Strategies for Recruitment

For the past several years, the number one challenge in this industry has been finding and keeping quality talent. It doesn’t matter if the company is large or small, residential or commercial, recruitment is always a topic of conversation when we speak with contractors.

While no one in this industry seems immune, there are a many contractors who have implemented strategies that work for them and are growing as a result of solid recruitment and retention practices. I’ve combed through the conversations I’ve had with dozens of contractors the past couple of years and have compiled their best practices in this special report on recruitment. BY PETE GRASSO

— Benson Green

This contractor panel includes: Larry Gemma, owner of GEM Plumbing & Heating in Lincoln, R.I.; Mark Geschke, owner of Bauer & Son One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning in Medina, Ohio; Benson Green, president of Benson’s Heating and Air Conditioning in Tallahassee, Fla.; Jason Hanson, president of Sierra Pacific Home & Comfort in Rancho Cordova, Calif.; Eric Knaak, vice president of operations for Isaac Heating & Air Conditioning in Rochester, N.Y.;

Jeff Nusz, president of Reitmeier in Tualatin, Ore.; Rory Richardson, co-owner of Cardinal Heating & Air in Kirkland, Wash.; Darryl Robinson, owner of Robinson Air in Lawton, Okla.; Michael Rosenberg, president of Rosenberg Indoor Comfort in San Antonio; and Brian Stack, president of Stack Heating, Cooling & Electric in Avon, Ohio.

Here’s what they had to say.

Larry Gemma

“Within the last two years, we’ve put a benefits package together that I think is second to none. And it’s gotten much better as far as recruitment goes. Right now, we probably have close to maybe 450 employees. And through acquisitions, we’re probably going to double that number.

“We hired a recruiting manager to make sure that we stay up on top of the benefits packages, and the pay, making sure our employees are well-compensated for everything they do, and that we have the best benefits in the marketplace. That certainly makes recruitment and retention easier.

“The biggest challenge in recruiting today is the ages of the real talent for the

employees. Most employees are 50 or older in the Northeast that have the licenses to do what they need to do, or that we need to get done.

“With the younger generation, we want to make sure to focus on education and training. We have our own trainers and we’re partnered with all the local colleges and universities and trade schools to try and get the best talent out there. We’re bringing a lot more young talent in. I go to all the engineering schools and I tell the students one of the best things that they can do is to get involved in the industry at a lower level for four or five years and get a license, because nothing beats learning it from the bottom up.

“We do have a lot of kids that did go to engineering school here and they do very well when they start from the bottom up. They end up doing very well in their careers.”

Mark Geschke

“Recruitment is one of the toughest things we deal with on a daily basis. We’re fortunate enough to have an actual recruiter on staff in our office. He has been doing recruiting for a number of years. He’s also one of our dispatchers, but he’s recruiting for us and for a few locations throughout the country as well.

“It can be difficult to find people because the good workers usually tend to stay where they are, and if they’re not, maybe there might be an issue that we don’t want them.

“We are involved with Fortis College over in Cuyahoga Falls and the Joint Vocational School in Medina County — both have HVAC classes for adults and students. We go over there for their open houses, we take lunches over, go over and talk to the folks every once in a while. We’re looking, too, to recruit people out of these locations and train them to do things the way we do them. It’s a longer process that way, but that’s what we have to do.”

Benson Green

“We focus on trying to find young people that have good character. Then we train for skill. We do most of our inhouse training and then after they grasp that, especially on the maintenance side and they are able to move up after they’ve associated themselves with customers and

— Jeff Nusz

equipment, we’ll send them to a technical school for a couple of weeks to learn diagnostics. Then they’ll work with an existing technician to learn what they can. We’ve been very successful with that probably over the last four to five years.”

Jason Hanson

“Recruitment seems to be number one on the list in so many conversations that we have internally, as well as with other businesses that I know. Finding qualified technicians who you can trust to do a good job with your clients is just difficult. And really, what we’ve resorted to is focusing on building our own.

