The New Year celebration is two months old now. Were you ready and organized when the celebration ended? Will you need to add new electricians to your team this year? If you’re not sure, then you’ve got some catching up to do. Before we get too much further into 2014, you need to know how many people you need for the remainder of this year — and how you’ll find them.
There’s one thing you can never have enough of — good people. These days, when many people are out there looking for work, there should be more qualified people than ever to choose from. Even if you’re not currently in a hiring mode, it’s still worthwhile to bring potential candidates in and keep their information on file — so when it’s time to add a new team member, you may have some options.
Think for a moment how important people are to the success of your business. To do so, answer this question: What is your real business? You may provide home services, but how is it accomplished? It’s your people who walk into customers’ homes and fix their problems. In other words, your people are your business.
As employees, your people must deliver on your expectations. All of your plans must be executed through them. You cannot turn every screw or tighten every nut yourself, nor can you create every accounting entry or answer every phone call. Only with a team of dedicated, caring people can you achieve your goal of a company that can run itself.
By creating a service-centric culture within your company, you will create success. You work the system, and the system runs the business. In other words, your real business is recruiting, developing, and leading people.
Let’s begin with recruiting. How many electricians do you want or need this year? Every year, you should review your employees and address any personnel concerns. Then you have to make a decision to either “change your people” or “change out your people.” What I mean by that is you have to either change the people you have on staff today by improving them, re-training them, and making them accountable to higher standards, or you can terminate them and hire new employees. This ensures you don’t keep any bad apples on the tree, which can easily spoil everyone else’s attitude.
What’s the first step in recruiting this new talent? First, determine your staffing requirement for the year. For example, if your plan calls for $500,000 in service sales — and you want to keep your field labor at 20% — you will invest $100,000 in direct labor. Divide $100,000 by 2,000 to find your allowable dollars per hour. This equals $50.00/hour. (Remember that 2,000 is the approximate number of regular hour an employee works in one full year.) Using a full year of 2,000 hours at $25 per hour, you could employ two people full time or a senior electrician at $35/hour and a junior electrician/apprentice at $15/hour. This is a guideline that helps us understand what to do next.
If your real product is your people, you want the best waiting to work for you. That’s why you must always look for talented people to join your organization. There are potential people everywhere, even in unexpected places. Here are some people with technical abilities you may want to talk to as potential candidates:
• Building superintendents
• A photo copy or computer technician.
• The person who works in the local handyman business.
• The mover who assembles furniture.
• Someone who builds kitchen cabinets or manufactures furniture.
• Someone working at a car manufacturer or who was recently laid off.
• An auto mechanic who has slowed down at work.
• A great restaurant employee who is working at night.
• A night manager who treats you well.
All of the people noted above may have the capacity to learn a new trade, and many already have great customer service skills. Here are other areas to consider when finding people: military veterans, quick oil change locations, and other service or consumer-focused industries. Consider advertising in non-conventional places. I’ve heard success stories about finding people by putting an employment ad in the sports section of their local newspaper.
By understanding what your real business is and recruiting when you don’t need people, you will be able to secure a lineup of quality people waiting to work for you. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and recruit!
Kennedy started Mister Sparky in 1996 in Atlanta. That location is now one of the largest and most successful residential electrical service companies in the Direct Energy Services portfolio, based on sales volume. Kennedy currently owns and operates the Mister Sparky franchise serving the greater Sarasota, Fla., area. He can be reached at [email protected].
