Intro
How to Find Good Employees
To find good employees, you need to offer a Good Job.
Similar to offering great service and quality products to customers, you’ll need to offer a great place to work to attract high quality applicants. Then clearly highlight the benefits in all your recruiting efforts.
This article is broken into three parts:
- Structuring and Systemizing your business before you start hiring
- Creating a Good Job, which focuses on creating a place to work that good employees will love
- Advertising the Good Job, which focuses on how to advertise the job and get applicants
Now, you may be tempted to skip ahead to advertising tactics. But advertising is just a way to get a message out there; what you’re saying in the message is really the important part. And if you don’t truly have a Good Job to offer, don’t expect to attract Good Employees. Remember, it’s the Bad Employees that have to take any job that comes their way - the Good ones have options!
Structuring and Systemizing
You may need to make some changes to your business to support a growing team. As a solo operator, you may have gotten used to charging customers at a certain price point that won’t be enough anymore. Or, you may be used to taking on all sorts of odd jobs, that you now won’t have time for, and your new employees won’t have the know-how for.
Think about what you can afford to pay new employees and how much time you can afford to spend training them. If you’re working 70 hours a week, and your business still isn’t profitable, you probably aren’t in a good position to start hiring.
It’s important to be realistic with yourself. What are other similar companies paying for employees - for Good Employees? What kinds of growth opportunities are they offering? If you aren’t in a position to offer pay that’s competitive, and a Good Job that’s competitive, you’ll have a much tougher time getting applicants and finding Good Employees.
If any changes need to be made, make those first, and then start hiring.
Also, if your business is only set up to be able to utilize high skill workers, your pool of candidates to hire from will be very small. On the other hand, if you can quickly train and utilize employees without previous experience, the pool will be huge. The more systemized and repetitive you can make your business, the easier it will be to train and deploy new employees quickly.
Think about the things you do for each project you’re on. What items are time consuming, have the least amount of risk, and would be easiest to train for? Those items are great candidates for what to outsource first; they will free up your plate while giving new employees the ability to be productive as soon as possible.
Offering a Good Job
There are so many great places to work these days. This means you not only have to be competitive with what you pay, but you have to be competitive with everything else. This includes opportunities for growth, how enjoyable the job is, and more.
Offering a Good Job will not only help you advertise the position, but will help you get more applicants referred and will help you with long term retention.
Recently I talked to a company out west who retains employees for a very long time and even has several second generation employees at their company. I think that’s an incredible accomplishment, and speaks volumes about the kind of place it is to work at.
Here are 6 tips to make the job you're offering a Good Job.
1. Roll Out the Red Carpet
Put yourself in the shoes of your new employees when they start at your company. What is their experience like?
Unfortunately, at a lot of small businesses, it almost feels to the new employee like the company has forgotten about them. They might be briefly greeted, and given a few hurried tutorials - and that’s it.
To set yourself apart, make sure new employees feel celebrated, and plenty of training and one-on-one time is invested with them. Some companies implement the excellent practice of making a social media post to welcome new employees to the team and share a photo. Get creative with making new employees feel as welcome as possible!
The new employee should go home from their first day feeling valued, appreciated, and excited to start the next one.
2. Offer Benefits, Bonuses, and Time Off
Benefits, bonuses, and time off are just as important to most employees as pay. Believe it or not, a lot of people would rather get a single $500 bonus for Christmas at the end of the year, then a small boost to their salary that would net them an additional $1000 throughout the course of the year.
Another big consideration for job seekers is their schedule. They’ll want a schedule that doesn’t interfere with their lifestyle in major ways, and to have time off to utilize. For some positions, that might be more difficult than others, but offer what you can. See what other similar companies are offering and try to be competitive.
Also, if you’re looking for a better way to manage benefits, insurance, payroll, time off, etc, check out Gusto.
3. Provide Real Opportunities for Growth
Give your employees a clear path to grow. They should know what level of performance they need to be at before they hit their next bump in salary. And it can’t be vague; saying “once you start getting the hang of it we can talk about giving you a raise” isn’t very helpful. But if they know that once they’re able to complete X job in X amount of time, or close X amount of sales per month, they’ll be up for a raise, they will have a much more clear goal to work towards.
Not only should your employees have clear targets to hit, but you should empower them to hit those targets by providing training. This training could include one on one time, standard operating procedure documents, or even simply direct them to resources where they can learn more. Not only will they know what’s expected of them, but they’ll have the tools to get there!
4. Make it Enjoyable
Is it fun to work at your company? Every job has its fair share of challenges, but there are a few touches you can add to make it more enjoyable. Some ideas include:
- Software that makes things run more smoothly
- Modern tools that make the job easier
- Friendly competitions
- A snack bar in the office
- Discipline on keeping job sites, trucks, tools, and the office area clean
- Playing rock-paper-scissors to see who gets coffee
- Careful balance of how often you encourage vs. correct your employees
For tools and software ideas, consider visiting trade shows from time to time to see what the industry has to offer.
5. Help Your Employees Reach Their Life Goals
To really motivate your employees, one of the best things you can do is to tie your success to their success.
