[00:00:02.680] - Chris
Welcome back to another episode of the MRM podcast. I'm Chris,
[00:00:06.370] - Brandon
and I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life and legacy.
[00:00:11.380] - Chris
It's business time.
[00:00:13.840] - Brandon
Yo
[00:00:14.500] - Chris
yo.
[00:00:15.220] - Brandon
How are you doing?
[00:00:16.000] - Chris
Good, good, good.
[00:00:17.020] - Brandon
Are you on fire? Not not your groun, but just in general
[00:00:21.370] - Chris
that chili sauce was something else so....
[00:00:24.920] - Brandon
I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me while we're like mid-episode. be like, hey, Joel, we have a ten minute delay.
[00:00:33.940] - Chris
Yeah. Something happened and it was ugly.
[00:00:36.850] - Brandon
It was.
[00:00:37.300] - Chris
Let's not talk about it.
[00:00:38.290] - Brandon
it was, that was not user friendly. OK, all right man. Now are we rapping about today?
[00:00:43.750] - Chris
Well, what is the most common pervasive problem in the entire industry across all of the service sector? Labor right..... Recruiting. It's painful.
[00:00:55.410] - Brandon
it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up thinking about it. It's a challenge.
[00:01:00.190] - Chris
Yeah, well, I'm thinking back to that conversation we had with Brianna this last week and just the insights she gave us around this current events and what's happening with stimulus and what's happening with unemployment and how it is. And frankly, I mean, we kind of knew 80 percent of it, 90 percent of it. But the way she broke it down for us, I'm like, OK, this this makes a lot more sense when you connect all the dots.
[00:01:26.290] - Chris
It also is a little bit scary because we don't know exactly when it's going to end.
[00:01:30.310] - Brandon
Yeah, that's fair.
[00:01:31.810] - Chris
So I don't know if it makes sense for us to kind of review some of those things that she brought up. But it was very fascinating to me.
[00:01:37.600] - Brandon
I think we should, and mainly because I think what you're kind of alluding to is that we know that these factors were contributing, right. That they were having a negative effect on our businesses ability to recruit good talent.
[00:01:51.700] - Brandon
And I think in a large part, we're talking about entry to lower mid-level positions, not not by a capacity or competency or value
[00:02:01.360] - Chris
just wage level
[00:02:02.140] - Brandon
just wage level. These are more front line personnel.
[00:02:05.050] - Chris
Yeah, we're talking what we have a lot of in our industry when it comes to labor and demolition help and stuff like that, and some of our entry level office staff . that 12 to 15 dollars an hour range.
[00:02:17.500] - Brandon
Yeah. Or even well, based on our conversation, maybe all the way up to twenty dollars an hour. That's right. Yes.
[00:02:23.690] - Chris
Well to me the standout thing that I just I don't know, I didn't fully connect with is she said that the national average that people on unemployment are making is seventeen dollars an hour. And that was she said 17 an hour?
[00:02:37.930] - Brandon
ya 17 I would have to go back and listen to the specific number, but I remember it being give or take right in that 17 dollar an hour.
[00:02:44.770] - Chris
So when you consider that in that potentially a very large portion of your workforce, depending on where your business is at and size and all of that stuff, you can have a fairly lengthy list on your payroll that's in that 12 to 16 range.
[00:03:00.730] - Chris
And how hard is it going to be to get people back to work in our industry? We're not talking about a barista making coffee. We're not talking about even somebody cleaning carpets or washing windows. We're talking about mitigation work and bio. Yeah, and crawlin and crawlspaces under houses like it's hard work. Let's be honest. It's dirty work. It's why would your average person come back to work for 15 or 16 dollars an hour to do hard work? Yeah, meaningful work.
[00:03:33.760] - Chris
And we try to build meaning around it and all the things that we do to sort of make the the work satisfying. Yeah, right. As a team and all the other stuff we do. Right. We're helping people. We're changing lives. Okay. Yeah. And it's hard work. And when they can be at home with their kids. By the way, you've been out of school for the last year.
[00:03:53.400] - Brandon
Right. And then their summer break now.
[00:03:54.970] - Chris
Right. And let's face it, anybody who's making 13 to 16 or even more per hour, they can afford child care. They can afford a nanny. So the unemployment is solved. Some pretty major problems for them. And then we find out about health insurance.
[00:04:10.960] - Brandon
This kind of just dumbfounded me.
[00:04:14.500] - Brandon
And again, the details. We'll have to go back and present some of these notes, I think even in a module, but we're talking sub a dollar a month.
[00:04:25.180] - Chris
Feel like a sliding scale, right? Yeah. I don't know what the exactly the factors are, but Brianna has, like she has learned of firsthand examples of people that are only charged a dollar a month
[00:04:38.890] - Brandon
for full on medical coverage.
[00:04:40.510] - Chris
Like full on major medical with a five hundred dollar deductible.
[00:04:44.080] - Brandon
Yeah, crazy.
[00:04:44.950] - Chris
Two thousand dollar maximum out of pocket. So for those of US owners and leaders who, like, put health insurance plans in place, like, that's just ridiculous. Yeah. Like comparatively for a family of five. Otherwise, we look at it like a thousand twelve hundred and fifteen hundred bucks a month. Yeah. For a plan like that. Right. And there's federal programs right now that are subsidizing it to where it might be a simple sign up online to get that same courage for a dollar.
