hire skilled

labor it's obvious that's why the not just our industry but all skilled labor is short particularly in fluorine but

um so there's just not a right answer but I would say that it's it's about can some what we feel like and why we're

attempting this is to get some consistency you know in in the recruits that are

coming through and being okay not hiring every single person that comes across

like Bill if you can get a consistent um qualified in some manner anyway

qualified uh applicant then you don't it you don't have to just take the first

one you get and that's also a knee-jerk reaction that I think a lot of people do they get a guy that's come in with like

you said earlier Daniel you know 20 years of experience but he could have the the fact is it comes with 20 years

of baggage and it could be yeah if if they're not teachable and that's that is

one of our questions is on a scale of one to ten rate yourself on how teachable you are

and then we ask another question later that's similar but different which is are you a quick learner or do you need

more instruction right and there's no right or wrong answer to that question by the way uh that's a zero point

question meaning either way they answer it doesn't move them up or down it's just knowledge on our side

and I think that's where like these younger kids coming into the workforce right now it's harder because it's the

the participation trophy kids that are coming in right now and

it's they've always had that to where they didn't have to work for to earn

something so they think that you're just supposed to give it to them regardless of the way that you know they're working

or behaving at work and stuff like that so it just makes it that much harder

um because the kids that if you think about like uh like our kid they're in sports right

because we want them to be coachable being coachable you know converts over to being teachable

so it kind of goes all hand in hand but when you're just handed stuff like hey

good job even to the kids that were crying the whole time when you know you take them

out because someone else has the play it's funny you say that because yesterday I was late to my nephew's game

I wanted to go and help him out and afterwards they won the game and I gave them a little bit of like you know kind

of give him a little booster in the game because he's he's a little scared when he's up to bed and he he's timid he's

like hey what do I do and I answer these questions and he didn't do anything I said and then after the game they were

like uh this coach is like good job and I said don't lie to him like like if you tell him that's a good

job he thinks that he has nothing to strive for right like like you could tell him great effort but don't tell him

good job right hey guys I gotta run though because they wanted me down there like 10 minutes ago and I told him I was

gonna be like well thanks for joining today Daniel and fitness Dirk says that he just wanted to share

with everyone that he got an offer on a project 12 unit apartment lvp for a dollar a square foot and zero

dollars for prep that's all regional but that is very

laughable over here and after you said the the taco comment Jimmy said uh he's

had our tacos in salsa he's moving to Grand Rapids it's working right Mr Salisbury steak

let's go all right guys take it easy I wish I could all right see about the streaming but it'll just stay streaming

the whole time I'm gone no worries thanks for coming in put a timer on it I tried it didn't work all

right all right Bubba all right say Daniel well I think the stream anyway so

as we go here um you know the the hiring training

thing is like it's a complicated thing but do you agree that if if a mechanism can be

found to just keep the a flow going have you ever seen the move the show Suits

yes okay so you know they they every year that uh Harvard would have a

graduating class coming through this that law firm always gets the first look

so the the guys that were hired last year guys and the the people uh men and

women who were hired last year or in previous years are always on pins and needles when that new class comes

through and they're always yeah and and it seems a bit Cutthroat but I wish

we had some level of that in in our industry where it's like a consistent uh

free flow of installers coming coming through and um you know keeps current installers

striving um but also just allows for new people to

come in and get trained uh at this point I wouldn't let anybody go I'd just be hiring you know there's there's such a

shortage but but um interesting thought it is too and um

you know recently I was I was able to sit down with uh the mayor of Walker um where our business is located and uh

there was a young lady there who was working on his staff and they're they're trying to develop new ways to engage uh

uh local business owners right for opportunities and and she had asked what what are we missing and it just happened

to be that the the guy in charge of finances for one of the local schools was there too and I said

we need placement and tests at the the high

school level so that way people know what direction they should be going like higher education like if you're going to do it do it like I would never tell