“We use training resources from manufacturers or other trade schools, like Ultimate Technical Academy and things like HVAC Learning Solutions at Lennox and build them up and then send them through additional ongoing training and just build our own technicians to do things the way we want them done.

“We start with our entry level positions and train them in the basics and things that they can do with that entry level training, and progress them through as they demonstrate the skill set and additional training courses and so forth to get them to more advanced positions.”

Eric Knaak

“Isaac University, which is our training program, now has two full time instructors. We have a classroom and a 2,000-square-foot lab space. We had 119 employees signed up for training classes in the fall. And that’s a variety of classes offered, and it’s all for our employees. We’re big believers in training development on the technical side, as well as the professional and personal development side.

“We have a bootcamp program we started back in 2015 where we actually bring people in with no experience and we put them through a 12-week paid training program with the promise that at the end of the program they’re guaranteed a full-time position with Isaac. Since we first started it, we’ve got about 85 team members that have come on board through that program.

“It definitely has helped us with recruitment. We still have openings, but like I said, we’ve got 85 people right now that wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have the boot camp program. For those that enter the program, we’re about a 69 percent graduation rate, and we’re a 75 percent retention rate of those that have graduated.

“We’ve got so many young people now who are looking to try different things that they come and they go. And that’s one of the factors. And because we’re the only one in this region, as far as I know, that has a formalized training program, we end up with some technicians that are pretty darn good.

“But you know what it comes down to? Are you better off to keep them and train them, or to lose them and not train them? We decided long ago that we need to train people to recruit people.”

Jeff Nusz

“My next three- to five-year vision is how to get more minorities and women into our trade. We dig down on it. We break it down. Okay, let’s go to the Women in Trades Fair and let’s see if we set up a booth and see if we can get them interested.

“Where are minorities and where can we find them to get them into this trade? Because these guys, when they get licensed, they are making 85, 90 grand a year without overtime. It’s a viable trade and I’m paying for basically their college education and they have no college debt. That is what I’m selling for recruitment and that’s what I’m looking forward to.

“Retention is a tough thing, but it’s something we have figured out. We do a lot of fun things for our employees, such as an annual fishing trip. We also do a lot for their spouses and families. “We do four events a year. I’ve got to capture the spouses and the kids and then that helps with retention of the rank and file as they go through their ups and downs every day.

“We’ve worked really hard on this and we continue to work on it through education, through all kinds of things. I bring in financial planners, bank guys, 401K guys, to give them the other side because we’re blue collar. We’re educated, but we’re not highly educated or over educated.

“I try to bring in people monthly who can add to their personal lives, that have nothing to do with HVACR because it’s not all about HVACR. That’s just part of it. It’s important to me that our employees succeed. “

Rory Richardson

“Right now, there’s a program in Seattle which is a non-union apprenticeship program, so we’ve got two or three guys in each year. We’ve been, essentially, training our crew. Finding people outside ... good guys usually aren’t looking for jobs. Our niche is a little more challenging than most on the new construction side because we do a lot of geothermal, a lot of radiant. It’s not a typical heating company, so getting guys that are well-rounded, we’re finding is difficult. We’ve got to train them in-house, bring them up green.

“The way we were brought up is you get out of your truck and you start working. What we’ve learned is this generation has a different type of work ethic. When they’re working, they’re great, but they tend to take breaks and look on their phone a lot. So, we’re trying to figure out how to manage that. But for the most part, if they’ve got good leadership they work hard. That’s been our focus … learning to lead this generation and giving them the training and opportunity for a great career path.”

Darryl Robinson

“We try to hire people with good attitudes. We used to hire anybody that had a license. “You have a license? Great. Come on in. Get to work for us and we’ll just work it out.” But we’ve had so many issues with attitudes and with work ethic, so we switched gears.

“Now, I’m trying to hire when they get out of high school. Really, I’ve done this

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