[00:05:07.300] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:05:08.030] - Brandon
And so then on top of that, the most recent thing or one of the more current things that we're seeing is this kind of front loaded tax credit for children.
[00:05:19.610] - Chris
Coming online yesterday.
[00:05:21.940] - Brandon
Yeah. So now, OK, so we have someone that just in compensation's receiving somewhere in the seventeen dollar an hour range. They do not have costs associated with child care. They're potentially getting full on medical coverage for themselves and their families for less than a few bucks a month.
[00:05:40.910] - Brandon
And then on top of that, they're getting three hundred dollars per child front loaded tax credit like we're talking about someone that's being compensated north of what, twenty two, twenty three, even twenty five bucks an hour potentially when you add up
[00:05:57.590] - Chris
and I don't know how 17 bucks figures in if that's including the stimulus checks and everything else, but it doesn't matter. Right.
[00:06:04.490] - Chris
It's like is a big problem.
[00:06:06.780] - Brandon
Yeah. It is affecting us. So OK. Now here's the old part that we all grew accustomed to being challenged by. Right. Like this was the first hurdle was the fact that we've spent, what, since two thousand eight at least in a place where culture. So this happened before 2008. But like as a community, as a culture, Americans, for whatever reason. Of course, looking back now, I'm sure hindsight's 20/20.
[00:06:33.530] - Brandon
We just thought it was a good idea to preach to an entire generation that blue collar work was not valuable.
[00:06:40.040] - Chris
get a Degree or you won't be anything.
[00:06:41.240] - Brandon
Or you're going to be worthless. Right. And then '08 hits and just crushes the economy. And so we see this mass exodus essentially of people that are retiring out of trades and those kind of skilled labor environments. And then we really have done nothing, I would say, at least nationally, to create any kind of supporting mechanism or infrastructure to put these folks back into the workforce.
[00:07:05.720] - Brandon
And so so our industry essentially has been dried up of young blood coming into the industry with trade skills. Right. With a focus on developing a career path within an environment, blue collar environment. And then now on top of this, these post covid scenarios that are just I mean, making it very difficult. Let's be honest. Let's take the owner/operator hats off and just go..... If I was in their shoes, that would be pretty difficult to make the decision on principle that I'm going to come back to work.
[00:07:36.410] - Brandon
Yeah. When I'm being compensated that well to not work. And I'm getting some of these really base level things taken care of in terms of my family, my children, whatever.
[00:07:45.440] - Chris
Yeah, it's huge. It's huge. there's no new people entering the industry. And so what we've been doing as an industry for the last 12 plus years is I mean, really, it's even before 2008 when we had a decline of the trades, but we've just been stealing from one another. We've been taking talent. Right. Is the person that steals the most talent the wins right now in this market? And so a lot of what happens in the restoration industry is we're taking techs from one another.
[00:08:12.980] - Chris
And I mean, the best man still wins. But it's just it's been this real insular game of just moving people around the industry.
[00:08:22.460] - Brandon
Yeah. We're not getting new people in now.
[00:08:25.220] - Brandon
So here's I know you and I have been having these conversations in the background. And, of course, they started a long time ago. I mean, the reality of it is, is that in some of the organizations that we participated in and played roles in, we were conscientious about this idea of developing a company culture. And we've seen some really powerful companies over the last few decades mirror these kinds of focuses. Right. I think tech was probably some of the biggest industries to see.
[00:08:54.200] - Brandon
Kind of of course, I think we swung the pendulum all the way over to foosball tables and keg machines or whatever else.
[00:08:59.810] - Brandon
But but there were some of the first folks that said our work environment, the culture that we're breeding within our organization has value. Not only does it have value, but it affects the bottom line. It affects recruiting effects, all these things. Right. So you and I were were I don't know I don't want to necessarily say early adopters, but that vibe with us. So let's put it that way.
[00:09:20.330] - Chris
Well, yeah, because they were, I think technology companies and they got it more right than wrong is they said, how do we make it so people want to be at work? Man, instead of wanting to be at home, which is the norm in frankly, most industries, most corporate and job environments is we're just doing our role to get home and get paid in. A tech company said, well, if we want to get the best product out of our people, we're going to create a business, which I would argue the restoration business is a creative business. We could talk more about that.
[00:09:51.410] - Chris
Yeah, I think all service work is creative work in tech companies said if we want to get the best out of our people, we want to compete at the highest level, we have to create an environment where people want to be at work. it's both convenient and at least to some degree desirable to stay at work and put in that extra time.
[00:10:11.220] - Brandon
No, you're right. And that's the key part. And I think that this is what kind of got lost in translation a bit, is that I think a lot of people saw and heard organizations investing tons of money into this kind of culture, environmental focus. And I think they looked at it more as a recruiting gimmick.
[00:10:29.700] - Brandon
But what I think has gotten lost on some of us is the fact that, no, these companies were looking at mass production and efficiency like they wanted to milk. OK, let's take the sexy out of it.