anyone never to uh to entertain that but at the same time it was like if you're going for higher education what field

are you going to go into you have your gen Ed classes but what are you striving for

and it would it would help it would help uh create a better opportunity for success for everyone not

not just the individual the student the person but the community and even if if

they don't graduate high school right like at what age do they start doing that is it something that could be public and available to to push them

towards their strengths and say well you would succeed in these fields um and I think that's where yeah they

used to do that used to do competency type tests they did in high school back in the day whether you are you know

college material or not so to speak and that that was now that's non-existent

mostly because they don't want to hurt no one's feelings but the truth is not everybody should go to college I didn't go to college

I didn't yeah I tried I tried and then like they said that

I could make a living if I was attending so yeah sorry dude like you're telling me

that I have to like tell my family they're not gonna have anywhere to live because I'm just trying to better my future now I'll figure out a way

um yeah I know a lot of people who didn't go to college and there's plenty of multi-billionaires who didn't go to

college but if you're wanting a really good job and it's going to be you're an accountant or you want to be a attorney

or a doctor or or you know computer science stuff yeah College can be really

beneficial but I think it's a waste of money and a waste of time if you're going into

um and your heart's not really in the social services side of the world like a

you know a liberal arts degree or some crap like that uh or Jim you know gender

studies all this stuff I mean at the end

how is it going to help your future and um we've just gotten so far away from

that and everybody started going to college and we've talked about this on not only on this podcast but multiple

other podcasts talk about it all the time we know that problem but I'll tell you

one thing the AI revolution has started there's plenty of jobs going extinct

that just if you sit behind a computer you ought to be worried about your job in a lot of ways

um but they they're not going to be doing carpet or or tile anytime soon with AI I'll tell you that so get your

hand skills uh that's my point everybody you can't no one can ever take it away

from you no matter what hand skills you try to or what field you go into no one can take that away from you and that's

really what it is um so when you guys do hire somebody new do

you have a particular Training Method do you put them on some type of schedule or yeah so that's the hard one right

because you know we're not as as large as uh as most would think and a lot of

it when we hire we and it sucks to say it like this but we hire because we're in need of it we

don't hire as far as being preventative for for what's going on sometimes we do have the luxury of someone coming in and

we're looking we start we're starting to look and we find someone before the storm hits uh but usually it's like as

the storm hits right like one something's dying off or someone just happens to lose a job and they make a

phone call hey so-and-so said you guys might be her yep we are um and we kind of throw the guys to the

Wolves uh so to speak um you know it's you're gonna learn how to swim pretty quick right but then we

we've also went about like all right let's put them in the field a couple days then come and work in the

Box let's do some explanation a little bit of Hands-On training let's try to do that um I think we talked about doing

two weeks in a box here at the shop before they go to the first job tool education and stuff like that but

it all depends on their level of understanding and how we try to approach it we say all these things but then when

everything comes down down to down to the nitty-gritty we're like yep okay we were gonna have you do this but we

really need you over here now you know yeah people who do well we still yeah maybe

the only thing that that we do that's that's I think maybe outside the box a

little bit but um is we have a module we'll have them installed approve their level of of

ability um but at the end of the day man we still

do it the old way we put them with an installer uh we do circulate them through several of our lead installers

to find a good fit for them as well as a good um make sure that like you know some

guys really like tiles some of them really gravitate to carpet and that so but from

a uh but it's still the old way you stick them with somebody and you hope that they learn some stuff and um you

know we've got some really good installers that just are really crappy trainers and so a guy will get with them

and not learn anything over the course of an entire year so um my my answer is get them in in

you know plugged into some outside training entities if you can if you have a good resource locally

um and if not you know we found a lot of success in sending guys to protect all trainings send them to Nora

certifications and that kind of stuff so you just gotta lean on it we're actually

working on that right now as a matter of fact there's uh some things that came across the desk as far as uh kind of

