A Builder, Plumber And Lumberyard Work To Solve Labor Issues

While the tech sector is experiencing a massive downturn and thousands of layoffs, the construction industry is investing heavily in capturing the next generation of labor, which means battling stigmas held by parents, students, high school administrators, and basically everyone who hasn’t been exposed to the industry.

“It all comes down to the fact that we’ve been absent and letting the schools decide what our kids need,” said Jon Girod, owner and founder of Washington-based Quail Homes. “When I was in high school, we all had programs on construction. Now they are all gone. It has been on our watch. The need hasn’t gone away, it’s worse now.”

He wanted to give back to the industry that has provided so much for him for many years, so he decided to create a way to educate the public sector about trade opportunities, and at the same time, bring in support from the private sector.

Since he started his campaign less than two years ago, he has been able to connect with many local school administrators to better define a scalable program. What he discovered is that most of the administrators are trained on the public path of college. So, he’s approaching them with a message to have a positive impact on kids’ lives who aren’t highly engaged in the “typical” school process.

Girod has a goal in his local area to get 10 schools committed to putting five students each on a trade track and believes the timing is good right now.

“Schools want to make a change and are open to trying different paths because not all students should be going to college,” he said. “Well over 50% of kids are not finishing college. This is a really big deal. This program can also keep kids in school.”

Girod presents to the schools opportunities for more hands-on engagement because he believes that kids sitting in the classroom just isn’t working and is a factor in the low success rates.

He sees opportunities for applied math and English, where students will learn those two subjects by installing deck material instead of reading the Odyssey. “They will learn how to comprehend so that it actually works,” he said.

He has talked with some of his manufacturer partners that have huge retention issues. He pointed out that his partner window and door manufacturer, Milgard, has to go through 25 people to keep one at the manufacturing facility, which has a big negative impact downstream on the already challenged supply chain.

A lumberyard takes action

Curtis Lumber, a New York-based building products dealer with 23 locations, had been wrestling with labor challenges for years when Doug Ford, the vice president of sales and purchasing, decided to take action. Working with his colleague Pam Stott, they established a cross functional task force to bring awareness about careers in the trades to young people.

Starting without a true goal, the team launched into meetings with counselors and superintendents from local high schools within the company’s geography of Saratoga County. The team quickly discovered the same thing that Quail Homes had – that the high school leaders were not educated around the trades. Meaning, they have historically followed a template of helping students achieve a four-year program.

Ford admits that the trade held some accountability as well because industry leaders were not doing a good job about talking to staff and students about the opportunities available in the trades, which is wildly different from the elaborate outreach that colleges have to communicate to prospective students.

So, the task force was developed to find ways to interact with students and make them aware of the trades. The group organized and scheduled opportunities for trade professionals to visit classrooms and talk to the students about different topics like building science and high-end custom homes, along with arranging for students to visit construction sites, and to connect with internships and job shadow opportunities.

Relating to the Kids… And Their Parents

The task force that Curtis Lumber is part of visits second grade classrooms to present about the trades, and gives the students opportunities for hands-on activities like assembling toolboxes.

Many times, students hear about the trades and get excited, but then they go home and talk to their parents and their enthusiasm quickly gets stamped out.

Industry leadership is also recognizing that parents’ attitudes cannot impact industry growth, so are also trying to educate and communicate with adults, while at the same time using social media platforms to start communicating with the students in a language they are open to and that they understand.

With the National Assocation of Home Builders report that there are more than 370,000 open jobs in construction in October 2022, shifting these perceptions is critical.

Translating to Recruitment and Retention

Ford explained that Curtis Lumber has not been immune to staffing shortages. The company has had a hard time recruiting, so they restructured to use ideas from the task force.

This has helped develop a lot of loyalty with customers because Curtis is working on their behalf and involving them.

“We do a lot of job shadowing,” Ford said. “We have a program for students to look at a sales career track, observe the estimating department, visit the kitchen and bath design center, and explore deck design in the project center. Really, it’s to expose them to careers that they don’t typically associate with a lumberyard and the building industry.”

Students and recruits also get to see the door shop and the manufacturing side of the business along with the logistic office to understand the thought process behind building loads and shipping lumber.

There is a niche of the construction industry that has even more stigma than the rest – plumbing. But, Bruce Kraynak, founder and co-owner of Systems Plumbing, a Colorado-based company serving new residential construction projects, is redefining the sophistication of the recruitment and retention process.

Kraynak started his plumbing career in the 1980s, and refers to that time period with residential plumbers as the wild west.

“I recognized if I was going to run a successful business, I had a lot to learn about business,” he said. “I wasn’t college educated, so I had a lot to find out about. I joined Vistage in 2003, started the company in 2001. I learned a boat load there.”

Vistage is an executive coaching platform that provides peer interaction, which Kraynak credits for a lot of his management success.

“Generally speaking, I was the dumb ass kid in the room,” Kraynak admits. “When you are in that position and you are humble enough, you can learn a lot. Having an insatiable appetite for learning is the best approach to management.”

His approach has evolved over the years as business grew, going from 2 or 3 concurrent jobs to 300 at the same time across the state of Colorado.

He says that the challenge is getting people to buy into the system, because he doesn’t have the luxury of picking off the cream of the employment crop with residential plumbing. Kraynak works hard to build a narrative around his company culture along with the industry as a whole to defend all the negative that exists in the public.

“A lot of that is culture, not top-heavy management,” he said. “I respect the work that my guys do, because I’ve done it all. There is nothing that I ask my employees to do that I haven’t done.”

He also leads Systems Plumbing employees to have a healthy live work balance that invites conflict in appropriate ways.

“Culture is not something you can put on a poster and promote,” said Kraynak. “Culture means relationships and being out there and being involved at a professional level. It’s a lot of work. People are complicated and maddening and all the things that people can be. People get caught up in what they have to do at their desktop.”

Systems Plumbing has implemented an app to get feedback and to assess its employees’ development progress starting as an apprentice and moving up through the organization. In the app, an employee can see the success measures and key indicators for progress.

Employees also have the opportunity to respond to a weekly survey via the app. On Friday mornings, they can rate the week between one and five stars. Plus, they can leave an anonymous message that only goes to the two owners, allowing leadership to see and be able to address any issues in the field, and for the employee to seek justice.

Being part of a not so sexy industry makes it hard to find talent. Kraynak does the typical ads and outreach, but it comes down to a sales pitch. He sells new candidates on the pay scale and his company’s pathway to success.

“We talk about culture, company values, and we tell them that they don’t just have a job at Systems Plumbing, they are Systems Plumbing,” he said. “We also make it clear that you have to work hard and pay your dues, but it has big rewards.”