[00:10:44.640] - Chris
they want to get the most out of their talent.
[00:10:46.240] - Brandon
They literally want to squeeze every drop out of their workforce that they could because they have these crazy product timelines. They're trying to bring stuff to market before competitors. So don't get it twisted. These folks were thinking about it from a market return on investment, straight up return on investment.
[00:11:04.410] - Brandon
And we have kind of lost focus on that. And I think it's part of one of the reasons why, at least from my perspective and we've talked about this, that the industry seems a little slow on adopting this prioritization of how do we make people feel when they work for a company.
[00:11:22.050] - Brandon
But guys like, again, not only I think, does it have a legacy impact, which you and I know we love that stuff and we focus on. We believe it's got merit. But, man, this is straight up bottom line affecting competitiveness. I mean, this is real stuff. This is measurable, tangible on your companies. And I'd say this man. So understanding our current work environment and how difficult it is, compounding matters, compounding variables are making it harder for us to recruit.
[00:11:53.070] - Brandon
Do we really have a choice anymore to act as if culture is not an important thing for us to understand, grow, learn, develop? I mean, do we really have a choice?
[00:12:05.750] - Brandon
No, no. I mean, of course not.
[00:12:08.100] - Chris
And I think one of the things that holds all businesses back, including me, like I think all of us are subject to this, is this the other side of success? Right. We get to a point whatever success means to you or me, for some people that's getting your restoration business to a million bucks. You got, let's just say 200 grand, 250 grand and profitability. You got a boat, got a housecat.
[00:12:33.090] - Chris
This is good. I got a good gig. That can quickly become a barrier to improvement because we think we're doing just fine. Our people are happy enough. I got a crew. They've been pretty loyal.
[00:12:47.450] - Chris
It's just enough. I think it's that attitude has really shaped not just our industry, but I think it's just it's the natural default. We reach a point where we are we just aren't as hungry.
[00:12:59.400] - Chris
And we have our business in a certain place. We're doing what we always wanted it to do. And we can rest on our laurels. And I think it's as much success as it is at fault for this culture in our in the industry as it is becoming a failure in the sense of more and more, we're starting to hear from clients in other ways that the competition for talent is like it's never, ever been before. And we're seeing it in little in big ways.
[00:13:30.280] - Chris
One of the most obvious ways is just the wages are getting ratcheted up. Yeah, you go into indeed. And you look at a listing of water mitigation technician postings in every single contractor in the market is posted on. Indeed, right. Virtually, yeah. And you've also got you've got huge wage disparity. But what we've been noticing over time is it's all starting to float up. Right. So now that that fourteen or fifteen dollar new technician that's not ICRC certified might have historically started at thirteen bucks an hour until they get to a tech two and they get some certs and get some skills, build whatever.
[00:14:11.790] - Chris
But now you're seeing companies putting out sixteen, seventeen dollars an hour as a starting wage without experience, without certification. And then people with certs we're seeing ranges from eighteen to twenty eight bucks an hour. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:26.730] - Brandon
It's while it's, it's, it is wild. And I think part of that is because and we saw a lot of this in the past where we're trying to add benefits and kind of these environmental conditions that make things more attractive. You can't do that in place of I think that's the thing is like we just need to remember and we're going to dove into some of these tactics a little bit. But we have to remember that the pay piece has to be competitive.
[00:14:52.980] - Brandon
That's not you don't have a choice there. You can't be grossly under your competitors and think that you're going to even get someone in. The door to start the conversation and make it up by being nice, you're going to be right, right. But the key takeaway there is that you're saying you pull up the listings in a market on indeed, everyone's in that place.
[00:15:12.610] - Brandon
That is not a game changer. That's not a differentiator. That no way separates you from the pack. That just allows you to at least keep up. And so I think one of the opportunities that we have here is and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I'm spitball in here a little bit, but there is kind of two different conversations that could potentially come out of here. One is a bigger look at culture, defining that, understanding what it means, understanding how a business operator identifies what they want to create in their own business as their culture.
[00:15:46.120] - Brandon
Right. And I think that that's a big conversation. And so my what I'm kind of hearing from this and I think the direction I want to hang in is that I kind of want to focus more on, OK, let's keep this more of a recruiting conversation, but let's be super diligent about talking about those cultural aspects or the focus on how we're making people feel as they enter our system and participate in our business, how that's affecting our choice making and some of the things that we can do to continue to recruit people.
[00:16:18.160] - Brandon
And then at some point in the near future, I want to have a full blown cultural conversation because I just think it's so important.
[00:16:25.180] - Chris
Well, like you say, there's just so many different ways to go. But I'll tell you, what's popping in my head right now is when we talk about how we make people feel. I think we can hang there for a little while. Yeah, and that's just a limitless conversation. Right. But we think about how we on board people. One of my buddies, he's a tech guy.
[00:16:44.620] - Chris
He got it.
[00:16:45.850] - Chris
Not all tech companies are awesome, by the way. There's Googles and then there's others. So it's not the whole tech industry. You just have this all figured out. But I think they just they've led the pack in terms of culture, awareness and development, stuff like that. He went from one company that was kind of OK, made good money, the competitive whatever. But he started with this new business and he was blown away by the onboarding experience.
