Construction Business Best Practices Series Step 9: People Success and Training Systems!

Editor’s Note: This article is the ninth in a series of twelve to lead you toward entrepreneurial excellence by our regular contributor George Hedley, owner of Hedley Construction and Hardhat Presentations. 

How many times have you said to yourself: “It seems like workers don’t care.” “Can’t anyone take some initiative?” “No one accepts any responsibility except me!” “It seems like people don’t get excited about doing a good job anymore!” “If only we could find some decent help!”

At the same time, your employees are thinking: “They don’t know how to run this place!” “They never give me any authority to get the job done right!” “They tell us what to do and then change their minds!” “I feel like a number around here!” “I do all the work, and they make all the money.”

Are People Your Top Priority?

As your business grows, you set goals and begin to make a profit by installing field, management, financial, marketing and sales systems. (See previous articles in this series at www.constructionbusinessowner.com.) The next logical step in the “Business Success Blueprint” is to create people success and training systems to get your business to work for you. Perfect operational systems without people won’t work! Your talent must become your top priority to hit your goals. The “war for talent” is real, and your only solution is to become the “employer of choice” by building a great place to work that attracts, retains and trains the best people in your industry. Does this help wanted ad attract you?

Construction Help Wanted

Some days it’ll be freezing cold and others it will be hotter than hell. When it rains or snows-too bad; you go home without pay. The job starts at 6 a.m. and ends when we run out of work. Most days, you’ll be dirty, messy and working in dangerous conditions. You’ll do heavy lifting and get real tired. When we’re slow, we’ll send you home without pay. We’ll train you, but you better do it our way. The pay is average and as you get older, you’ll become less valuable and might be replaced by a younger or faster person. We are desperate for good help, so give us a call and apply for this job.

Most construction workers are underpaid, under-appreciated and under-trained. Most ministers, school teachers, nurses, garbage collectors, mail carriers, and office managers make more money and have better benefits and training than construction workers. Ninety-nine percent of all high school graduates do not want to work in construction. This makes it harder and harder to attract workers to your company. Younger workers want jobs that pay more than average. They want to work in a comfortable environment, sit at a desk with a computer and don’t want to do any heavy lifting. In reality, there are enough workers-they just don’t want to work in construction field or for your company! This makes it imperative to install people and training systems to build entrepreneurial excellence.

Remember your first job? When hired, you were excited to do a good job, respected your boss and were willing to do anything you were asked. What happened over the next few months happens every day at companies like yours. Employees lose their enthusiasm when they get to know their boss and aren’t treated properly, are taken for granted, aren’t given proper tools, aren’t provided unclear directions, aren’t allowed to offer any input into decisions, are told what to do and treated like hired hands. Good employees begin to act poorly. Then the boss complains he can’t find any good help!

People who work for you are different than you. They are not machines and need to be treated as individuals who have lives, families, dreams and priorities other than work. Remember the old management style? Managers do all the thinking, supervisors do all the talking and workers do all the doing. The manager’s job was to keep people busy, while the worker’s job was to do as little as possible while looking busy. This old management style doesn’t work today, but is still being used by struggling small business owners and entrepreneurs who think they are the only one who can think or do things right!

What People Want!

Successful managers install systems to coach, train, empower, motivate and encourage their people. The difference in winning sports teams is usually the coach, not great players. A recent study concluded that 97 percent of employees said they don’t get enough recognition from their boss, but if they were given more appreciation and respect, 98 percent said they would do more.

Today’s employee wants:

• Meaningful and satisfying work
• Accountability and responsibility
• Pay for performance
• Engaging and invigorating assignments
• Upwardly mobile work
• A better quality of life

Employees are not as loyal as older workers once were. They know that by changing jobs they can make more money, find better opportunities, become challenged or do fun and rewarding work. Their loyalty is to their bottom-line, not yours. Another consideration: younger employees don’t trust their boss, prefer informal arrangements, need teamwork, want to participate in decisions, expect to be informed and involved, assume they’ll have continuous learning, want a high tech workplace and balance in their life. Fifty percent of workers today say they would give up pay for more time off.