offsetting some of the costs I think Daniel mentioned it early when I when I when I got on a little bit later but offsetting the cost of the onboarding

process and we're doing our best to uh especially in a nutshell what I just

did is I just submitted a lot of the training programs to the state of Michigan so that way they can be recognized

um because we found out that there is uh essentially there's grant money available um for trainings the problem is is that

it's more for Corporate America instead of construction America so a lot of what

I submitted is all brand new but fingers are crossed um and I just I just got word today right before the podcast that

uh we've made it through step four of the process and I think there's one more

step after that so we'll see if it's approved and if it isn't approved it's a learning process for the state of

Michigan and some of the uh the government funds and and how they allocate them and opens up their eyes as

to what's available so that was a federal Grant type thing yeah I think it's a state

Grant not a Federal Grant I think it's a state Grant so but yeah I mean

it's it's available and I didn't know that right so I had very few days to to prep

for it it threw a lot on my plate but I did it man and I'm excited to see what happens

um hopefully it helps us and it makes it easier for us to like you said to have

someone attend a two-week or five-week introductory introductory class with cfis or fcica or or I'm sorry fcef

so that way it can offset some of the costs and it's easier for easier appeal to swallow so it's not so much of a

you know here's your investment and we hopefully it works right that's what's been happening yeah

yeah the the hiring of uh the hiring of hourly installers you know Subs are a

little bit different that's why this is more geared towards uh employee installer talk but

um I think that make sure that if you are going to hire

um employee installers that you're treating them the same as you treat your office I remember and I I said early in

and on this podcast that I would you know I had some lessons I learned as an employee installer myself one of them

being that if you divide your your sales people and your project managers you

essentially your office from your field in benefits and you know they're treated

better in the office you're set in a really bad tone and so all of our hourly employee

installers have the same health insurance coverage that I have they have the same as anybody in the office they

get the same days off and holidays and and all of that stuff so they get to say

they accrue vacation time at the same uh uh the same rate frequency it's the same

rate um everything so I I remember like we got no paid holidays we got no paid

vacations but the office did and so I would say don't do that and if you are a

company that does that that's that's not good yeah yeah I will say nothing else but I I would say that's a

terrible thing to to do as a terrible model it is because we we were those guys who did

we recognized the difference in treatment early on and we used to call I

didn't refer to office guys as uh like they weren't we were a whole separate team it was them and it was us right

it's always their word against our word it was it wasn't a team uh effort and

oh we promise not to be like that and I think we've done pretty good I mean there's always instances where people

are like oh but you guys have all this and that it's like um you know

me being where I'm at I do have the the ability to to leave my station and come

back and finish my work right I do have that ability that is a perk of of working in the office setting uh versus

the field right you need to be in the field to get to get the work done and that that is there's nothing I could change about that

um however what they don't see is that if I do have to take off for an hour to go um take my kid to a dentist appointment

or something like that or go attend an event um outside of work I come back and work

until eight nine ten o'clock at night but if they leave for a dentist appointment or a doctor appointment they

don't come back and say all right I'm going to make up that time they well I'm just going to take the rest of the day off you know and

so so guys who are employees there's pros and cons to each it's just about having a mutual respect between your

office and your field and making sure there's not this clear like

you know office staff gets treated so much better than the field

um that's that's just to me that's the the way to to add

separation and adds this wedge between the two um I think you know that that's probably

you know at the very least about the lowest line thing you should do as a

company is make sure that you're the guys who are actually making you the money by putting the product on the floor

they're treated the same way just as Fair as your office is

um we all you know I'll tell you what same refrigerator here man we all eat on the same refrigerator so

keeping it organized and stocked up is uh is up to us but you know essentially

we all open the same door we all reach in and grab the same stuff so um I'll link it that way

yeah and I'll I'll you know the I don't want to keep beating a dead horse here because it's not like we're giving you