[00:17:12.010] - Chris
It was actually a remote job and he'd had other remote jobs as a programmer and whatnot, but he was blown away by the onboarding experience. So once he got his offer letter and he accepted, there was a sequence of events that just happened like clockwork afterwards. Yeah, he had an email he received that told him he has an ergonomics allowance for setting up his home office the way he sees fit. And it was an allowance. I don't know.
[00:17:44.950] - Chris
I'm just going to spitball here. But it's it was like you've got five hundred dollars to put towards whatever office chair you want. You've got eight hundred dollars toward a standing desk or any other kind of desk that you prefer. You get to choose a a MacBook Pro. You can output it, however you outfit it, however you want up to twenty five hundred dollars or three thousand bucks or something like that. Now, mind you again, context is important, right?
[00:18:11.230] - Chris
Obviously we're not going to do this kind of stuff for your typical restoration worker, but for a computer programmer, this was not normal. This was not customary. This was like a new experience and he was a highly compensated person. And so in the grand scheme of things, this wasn't super. What's the word I'm looking for? Wasn't super wild and audacious to. Yes, but so few companies even bothered to do it in a systematic way. Right.
[00:18:39.850] - Chris
Instead, how it might have happened is he'd be like in a typical onboarding, a company. What is an employee doing for like, do I get a name badge? Where do I show up on the first day? Do I get a laptop or do I use my own? Like it's usually chaos in our business.
[00:18:58.350] - Brandon
Right, right. Right.
[00:19:00.220] - Chris
And probably even for us, it's like early in the early days, like, we were probably guilty of that, too.
[00:19:04.480] - Brandon
Oh, let's be honest.
[00:19:05.890] - Chris
They just show up here on Monday night. Yeah. OJT on Monday. Hop in the truck with Johnny. Right. And that's our onboarding process. And I feel like it's really important contrast like what you what could happen. Yeah. And so we had this allowance for setting up his office and then he was invited to an introduction meeting with his team intentionally to like introduce him and for them to introduce, like, basically a little networking mixer in his very first week.
[00:19:36.610] - Chris
And we think, what else I was just so blown away by to, I was really inspired by it. And in fact, I don't know, we may have stolen some of these ideas in different ways at our companies. But I think the intentionality is what really got my attention and how unintentional we generally are in the service sector. And I think this probably runs the gamut, even among the single trades of HVAC and plumbing and electrical is that it's just like, hey, they should be happy, I'm cutting a check.
[00:20:03.680] - Chris
I'm writing a paycheck. Yeah, I'm paying to
[00:20:06.660] - Brandon
were giving them hours.
[00:20:07.080] - Chris
Yeah, we're going to we're going to give them a living. Yeah. And I think what technology companies have figured out, hey, these are people that have the same dreams and aspirations and fears and concerns and ailments as we do. These same people don't like sitting in a crummy office chair for six hours any more than I do. Right. And they just really said, OK, how do we help an employee start out on the right foot in the best, healthiest, most positive, energizing way?
[00:20:37.020] - Chris
How do we give them the best start possible?
[00:20:39.320] - Brandon
Dude I love that?
[00:20:40.590] - Brandon
Can we. So I'm going to put you on the
[00:20:43.890] - Chris
you take us wherever you want.
[00:20:44.820] - Brandon
I'm putting you on the spot here, man. Let's break that example down.
[00:20:48.990] - Brandon
Let's you and I shoot the shit a little bit on what that might look like in a restoration business. OK, so it's a key part here is a proactively designed sequence of events that, like your team can know, is going to happen, meaning that the right players are going to help initiate. They're going to put those things into motion. And then the experience that's being received then by this new hire is, wow, the companies thinking about this proactively.
[00:21:17.940] - Brandon
They value me, right. They've got a plan. I'm excited about to go working with a team that's got a plan. Right. Like all these things, man. What a tone setter. What a difference maker.
[00:21:29.130] - Brandon
So let's let's walk through this.
[00:21:30.420] - Brandon
What can we do as a restoration company to create that same event without buying thousand chairs and three thousand dollar Mac books?
[00:21:38.430] - Chris
OK, can I before I dive? Because this sounds fun. Just does that. You know, that sounds fun to me. Let's talk about the why really fast, because you and I were just listening to Danny Meyer podcast on Knowledge Project. OK, so if you haven't heard this podcast, you need to Google it right now and listen to it. Fifty minutes of the best time you'll spend probably this week. Danny Meyer is the founder and CEO of Union Square Ventures.
[00:22:04.950] - Chris
So Union Square Ventures owns Shake Shack or at least did. Now, Shake Shack is public and in multiple countries, but they own Gramercy Tavern and a handful of other high end iconic restaurants, most of them in New York City. Anyway, Danny Meyer is renowned for his culture. First of all, his company culture, his training systems, his internal language that their employees use across all their companies and and ultimately for their guest experience. They created the restaurants.
[00:22:38.260] - Brandon
Yep.