What would your employees say about you as their boss? Are they proud to work for your company? Do they have some control? Do they believe they can make a difference? Do they have freedom from micro-management? People don’t leave companies, they leave managers or bosses. A great employee success system will improve profitability, customer service, employee retention and reduce stress. A great place to work has an exceptional working environment where people want to produce results.

Hire Slow and Fire Fast

Do you have employees you wish you had never heard of? Do you have employees whose purpose is to make your life miserable? How did they end up at your company? Generally, poor performing or problem employees are a result of hiring too fast when companies are desperate to fill slots. The management style of hiring now and fixing them later doesn’t work. Also, employees are too often hired based on what you hope they can do, regardless of their resume. Then they’re put into jobs without proper indoctrination, little training and left alone to learn on the job without feedback or coaching.

With a proper interview system including scripted questions, detailed reference checks, resume reviews and personality testing, you can hire “right” up to 80 percent of the time. Poor companies don’t have recruitment or hiring systems in place. What do you do to attract great people to work for your company? You can’t hire people who don’t apply and aren’t recruited. The old way of analyzing candidates was to take out an ad, look for experience, interview and hire fast. The successful employers now slow down and look for:

• Determination and drive
• Talent and potential
• Ability to perform
• Consistency and responsibility
• Personal life that’s in order
• Self-motivation
• Teamwork and competitiveness

When reviewing potential employees look for signs of responsibility. Ask if they own a home or have a family. Seek teamwork and competitiveness from people who played high school sports. Look for talent and potential by asking about their life accomplishments and school activities. Ask questions about their personal finances to see if they know how to make good decisions. When interviewing, you often want people to be the right employee so badly, you only listen for the right answers instead of the real truth. Hire attitude and aptitude and then train skills.

How to Attract Great People

1. Decide recruiting is everyone’s job

2. Make recruiting company-wide

3. Pay people for referrals

4. Offer signing bonuses

5. Have company recruiting brochures

6. Have recruiting business cards

7. Make it easy for recruits to apply

8. Use phone interviews to qualify fast

9. Have a regular weekly interview time

10. Create a simple application

11. Offer gifts to applicants

12 Ask suppliers and customers to help

13. Hold monthly career workshops

14. Get involved at high schools

15. Offer summer jobs

16. Offer craft training on Saturdays

17. Hold career days

18. Offer scholarship programs

19. Let recruits visit jobsites

20. Become the employer of choice

21. Build a great place to work

Motivate People to Perform

If you have children, you know it’s tough getting them to do what you want them to do. When attempting to get my children to follow directions, I tried everything-pep talks, incentives, quality time, two way communications and listening. I learned nothing works with your children! Supervising and managing employees is exactly like being a parent. So, how do you get people to follow your orders? You’re probably an expert on what doesn’t work: confusion, threats, lack of trust, bribes, no rules, no rewards, no praise or recognition, no direction and lack of accountability. So, what is the best way to motivate people to do what you want them to do? Make people want to do something! A company-wide system to give people what they want will help you hit your bottom-line goals.

Employees need and want two things: money and motivation. Money gives them the basic requirements to show up and perform at the minimum level. Money will not get them to perform to their maximum ability. You must also provide motivators-things to get people to work with more energy, more effort, more enthusiasm and allow them to fulfill their potential, accept responsibility and become accountable. Many old-school bosses don’t offer motivation, praise, recognition or encouragement. They often say their people continually complain about money. When there’s no motivation to do a good job, more pay is the only thing that people can get to help them tolerate a bad situation.

Motivators That Work

The top motivators to help people become the best they can be are the following:

1. Clear understanding of expectations
2. Praise and recognition
3. Understanding of the big picture
4. Being appreciated and cared for

In order for people to be effective, they must know what’s expected of them! It’s pretty hard to stay on course if you don’t know where you’re going and don’t have a map to get there. Ask your key people the top three priorities for which they’re responsible. I’ll bet their answers aren’t what you thought they’d be. Most poor-performing people don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to do and how you want it done.

