Business Intelligence
In this very busy construction market and very tight labor market, what actions is your company taking to attract and retain talent, and have those actions changed recently?
Deborah Nosler
Human Resources Manager
Benfield Electric
Benfield is investing in training using resources, such as Dale Carnegie, ABCBaltimore.org, System Source, etc. to develop employees internally and identify potential growth. For skills that we desperately need such as heavy equipment operators and CDL drivers, we are creating internal training programs to teach, document and develop. We are incentivizing employees to learn and contribute back to the business.
We are working directly with IEC and ABC through their apprenticeship programs to bring in new, inexperienced employees and mold them to the Benfield way. We are mentoring apprentices by partnering them in a 1-2 year developmental program alongside a seasoned, trained field expert. We are also working with local high schools in an effort to get in front of the middle school and high school students who need direction with a career choice. We hope this effort will help bring back local interest in the electrical trade.
Jim Layman
Vice President of Construction
Cole Roofing
As the construction market and workload continues to be steady, we as employers need to take a proactive approach in retention of our key employees. Performance reviews
need to happen at their scheduled intervals. Skill improvement and the undertaking of new responsibilities by the employee needs to be rewarded with merit increases. The scarcity of qualified craftsmen in the labor market will not allow us to sit back and wait for a high-performing employee to ask for an evaluation. Websites, like Indeed, coupled with technologies, such as Skype and FaceTime, have allowed us to expand our pool of available labor. We can conduct a face-to-face interview with a potential employee who might be looking to relocate into our market while they are still on the other side of the country. We have been able to add some key team members over the last year in this manner.