guys a bunch of revolutionary ideas and we are talking through this uh it's a

bit of a conversation but I would say that you know when

um when our if you can make your your installers

feel proud of what they're doing uh treat them fairly um you'll keep them we have a good uh

retention for installers at our company uh one of them is oftentimes the

installers come into our office to work when we're really slow in the field that doesn't happen very often but if a guy

um as opposed to sitting at home we'll bring them in the office and and have him work

um in fact we had a guy that had knee surgery and he was in the in the office for about oh four weeks or so and he

learned like there's it's not all rosebuds and you know sunshine in the

office it's stressful there's a lot of like pressure uh on the office staff you know

if you're an estimator you got time frames all the time if you're a PM you're always dealing with these

coordination and schedules and multiple project managers and superintendents on

projects and and the installers learn quickly like each day I get to go to one

job for the most part I mean sometimes you'll go to a couple but for the most part you're going to one job and you're

dealing with one set of people in any given day I could be dealing with seven eight or nine as a PM yeah yeah today

was one of those days for me actually my sister helped relieve some of my pop-ups

for today this has not been a the last two days have been really really rough on the schedule with

changes and other trades not showing up and people uh being sick and not able to complete

their tasks and you know and of course you put us in a weird position but

the magical fingers and phone calls of Jose got everything kind of squared up and figured out and we're back on track

good deal well I will report back kind of talked

about a little bit about what we're going to be trying at Stewart and Associates and we are going to give that a shot and we are going to uh

um you know if we have good luck with it we're going to share with the world so you know that's another question I that

I have is like um it I might know the answer but it might

sound like a dumb question but you know do larger companies with more capacity have to have a different uh template to

follow for the onboarding process than a smaller company right because um the reason I ask that is uh you know

the the dollars and cents and sustainability of a new hire is a little

bit different for someone uh who has a larger capacity versus someone who is a

little bit smaller um and and that's the question for the audience too like like seriously like I

that's I I want to know I want to know what everyone does if you have 200 employees versus 10 employees what

what's your approach were you at 200 employees at one point but now you're down to 20 or vice versa what have you

changed why did you yeah

yeah I'd like to know yeah I can only speak to I've been to

you know several conferences one of them being we're a member of fuse and there

was a guy that did a talk about a lot of the stuff they do to hire and retain and

man they it's it's a big company and they have they they they've got a team almost

assembled in in doing this so like it's obviously not easy

um you know but I I I know that the efforts you know it's got to be put

forth what do you do just not just you can't give up you got to have people so uh keep fighting a good fight and if

anybody is watching this on YouTube uh comment and tell us what you're doing

and um yeah let us know what's what's working for you and uh what what maybe

doesn't work for you uh be interesting to see some input on that so

with that my friend I think we're gonna close it out a little bit early today yeah I know without Daniel we're just

lost well it's a tough subject because it it crosses the line of a lot of the

subjects we go we go over every week there's some aspect of training and hiring to almost all of this and to have

this subject just be hiring and training um we probably could have afforded a few

more companies to come on and talk about this with us uh that would have been a good idea by me now that I have it after

the podcast but we can hit that in the future sounds like a plan to me

all right my man well have a great day and uh we'll talk to you next week and

uh look forward to to connecting again and you are going to some some shows

coming up so I I just want to say to the audience if you guys want to come out and hang out with us and maybe jump on the podcast we're gonna definitely be at

the fcef or I'm sorry the FCI CA slash CFI event in September

um we're also probably going to be at tsp coming up uh total Solutions Plus so

come check us out there and uh again if you have any any ideas on what's worked

best in hiring um whether it's like experienced guys or

just really good uh gals and and um guys that that you found that are not

necessarily the most experienced but turned out to be a great hire for you you know let us know

that'd be great all right guys well my man I should say

yes Daniel's already gone we will see you next week my friend have a good one

thanks everyone all right we'll see ya

thank you