Construction Companies: How to Improve Employee Hiring
Finding good workers in the construction industry is increasingly difficult. A government report found that the industry will need to hire an additional 217,000 workers over the next five years, at a time when there are fewer workers who have the necessary skills.
While there are good construction workers out there, ensuring that they work for your business, and not your competitors, will take work.
But it’s worth undertaking. Improving your hiring process not only gives you the employees you need but can also help to improve the quality of your outcomes, improve productivity, and boost your reputation.
The question is, how do you do it? We’ve put together a few tips that should ensure you attract and retain the right employees.
Offer Competitive Salaries
There’s no getting around the need to offer competitive salaries to candidates. With demand outstripping supply, it’s more important that construction companies proactively put themselves in a competitive position to snag the best workers by offering attractive remuneration.
With costs tight, it can be tempting to offer salaries that are slightly below market rates as a way to save money, but this approach often ends up costing the company in other ways. Hiring lower-quality workers increases the chances of having to rehire (which is expensive) or producing poor-quality work (which can be fatal for a construction business).
Ensure Job Adverts Are Seen By the Right Candidates
The goal isn’t to have your job adverts seen by everyone. The goal is to have them seen by the right people. All too often, companies put together job adverts that inadvertently speak to lower-quality workers.
Keep in mind that the best workers want to work for the best construction companies, and one of the easiest ways to showcase that you belong in that category is by putting together adverts that speak directly to the best candidates. It’s also recommended to place your job adverts on a good construction job platform, since this will ensure that the post gets seen by your intended target audience.
That can not only guide the best candidates in your direction, but also significantly reduce how much time you spend screening applicants, since it’s much more likely that workers who can and apply for the role will have the skills and experience you’re looking for.
Respond to Applications Quickly
Construction companies can be busy, and it can be tempting to let the list of applications fill up while you’re taking care of more pressing demands.
But by taking that approach, you might miss out on a candidate that might just have turned out to be one of your best ever employees had you brought them on board. With demand for construction workers more fierce than ever, quality workers don’t have to wait long before they’re offered a job. They’ll likely be offered a job by someone within a week or two. If you’ve waited that amount of time before you respond to their application, then it’ll likely be too late. A candidate who’s still available a month after sending their application may not be the right choice.
In addition to responding to applications quickly, it’s also recommended to streamline your hiring process so that it doesn’t take forever. It’s possible that the candidate you’re talking to is also talking to other companies, and if your hiring process has them jumping through multiple hoops, then they may simply decide to take the job offered by the other company. The bottom line? If a candidate is good, then get them through the door as soon as possible.
Efficient Onboarding and Work Culture
Just because you’ve hired an employee for your construction company, that doesn’t mean that they’ll be with you forever — or even for a few months. The quality of a company’s onboarding process can play a big role in ensuring that the new construction worker is not only set up for success, but that they feel included in the team. With jobs for construction workers in high demand, new recruits have the luxury of putting their new employers essentially on trial for the first few months. A good onboarding process increases the chances that they’ll stay with you.
Beyond onboarding, it’s also important to have a positive work culture in which team members feel supported and are able to voice any concerns they have. While salaries are important, workers also want to feel happy and comfortable in their roles, and that can only happen if there’s a genuinely positive work ambiance that runs from the top down.
Image source: David McBee via Pexels.