[00:22:39.990] - Chris
And we heard him talk about Global Leadership Summit years ago. And we were enamored then. We're like, oh, this is so this is so in line with what we're trying to do in a restoration company. He has this phrase he uses it's kind of the mantra of their business is the power of the virtuous cycle of enlightened hospitality that's wild. The virtuous cycle of enlightened hospitality. And the way he describes that is, is that the first audience, the first customer that we have to be diligent in the hospitality we're giving them is our people.
[00:23:15.030] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:23:15.690] - Chris
So he has a deep belief that when he's hiring that server, that line cook, that maitre d, the wine steward, whatever rules he's hiring for, front line, entry level, all of it table bussers is that I need to model the experience that we want to create for guests. I need to model that for them. I need to create an experience. I need to create a certain feeling, a certain culture, a workplace environment for my team, where they feel valued, they feel special in order for them to be able to deliver that to my customer.
[00:23:55.890] - Chris
Huge. I'm like, I heard that. I'm like, oh, man, this is the essence of what company culture is to me.
[00:24:03.540] - Chris
Like if you had some company culture up into one thing, it's you modeling to your people how you want them to take care of your customer. And it seems so obvious when you say it out loud and yet it's hard to deliver on. Oh, absolutely. You think about the conversations that we frequently have with our clients. They're in growth mode. It's one of the reasons why they bring us on to help them grow. Yeah, right. So there there's a certain amount of hair on fire happening in every area of their business.
[00:24:32.100] - Chris
We're trying to implement new systems and processes to help them grow and to make them more efficient and all that kind of stuff.
[00:24:39.000] - Chris
And, well, they're having to do business while they're changing gears and learning how to do things. And so sometimes it just feels overwhelming the idea of creating an experience for people. Okay, so now I'm back to your question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is hard. It is. Which I think is one of the reasons why the. Onboarding experience is is our low hanging fruit is a business because it really, truly does set the tone for what you're going to try to model in all the other issue of business it may struggle in.
[00:25:12.190] - Chris
Yeah, but it's like it's like what we talk about all the time, a customer experience. But it's true of management. Leadership, too, is like filling the bank account. The love account. Yeah. Making those deposits. And that's to me that's the power of a really awesome onboarding experience as you just fill up that new employees love tank. Right. You really bolster their confidence. You connect them with the other people in the company all during that period.
[00:25:38.290] - Chris
And you're filling the love tank because inevitably in the restoration business. We're going to make withdrawals on the regular.
[00:25:47.440] - Brandon
Yeah, the industry is going to require the work pace is going to require reality is going to require. All right. Yeah. So no. Hey, before you jump on, like I got to, I just want to, like, affirm something you just said is this is stuff that the biggest of the bigs understand and it plays out and they're ridiculously huge company successes.
[00:26:11.650] - Brandon
Little company Virgin Air might have just shown up on some people's radar as a full on, fully manned space flight to include the man himself. Right. Richard Branson, the way that he looks at Virgin Air, Virgin Atlantic, the million companies, the same things like how I treat my people will then create the experience that my clients have. Right. So as a leader, he's so focused on what is the work environment, what's the company environment, what's the badge of honor, what am I people feel about our brand?
[00:26:44.950] - Brandon
Because that in turn will give and lead the customer experience that they have. And so we're going to end up staying on this topic too long, I think. But I love it. There's a reality that we spend too much time and maybe it's not too much time, but we put so much weight on protecting these quasi in quotations, trade secrets and the reality of it. I hate to break this to everyone. All the brand names do the mental inventory all the way from the largest gorilla in the room to the smallest mom, PA, 80 percent of what we're doing is all the same.
[00:27:23.410] - Brandon
It's all the same. There's a reason that the IICRC has a training manual of standards that we all follow. Guess what that means? We're not doing it that different from each other, all doing the same shit. We're doing the same shit, man. The differentiator is how do your clients and your referral partners feel and experience doing business with you? Yes. Besides saying I dry it out good.
[00:27:49.900] - Brandon
I dry good, awesome. Yeah, but how did your client experience your company? Your people communicate
[00:27:56.900] - Chris
communication, put them at ease. Did you help settle the anxiety and the disruption to their business? Did you find a way to help them navigate that process?
[00:28:06.160] - Brandon
Did you tweak your process a little bit to meet them where they were? Right, like the million things like these are the differentiators. Your team will not have the bandwidth to do those things well. If they're spending all of their energy caught up in the chaos that you've allowed to exist inside your organization under quotation marks, the banner that you're a restoration company and you're busy. Yeah, OK. So when we take up all the human capital, all their creativity, all their energy, all their free brain space, and you make them adapt and overcome to every stinking variable they can possibly face throughout the day, that means your client gets absolutely the bare minimum from your employee.
[00:28:50.080] - Brandon
I almost feel like we could shut the episode down right there because I cannot stand how many times a month I hear.
[00:28:58.480] - Brandon
Well, we were going to we could we should. We wanted to. But we've been busy this week.
[00:29:04.750] - Chris
Yeah, we have twenty we had twenty calls come in and then. Yeah. We'll get on that next week.
[00:29:09.580] - Brandon
Right. All the much more to be prepared with process. OK, sorry. That's my is process
[00:29:15.040] - Chris
and we've been there.
[00:29:16.090] - Brandon
I, I'm going to probably do some version of it this week. That's the ridiculous part right.