To do this, you figure out what they’re looking to accomplish in life, and help them to accomplish it. Maybe they’re saving up for a down payment on a house, or maybe their goal is to hit a certain salary, or maybe they’d like to own a part of the business one day.
By talking through their goals with them, it shows them that you care about their success - not just the success of the company. And when you give them targets to hit for bonuses, raises, or a certain amount of commissions, it now has more meaning. You’re not just a manager breathing down their neck - you’re a life coach who is encouraging them to meet their own goals!
Working towards these goals will probably help your employees feel more fulfilled in their role. This results in less turnover, and more referrals.
Keep in mind that this has to be done consistently, and you’ll need to check in and review progress with them.
6. Develop a Unique Value Proposition
While working in the trades can be challenging, there are some aspects of it that are incredibly rewarding. It’s important to understand these positives and negatives so you can properly communicate it with new applicants and hire the right people.
Some cons to working in the trades:
- May have to work in particularly hot or cold environments, or endure bad weather.
- The actual physical workload may be very demanding.
- Can wear down your body over time.
Some pros to working in the trades:
- You get lots of physical exercise and it’s much easier to stay in shape.
- Trade skills are always in high demand.
- There is something very rewarding about working with your hands to fix or build something.
What are some of the unique benefits your position offers? Is it a mostly indoors job? Does it have a more consistent schedule than other similar jobs? Will they be assigned their own company vehicle?
There are probably a lot more benefits than you think. Take some time to think about the unique benefits of the positions you have open, and write them down. This will help you in your advertisements and the interview process.
Advertising the Job
Now that you have a good job to offer, and understand its unique value proposition, it’s time to advertise it!
When you advertise a job position, think about it from the potential employee’s point of view. What are they looking for in a job? What might they be able to get at your company that they aren’t getting at their current one? Make the job post all about them.
If you want to boost the number of applicants you get, consider sweetening the pot with a sign-on bonus. A good sign-on bonus might be just enough to get the curiosity of some good applicants, and during the interview process you both might come to find that it’s a great fit.
Here are 8 ways to advertise your Good Job:
1. Advertise on Job Listings
The first place you should advertise your job is on free online job boards. And don’t try just one - try several. Some popular job boards are ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Monster, and Snagajob.
Remember that the way the job post is written has a huge impact on the amount of applicants you get. Make sure to clearly outline what applicants would get out of working for your company and how it benefits them. Then later in the post, you can talk about the requirements.
2. Advertise Jobs on Facebook and Instagram
If you don’t get enough applicants from job boards, there are other places you can advertise. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok ads also work very well to get leads. One company that does this successfully for the trades is RapidHire.
The applicants you get from social media ads may also be better quality than those from job boards. For skilled laborers, there is no shortage of companies offering them a job, so they may not need to spend time on job board websites. Running ads on social media gives the opportunity to get in front of this whole new audience.
3. Advertise Jobs on Your Website
If you’re reading this, chances are you already have a decent website that gets a decent flow of monthly traffic. Some of this traffic may be potential employees looking for a job.
It’s important to hold the door wide open for the would-be applicants by having a “we’re hiring” section or page on your site, where you encourage them to apply. This could get you a few extra applicants every month at no additional cost to you.
4. Third Party Recruiters
There are lots of companies out there that specialize in recruiting. They may have their own sources to get applicants, or help you write your job listings and ads to attract potential employees. If you’ve been struggling to generate your own applicants, consider hiring a third party recruitment agency.
5. Use LinkedIn to HeadHunt
LinkedIn is a great place to find skilled candidates. If someone took the time to set up their LinkedIn account and do some networking, they’re probably serious about developing their career in the trades. You can do a keyword search for the skills you need, and then connect with people who seem like a good fit.
What’s important to remember is that if you are seeking a high-value employee with lots of previous experience, other businesses are seeking them too. It's likely these folks get messaged by recruiting agencies all the time. You can differentiate yourself by reaching out to them directly - you, the owner or CEO.
6. Recruit While You’re Out and About
Are you good at naturally striking up conversations with people? Consider meeting potential candidates and handing out your business card at Home Depot or other places where you run errands. Do this enough, and you might be surprised how many good applicants you’re able to find.
To make this effective, you’ll really need to understand your unique value proposition and why these guys and gals should even consider working for you. If you get some interest and calls back, you’ll be able to evaluate people better in the interview process.
7. Create an Internal Referral Program
A great way to get more quality applicants is to create an internal referral program. Good workers tend to know other good workers, so once you have a few good ones, you have a chance to get a lot more.
The program could include cash incentives for each qualified hire, and you could offer special bonuses to your employees who reach a certain number of referrals. Not only do you get to hire more great employees, but your current employees get a chance to put some extra money in their pocket. It’s a win-win for everyone!
8. Create a Customer Referral Program
When customers have a great experience with your company, they will naturally become advocates. What if you offered a referral program to customers - but for referring employees? Not only could this help you get more qualified applicants, but it will show your customers you are a growing and thriving business.
Conclusion
Finding good employees these days can be tough, as there are lots of great companies to compete with. I believe the best thing you can do is start shifting the focus from “getting people who want to work” to “creating a job that your ideal employees will love.” Focus on what’s in it for them - just like you would with your customers. Then, create that Good Job, and advertise it everywhere!
