Skilled Trades are in an all-out war for talent. Here’s how you can start attracting and retaining quality employees.

Electricians, Plumbers, General Contractors, and other skilled trades face a serious problem. As their best employees approach retirement age and phase out of the industry they quickly realize that recruiting talent to fill open positions is a significant challenge. In fact, there are nearly 500,000 more job openings in the skilled trades than there are workers with adequate skills for those roles, and that number is expected to climb north of 2 million within a decade [1]. There are numerous reasons for this shortage of new talent. One is the perception of the skilled trades among young people as inferior to those roles requiring bachelor’s degrees. Another is that women, who make up more than half of the potential workforce, largely view the skilled trades as “for men only”. [2]

Of course, getting more applicants is only half the battle. High quality applicants look out on a highly competitive landscape where hundreds of companies are competing for a limited workforce. Even if you manage to land the best of the best from the incoming talent pool, your work is not done. Your best workers could always jump ship to a competitor. The construction industry provides an example of this as Penn Foster’s 2018 report found that turnover rates have increased to 43% from the previous year, and that the average skilled trade worker stays with a company for under 5 years. [3] The cost of this turnover is no joke. Aside from the 20% of average salary that it costs to recruit, hire, and retrain, a business owner may also have to deal with being understaffed and unable to complete work on time.

Limited recruits, lacking education on skilled trades, high levels of competition, and high turnover rates: the challenge they pose to businesses is daunting. What can you do to attract and retain talent in this atmosphere and set your company up for long term success? Let’s break down 2 core areas where you can make changes that will have an impact on your struggle for talent.

Rework Your Recruitment

To start attracting talent you will need to rethink the way that you are pursuing new employees. As we mentioned before you will have to fight back against some preconceived notions about trade work. Years of parents and society pushing for young people to get 4 year degrees has denigrated the skilled trades in many people’s eyes. But now might just be your chance to fight back. Over the last couple of decades, college costs have steadily climbed, student debt has become a bigger problem than ever, and many Americans are reconsidering the value of college. A Gallup poll in 2019 revealed that just 41% of adults between 18–29 considered a college degree “very important”, and the perceived value of college dropped across the board [4]

How can you take advantage of a generation whose opinion is starting to shift on 4 year degrees. Here are a couple ideas:

Sell Yourself

With college costs looming over their heads, the skilled trades offer something unique to students. You can offer them both immediate wages without debt, and advancement within a reasonable time frame. The skilled trades often have starting wages above $20 an hour at entry level, and median salaries after 4–5 years of apprenticeship and experience eclipse the U.S. household median income of $61,937. [5] Many people have a misconception that skilled trades have very poor pay. In your recruitment efforts at high schools and community colleges, make sure you communicate the reality. It is an attractive reality for young people today, and bringing in new talent is one way to set yourself apart in an industry struggling with their age demographics.

Apprenticeships and Internships

The quality of your employees matters. One of the best ways to guarantee they have the skills required is to develop their skill sets yourself. You may already have some form of apprenticeship program, but consider expanding it. You could partner with a local school or organization to allow both students and fresh graduates an opportunity to experience and learn what your trade is all about, and create an ideal pool of candidates for your roles while you are at it.

Keep Your Finger on the Pulse

Attracting fresh talent is only half the battle. Realistically you will also need to compete for more experienced talent, currently employed in the industry. You need to stay competitive to have any chance at attracting the best people to your team. Make sure that you are staying up to date with the current market wages for similar jobs and adjusting your offer accordingly. There are other ways to supplement your offer that we will cover later, but the foundation of any job offer is to at least be on par with the competitors around you.

Another way to ensure that you are setting yourself up for success in recruiting and retaining talent is to turn an eye inward and examine what your current and former employees think of what you offer. You could include questions like:

• What do you want most from us as your employer?
• Do you feel like you have what you need to do your job?
• What do you think we could do differently when it comes to how we run our team?
• Do you feel like you get more back from this job than you put in?

You should also make sure to conduct exit interviews with any employees that leave. The reality is that you will lose some people along the way, but understanding what motivated them can give you insights into what changes you need to make. Whether that means hiring different people, or changing something about the role or its benefits.

A Quick Note on Job Fairs

One of the best ways to reach these individuals looking for transition is with Job Fairs. Many skilled trade companies are already conducting job fairs, but one important thing to note is that currently employed tradespeople may not be able to make it to a one-day event. Consider expanding your job fairs into multi-day events and offer time slots on weekends and in the evenings to make sure you are attracting as many applicants as possible.

More Than a Job, a Career and a Culture

Our second core component for successful talent attraction and retention is to realize that you can offer people more than a job and paycheck. Whether you are actively architecting it or not, your company has a culture. Culture is complex, deriving from your core values, your mission, your leadership, and your ability to align and engage your team. In 2021 and the years to come, your culture and the opportunities you give your team to develop within your organization will shape your hunt for talent. As of 2020, millennials make up nearly half of the working population, and they place more value on things like personal growth and having a ‘why’ behind their work than traditional values like salary and benefits [6]. Disclaimer: as we previously mentioned, this doesn’t mean you can afford to undercut your competition. Today’s workforce still expects fair compensation, but your company culture and development can be the component of your job offer that sets you apart, and be the core of a strategy that helps you retain your best people.

