It’s always amazed me how “juiced” I am after attending a conference. And the feeling I left San Antonio, aka, the first PAVE/X Conference gave me a double dose of “juice.” And within the clearly excited contractors, I found a sober reality that preparing for their successful future might take a little extra effort than in years past.
Educating our new workers may be the biggest effort we can make as owners and leaders. With a growing number of soon to be retired workers, contractors must consider their options: A. Seek out more of the already trained and experienced pavement maintenance workers…at an all too high starting wage OR, B., recruit and hire a less trained worker in our industry and then dedicate the needed time to get the new workers “fast-tracked” trained on paving, sealcoating, striping, sweeping, and whatever else we provide as services.
Yet, for many contractors, who are in the business to execute work, taking the extra time to spend educating new workers with no history in our industry, the cost to train may be expensive and time consuming.
I remember a car bumper sticker years ago that read, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Boy does that sentiment hit the pavement maintenance industry right in the “kisser.” So, what is a contractor to do? From my perspective of observing companies and consulting with contractors for more than thirty-five years, my money is on education. Let me give you three simple tips to implementing education in your company in 2024.
- Create your own training films. Sounds crazy? Consider shooting short videos from your SMART Phone. Seriously! Most of the new and younger workforce are more comfortable watching their favorite You-Tube videos from their phone. So, begin recording how you want to see a truck loaded, or how to safely tie-down equipment, or how to prepare a lot before sealcoating, or…you get the idea. Keep the video’s to 3-5 minutes in length and then download an App that helps you to do “voice over” for the video, thus providing the proper training words you want shared. A contractor taking this route will have dozens of beginning training videos for the newbies, adding to their visualizing what and how we do things.
- Create your “WHY” about doing what you do. Most employees will achieve confidence in the contractor they are employed by if the company can explain WHY they do what they do. Sure, it’s to meet the customer’s needs but it is also to provide a good living for workers, to keep people growing in their knowledge about work, people, processes, etc. But it is also to help the contractor to build a business that is respected by all, employees, customers, and suppliers. Sharing your WHY can answer a lot of questions for a new worker.
- Create a mindset in your company to see every opportunity as a learning moment and every worker as worth being either a teacher or “student.” If you, as the owner or senior leader, embrace a work culture where we are learning from one antoher and learning from mistakes along the way, the people in your company will step up and feel like they are a part of a speidal organization, as so many companies are stilling failing miserably in educating their workers.
Obviously, there are several items that can support each of the above points but consider this fact. Most employees are almost screaming out that if they are not spoken to when first hired, if they are trained almost starting on day one, and if they are receiving no follow-up or coaching, their time with that type of company will be less than sixty to ninety days. When our industry is already fighting for respect from school educators, who seem to continue to push students into the college direction, we need to take some extra steps to win over a whole new generation of workers, they are most often called “Gen Z’s” or “the Centennials,” to our industry where they can find both satisfaction and financial stability.
Add training your new works, from day one, and you will find this year to be the start of some very good growing and profitable years ahead!
Here’s to investing in your workers!
Brad Humphrey is president of Pinnacle Development Group, an industry leader in working with contractors across the globe. Teaching a the recent 2024 PAVE/X Conference in San Antonio, Brad continues to write and speak on our industry’s needs.
