Business Accountants: Navigating Labor Shortages: A Comprehensive Guide to Hiring Construction Workers
Today, we tackle a critical challenge faced by many construction businesses: hiring top talent in the midst of a labor shortage.
Understanding the Hiring Challenge: If you’ve been diligently growing your construction business in recent years, you’ve likely encountered a troubling trend – finding skilled construction workers has become increasingly challenging. You may have asked yourself, “Where has all the talent gone?” Hiring competent construction project managers and staff seems harder than ever.
It appears that each year, fewer individuals are applying for construction job openings. Wages and benefits are on the rise, yet the pool of skilled workers continues to shrink.
This hiring difficulty is not a recent phenomenon but has evolved over time, influenced by several key factors:
1. Aging Workforce:
- The construction industry faces the challenge of an aging workforce, with younger individuals not entering the field as rapidly as older workers are leaving it.
2. Changes in Education:
- Reductions in funding for shop classes in schools have limited opportunities for students to explore careers in construction and develop hands-on skills. The societal emphasis on traditional four-year university education has also diverted attention away from vocational trades.
Building an Effective Hiring Funnel: To address these complex hiring challenges, a short-term fix won’t suffice. Instead, a systematic, long-term solution is required. Many successful contractors have adopted a world-class hiring funnel that treats recruitment with the same rigor and energy as marketing and sales. Here’s how to build an effective hiring funnel:
1. Top of Funnel:
- Ideal Candidate Profiles: Create detailed descriptions of your ideal candidates for various roles. Understand the attributes that make a strong office manager or a skilled site supervisor. Consider what candidates seek in an employer by interviewing current employees in similar roles.
- Job Postings: Craft job postings that resonate with your ideal candidates rather than appealing to a broad audience. Use tools like The Breakthrough Academy’s Ideal Candidate Profile and Job Posting Tool.
- Applicant Generation: Employ both passive and active tactics to attract candidates, including sponsored ads on multiple job boards, a dedicated “Join Our Team” webpage, Instagram highlights of your current team, and an incentivized employee referral program.
2. Middle of Funnel:
- Interview Setup Calls: After screening resumes, conduct setup calls to provide candidates with essential information about the role and assess their initial fit.
- Behavioral Interviewing: Employ behavioral interviewing techniques to evaluate candidates’ past experiences against your ideal candidate profile. The Behavioral Interviewing Framework can be a valuable tool.
3. Bottom of Funnel:
- Selection: With interviews completed and candidates scored, select the best-fit candidate based on alignment with core values and team compatibility.
The dynamic business landscape requires continuous adaptation. While the hiring challenge is formidable, it is solvable. Constructing a robust hiring funnel is a vital step toward attracting the talent needed to propel your construction business forward. Additionally, embracing construction technology can further attract younger workers and streamline processes, ensuring your business remains competitive and ready for the future.
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