[00:29:21.700] - Chris
Yeah it we get it. But I think there's some. Well you just confronted the reality man. I feel like we have struggled, we've had this ebb and flow with our recruiting and retention and I feel like it's taught us that it's just a non-negotiable. It wasn't negotiable for a long time. I was like, hey, wouldn't this be cool?
[00:29:42.700] - Brandon
Yeah, wouldn't it be great? Yeah.
[00:29:44.800] - Chris
And then I think in the process we discovered it's not it would be great. It's it's essential.
[00:29:50.020] - Chris
It's no longer an option. Like we're going to fail in some form if we don't prioritize or people in our in our culture. OK, so yeah. This onboarding thing.
[00:30:00.640] - Brandon
Yeah. What does it look like. Let's come up with and and I just want to be clear, I don't think this is a process map opportunity, but we're totally going to be within it.
[00:30:10.060] - Brandon
Let's yeah. Let's just give some ideas. So I've got I've got the here's the first one, OK. And guys, what we're going to do intentionally is start very low. Yeah. The bar is low. Like how realistic is it the average company could put this into place. Now listen, many of you are already doing this and doing it. Well, you still don't get this twist.
[00:30:29.980] - Chris
And we want your ideas right. If you've got some cool ideas, certainly email them to us. Yeah.
[00:30:33.490] - Brandon
Because many of you are doing it. Awesome. So, OK, how about this?
[00:30:39.070] - Brandon
How about the next time you hire a technician?
[00:30:42.160] - Brandon
OK, as an example. Before their first working day logging hours, you intentionally set a time for them to come in, meet your team and the highest person on the chain of command leads this, OK? Now, this can be either your manager, ops manager, GM, or man, even better owner if the owner could do this man right on. Right. But you intentionally set the stage, that individual comes and meets you, gets face time with you, and then you walk them through and introduce them to the team, which means, guys, if our morning am routine is is we've got our teams there between seven thirty and eight a.m. or whatever, 7:15 today.
[00:31:24.020] - Brandon
That means we got to prioritize this to make sure that we actually do it when our teammates are there. So we intentionally introduce our new teammate to the team. And in that meeting, we also hand them their swag, their company branded hat, their company branded Polo's their jacket.
[00:31:40.460] - Brandon
Right. Like we set them up so that the first day they're part of the inner circle, they get to show up on that Monday that whatever the day is branded, swagged out and ready to rock and roll. And they've already been introduced to the team. They've gotten face time with your core staff. How hard would that be to set as a standard?
[00:32:01.910] - Chris
It's a day of labor. It's a day of labor, and it's a little intentionality. I mean, I think your point about the owner when possible, when possible and let's be honest, the average restoration company owner that is listening to this or general manager. Right. Probably has a company with somewhere between six and 15 FTE employees. Yeah.
[00:32:25.220] - Chris
When you say that's fair.
[00:32:25.970] - Brandon
Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:26.930] - Chris
I mean, certainly a lot bigger ones. And then there's a lot of smaller guys in a truck kind of kind of stuff. But this to me as somebody whose own companies would be the absolute highest value and benefit to that employee, is having the owner of that company take the time to acknowledge them and show some interest in them, even if that owner is not engaged in the day to day activities, which we all hope to at some point get out of the fray, right out of the weeds.
[00:32:52.950] - Chris
Yeah, but this is not an activity in the weeds. This is developing your people. Yeah, this is we all like to talk about a family environment. I hate that term. Oh, my gosh. But because because I think so often that notion of we're a family business, where is the family work environment is total lip service. Yeah. We do very little to affirm that or to live that out.
[00:33:18.290] - Chris
Very little. What does that mean and what does that mean? If the owner in a family business, the owner doesn't stop in to meet the new guy or the new gal? Yeah, that. No, I'm sorry. You're not a family oriented business, right? Not at all. So if you say that about yourself, I think it is quaint. And I think some of us have really positive association with the family idea. Not everybody does.
[00:33:42.740] - Chris
Sure. Yeah. But I think there's a sense of connectedness in a family, though.
[00:33:48.140] - Chris
There is a sense of loyalty in a family. There's a sense of caring in a healthy family.
[00:33:54.920] - Chris
There's a sense if we take care of each other like we look out for each other, there's there's all these things in a family environment. And I think it's really important if if that's how you're promoting yourself or thinking about yourself just because you're small and a family owns the business, you should ask yourself, do we actually live any of those things out? Yeah.
[00:34:16.220] - Chris
Does a healthy family gossip about one another? Is their backbiting? Is there is there clicks and all that stuff? No, no. But yet, of course, oftentimes in our industry, because of the stressful nature of it, those kind of things emerge and we tolerate it. When we tolerate it, we tolerate it way too much. So I love your idea about owners and I think it's worth camping out there because I think owners oftentimes do not realize just how powerful their presence is, but how powerful their focus is of looking a technician, a brand new twenty year old technician in the eyes and saying, hey, I appreciate you joining our team.
[00:34:54.050] - Chris
Yeah, it is really hard to find good people to build our business with. And we're really excited to have you on the team. I'm so excited to see what you're going to do and how you're going to make us better. Holy shit.