For example, my field superintendent tells me he’ll be “done” with his project in three weeks. Three weeks later, I visit the jobsite to find the project has not been final cleaned, the trailer is still on site, the power is not turned on and the phones don’t work. I ask why he isn’t done and he disagrees with me and says he is done. He thinks “done” means calling for final inspection. To me “done” means nothing left to finish. The problem is a lack of understanding of what was expected.

In order to establish clear expectations, you must take time to explain exactly what you want, show visually how to do it, ensure that directions are fully comprehended and then reinforce this with coaching and training. As you work on your communication problem, people will start to take on more responsibility and do more work.

Regularly Recognize and Praise

Your people have a sign hanging around their neck that says: “Make me feel important” or “Show me some love!” The second important people system is to provide regular appreciation. People need positive strokes weekly so make it your priority to recognize at least one person everyday. Get out and catch them doing something right and make them feel good about what they do for you! Imagine a football game where the crowd only cheers at the end of the game, or a company where the boss only praises at the annual review. People are like batteries-as they discharge, they need to be recharged at frequent intervals.

Motivators

1. Keep recognition tracking checklists

2. Make sure everyone gets recognized weekly

3. Start the day with positive encouragement

4. Be a motivational cheerleader

5. Communicate positive greetings to make positive people

6. Tell people you appreciate them, for example:

• “I appreciate your efforts…”
• “You did a good job on …”
• “Thanks, keep up the…”

7. Give out positive strokes weekly:

• Personal thank you from boss
• Written thank you from boss
• Promotion for performance
• Public praise
• Morale building meetings

8. Look for the good

9. Use words that wow!

• 3 words: I appreciate you
• 2 words: Thank you
• 1 word: (their name)
• Worst word: I

10. Show you care about them

• Ask them their dreams
• Follow their family
• Listen to their goals

11. Tell them the big picture

• Hold company meetings
• Recognize accomplishments
• Share the future
• Tell them what’s new
• Tell them the good and bad

12. Give time off for extra effort

13. Give everyone business cards

14. Spend one day per month with the team

15. Take employees to lunch with you

16. Buy crews lunch monthly

17. Give people tools to improve

18. Give everyone company shirts

19. Provide home computers and e-mail

20. Praise accomplishments in public

21. Spend 33 percent of your time with people

Train to Retain

Most companies hire people with potential and then let them learn on their own. Most Fortune 500 companies have training systems to insure they maximize the return on employees. These companies invest in each employee on average forty hours of formalized training every year. How much training do you provide? Could you improve your bottom-line by maximizing productivity and eliminating mistakes? You need to train to retain and improve employees.

Training involves doing and not just telling or showing people what to do. You can’t learn to ride a bike by watching others. I learned to win sailboat races by sailing lots of races. All the books, lectures, videos, and meetings wouldn’t teach me the tactics to win. To build an excellent company, training must be on-going and continuous for everyone.

How to train others:

1. Tell them what to do
2. Show them how to do it
3. Let them do it
4. Watch them do it
5. Coach them through it
6. Recognize them
7. Follow-up and give feedback

As you train, ask if they completely understand. Remember, they really can’t do things well until they’ve done it a few times and you have coached them through the process. Show your key people how you want things done and then let them train their employees. This will elevate their leadership skills and make them accountable and responsible for end results of their people. In one of my previous articles, Replace Yourself with Systems, No. 3 in this series on creating systems, I discussed how to identify problems. Identify what you need to train, and then make your program train topics at least once or twice every year.

Start a training ladder to track your employees’ progress. This system provides a path for people to become more valuable and earn more money for you and them. List every task needed to learn along the way and provide a timeline and minimum standards required for each position. Then track their progress.

It is best to train every week for at least fifteen minutes. This minimum training program will keep people focused on doing things right. Every month or quarter, provide a half day training session to cover topics in a more in-depth way. Remember, training is not an informational meeting or a lecture from the boss. It involves doing the tasks.  So for field training, go to a jobsite to make sure everyone understands how to do it.

Building on an entrepreneurial excellent company requires excellent people. You can try and get lucky by hiring and firing people until you get the ones you want, or you can make people your top priority. Get your business to work by installing people systems and a training program. The choice is yours!

 Construction Business Owner, September 2006