There are numerous components of culture to consider and we have a number of articles on organization health and culture you can reference, but here are a couple of areas we think skilled trade organizations should focus on:

Safety Culture

In most cases it is safe to assume that if you run an organization in a skilled trade industry, you have at least given some thought to safety. After all, electricians, plumbers, and contractors alike operate in conditions that present significant risk of both personal injury and property damage. Consequently, the average contractor has probably purchased some form of workers comp insurance and may even engage in some safety training. But wait a second, what does safety have to do with attracting and retaining employees? More than you might think. Several studies on jobs with moderate to high risk of injury such as mining, construction, and manufacturing have tied the perceptions of an organization’s dedication to safety employee turnover intention. In fact leadership on safety culture is a statistically significant predictor of talents intent to leave or stay [7]. This research backs our findings as our ExergyPro safety team works with clients to transform safety culture.

Employees don’t just want to be covered by insurance, they want to be in an environment where their safety is a priority to their organization. Focus on driving safety from the top to the bottom of your organization and creating an environment where employees can thrive. It will be an asset that will serve to attract talent, and retain the talent you already have.

Development

One of the most powerful things you can offer a potential employee is that their job will offer more than just a paycheck. Today’s workforce, more than any generation before, are looking for continuous career development and growth. There are many ways to implement this depending on your organization’s resources. Take your employees to an industry conference to discover the latest technologies, new materials, and innovative processes that can change the way they work. Intentionally give team members opportunities to take on projects they haven’t before. One example might be an electrical contractor taking on a project that is heavily reliant on solar energy to give their team an opportunity to learn the nuances of those projects. Give your team opportunities to develop as leaders, taking on apprenticeships of their own, intentionally planning their route from working under a supervisor to supervising a project of their own. The options are endless, but being intentional about development and having a plan in place will allow you to use it both as a recruiting tool and asset to help your team thrive within your organization.

Alignment

Many employees jump ship in a highly competitive environment. Across the US, 70% of employees feel disengaged with their role, and more than half would leave for a raise of less than 20%. [8] Your secret weapon against those numbers is alignment. Think of alignment as employee engagement with purpose. It is the context an employee needs to answer ‘the why’. Why do I work here? Why does my work matter? Why do we provide the services we do? Why should I stay? Alignment means getting all of the individual roles in your organization to match up with your mission as a company and the reason you exist in your community. We have a full breakdown of alignment and how to start creating it, but to get started make sure that the leadership team of your organization has a clear idea of your mission: what do you do and why do you do it. Creating alignment will be impossible without a clear standard to rally around.

Stay Focused on What Matters

It is easy to talk about hiring and retaining employees and come up with strategies to win out over your competitors, all the while losing sight of what the war is being fought over — people. You are competing to build a company composed of the best people for the mission you are on. Whether that mission is to transform customers’ opinion of plumbing work, driving sustainable building projects in your community, or being the most trusted provider of electrical work, your goal should be finding people to fill your roles who are going to align with your mission and engage in the work. The workforce today is about so much more than a paycheck. Start thinking outside that box and identify what you can offer in terms of culture and development.

If you need a partner to help you identify the why and help you transform your organization around it, we would love to learn more about you and your organization. Just click here to get in touch.

References:

1. The skilled trades industry 2020 pain point — it’s not COVID-19. Gillmann Services. (2021, August 12). Retrieved September 21, 2021, from http://gillmannservices.com/the-skilled-trades-industry-2020-pain-point-its-not-covid-19/.
2. Kong, S. February 3, S. (2020, March 20). Why we need more women in skilled trades than ever before. Macleans. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://www.macleans.ca/work/women-in-skilled-trades/.
3. 2018 Workforce Development Report. Penn Foster. (2018). Retrieved from https://foreducators.pennfoster.edu/hubfs/WorkforceSurveyReport.pdf.
4. Hess, A. (2019, December 20). College grads earn 80% more-but only 51% of Americans see college as very important. CNBC. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/only-51percent-of-americans-see-college-as-important-despite-benefits.html.
5. Guzman, G. (2019). Household Income: 2018, American Community Survey Briefs. Washington, D.C.; Census Bureau.
6. Palm, B. (2021, March 2). Company culture is the key to talent attraction. Strategy House. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://www.strategyhouse.com/blog/company-culture-talent-attraction/.
7. Kwesi et al. (2016). Occupational Health and Safety Management and Turnover Intention in the Ghanaian Mining Sector, Safety and Health at Work. Volume 7, Issue 1.
8. Duggan, K. (2019) How Employee Alignment Boosts the Bottom Line. Brighton, MA; Harvard Business Review.