[00:35:05.790] - Brandon
Yeah, it would be a game changer for the average person what they're normally used to experience big time. And what are we talking about right now, honestly, is something as simple as that boils down to here's where it's tough. It's asking driven, goal focused, adapt and overcome type people to prioritize a slightly different skill set.
[00:35:28.550] - Chris
And a thing that does not produce an obvious, direct, immediate conversion.
[00:35:35.120] - Brandon
Immediate's key. It's delayed gratification time. This is the hard work that we do is key leaders and as a business owners that will produce fruit.
[00:35:43.430] - Brandon
It is a strategic movement, it is time being spent on the kind of stuff that will pay dividends years and years down the road, and sometimes that's hard to prioritize.
[00:35:53.270] - Brandon
It's super hard when we have a million holes in our ship and a bunch of things that aren't going the way we want, blah, blah, blah. But those things just inevitably perpetuate that same cycle.
[00:36:02.060] - Brandon
So anyways, let's try to fence ourselves in a bit. So somehow creating an onboarding experience, that is we do it the same.
[00:36:11.660] - Brandon
It's consistent, right. So this one that we talked about, loosley fairly easy example, doesn't really there's really not a ton of cost associated with it directly is let's bring them in for a half day, a few hours before the day that we're going to work, introduce them to the team, get them their swag, make sure they're dialed in. Where's their locker? In the shop. If you do that, uniforms, whatever the case may be.
[00:36:34.100] - Brandon
Here's one to to add to that our personal PPE bag that technicians tagged. This is their gear bag.Right now I know everyone's going to have kind of a different array of priorities or what they do in terms of choices and small tools and all that.
[00:36:50.480] - Brandon
But at minimum, there's some layer of PPE or personal tool kit that we have for our team members. Man handing that individual their their name badge bag. Right. Again, this is stuff we're already providing to our employees. We're not asking people to go out and start buying things that aren't.
[00:37:08.120] - Chris
Yeah, it's about thoughtfulness and coordination. It's about what it is that I think we're trying to create. Is the reality or the impression that you starting today is important
[00:37:20.330] - Brandon
to all of us.
[00:37:21.350] - Chris
To all of us. We planned it. Yeah, you're intentional. We hired you on purpose. Yeah. You're not just plugging a whole you're becoming a part of our team. Right. And I think oftentimes we make people feel like there is I don't even know what I'm going to do.
[00:37:35.930] - Chris
I guess I'm bringing on like they don't even know necessarily what the role is on the team and where they fit in the vision of things. And it doesn't feel intentional. I think a lot of times it's just like, hey, like like you talked about, hey, Monday I'll hop on the truck with John. Yeah. Yeah. You're going out and doing crawling spaces this morning. It's just we throw him into the fray and it just I don't think it necessarily feels bad.
[00:38:00.050] - Chris
I think it's a missed opportunity and I think it can feel really bad. But the point is, is that what we're communicating with an intentional onboarding is you matter, you're important to the team. You're bigger than just the job you got hired for. And we believe all those things so much that we've actually put thought and preparation into you showing up today.
[00:38:18.980] - Brandon
Those huge here's to buy products I think come from that. No one is people that experience that. Just this one simple idea, this one concept, people that experience that are more likely to refer friends, family, sphere of influence to come work at the company that they're excited to work for recruitments, hard work. You're indeed job posting. Looks like everyone else is indeed job posting where he talked about that. What sells is someone on your team that's experienced firsthand the culture and the way that you guys lead your people saying to someone else, hey, come work for our team.
[00:38:57.350] - Brandon
Right. It's not lip service. I'm telling you. I'm referring. I'm a warm lead, right? Yeah, super powerful stuff. Here's the other thing that happens with that is that it's hard to leave.
[00:39:07.040] - Brandon
It is. Right. So if we set the tone on day one, your priority, your important, you're not an afterthought. Yeah. Granted, to some extent our hair is on fire, but you are intentional. We value you. We prioritize you. Holy cow. If that doesn't do something to help cement some loyalty to you and your brand, is it a shoe in as a one hundred percent factor? No, of course not. But if recruiting is hard, let's not leave the back door open and let them come right through, right in one end and out the other.
[00:39:39.940] - Brandon
So huge. It just sets the tone for massive long term benefits and makes them sticky.
[00:39:45.310] - Chris
And I understand why it happens. But we are talking about effort because. Yeah. How many restoration companies have all the swag ready for that person on day one? How many people are rolling around in a t shirt they borrowed from somebody else who happens to be the same size or they're rolling around in a regular shirt and they're borrowing somebody's jacket to throw over it or some cobbled together existence for their first week.
[00:40:11.380] - Brandon
The t shirt from the style that we use for our temp teams and their every time they go to clock back in in the offices in the day, they're like, hey, is when my stuff be here? Oh, pretty soon. And it just it feels crummy until it gets to be the odd person out or to be the first guy. The new guy. Yeah. Right. And not have all the gear and just to be known as the new person and all of that can be all of that can be handled by just a little bit of planning.
[00:40:35.950] - Brandon
Totally a little bit of effort.
[00:40:38.110] - Brandon
I have another one. I don't know. We started to tiptoe in this idea, but my recollection is that we did not execute with one hundred percent certainty. So I'm just diamond myself out, OK? I can't say that I did this.
[00:40:54.190] - Brandon
What if part of our onboarding process is that our team members, our existing team members, super loyal, happy to work for you team members. What if we assigned a battle buddy? OK, we did play with this. We did play with this. We I don't believe we we got busy. Yeah, we are here. Started on fire and then we immediately dropped the priority. But but what if what if we set the tone that we give you a battle buddy on day one.
[00:41:22.360] - Brandon
Right. And that's part of the relationship that you are introduced to right out of the gate. There are some things to think about with the battle buddy. Now, we can probably take this pendulum all the way from very little prep to Advanced Coaching Culture Prep, which we're not going to go in today. But this idea is that this teammate, this team member, understands their role is to be available for questions to help indoctrinate the new person on the little nuances about your shop yard locations where stuff is standard protocols.
[00:41:57.280] - Brandon
At the end of the day, if we're dumping trash, what does that look like? Like just the little things. Here's a fun one. What if that individual was part of the team that helped take you around and introduce you to the other team members? Right. Like and I know some of you that is like your immediate response is a little cheesy. Well, then don't make it cheesy. Make it proud. Yeah, right. There's nothing wrong.
[00:42:20.710] - Brandon
What are apprentice programs? What are all these other things you've got someone on your team understands your culture, is loyal to you, believes in the company, is a good warrior.
[00:42:30.940] - Brandon
They're out there kicking butt for your brand. Why would you not want the very first thing a new employee is to be exposed to is one of your core employees that are brought in.
[00:42:42.070] - Brandon
Right. And let them also sell the culture, because I tell you what speaks really loud and clear when there's no bosses around and a down line employee still talks highly of the company, guess what?
[00:42:53.620] - Brandon
People believe it. That's real, right? It's real. It's real. So what do you think of that one?
[00:42:58.480] - Chris
So good, man. I can hear some of the naysayers now in my head.
[00:43:04.740] - Chris
Saying you don't understand, like the people we're talking about, I think sometimes we can we can take the people we have on our team and we form an opinion, we form a view of these people. It's just kind of worker bees that are never going to aspire to anything more. They can keep their shit together. They've got chaos at home and they're in their personal lives. They're doing just about two draws a month on their check because their finances are a sham.
[00:43:33.660] - Chris
We have this picture that forms where we almost I think if we're not careful, we just kind of pity or look down upon own. A lot of our frontline staff, you know, that they are what they are. It is what it is. And we just have a little bit of a jaded perspective on the labor force in our industry. And I think what we've seen and what we've grown to sort of understand in our experience is, is that a lot of people are starting there and virtually every single one has a desire to move beyond that, especially if they're given a path, if they're shown an example, a model.
[00:44:11.310] - Chris
And I think part of how you can do that is by getting them connected to some of the best people on your team, like you talked about. Absolutely getting them around the people that are thriving in your business, that understand the mission, that understand the bigger picture, that thinks strategically and are performing well in the role. Like a little bit of intentionality can really spark a vision for some of our front line people. But I think oftentimes they're kind of siloed in their own little world.
[00:44:41.850] - Chris
Their supervisor is just that, you know, their supervisor is just kind of checking their work, holding the standard. There's no exposure to the why behind things, explaining the process, helping coach and develop them on what the next step is, etc.. I mean, dude, we're going way down field in the culture department. But when it comes to the onboarding, this is the first moment where we're setting the tone. And I think if we just throw people into OJT, we throw them on a truck.
[00:45:11.100] - Chris
Day one, we may or may not give them their uniform. Day one, we may or may not have their name badge ready, day one, but we throw them out in the truck. I think some people I think sometimes I'm sure I've been this way. I'm sure we've been this way where we just justify our behavior with it's good for 'em, get them out there experiencing it right out of the gates. You know, it's the best way to learn.
[00:45:32.430] - Chris
You know, just get them out there. I'm sure I've said some version of that.
[00:45:36.270] - Brandon
Yeah, I've done it and been in the seat,
[00:45:38.350] - Chris
so we're busy. All right. You coming with me today? I think, unfortunately, what we're modeling for them is that this kind of chaos and that sort of chaotic, constantly flitting from one urgent matter to the next when we do that right out of the gates. So people were just setting the tone that this is how we roll.
[00:45:59.280] - Chris
Yeah. So then two weeks, two months, you're working on some initiative to really settle the team and get get a system in place to start to build some deep grooves and some normality in your business and some efficiencies. And you're starting to implement these things.
[00:46:15.240] - Chris
And everybody's like the moment five jobs come in, all of that's abandoned because that's what you've taught them. Yeah, we have a brand new person coming on our team. There aren't many more things in your business that are more important man than that person that day.
[00:46:29.850] - Brandon
Dude, can we hang in there for a second? Yeah.
[00:46:32.550] - Brandon
So you and I, we actually just went through this exercise with a client recently and we asked that client to do was to take some time prior to this was a week and a half, I think prior to a new person Hot Shot, they were pumped about getting this person on the team. In fact, we were excited.
[00:46:51.180] - Brandon
We said, hey, what we want you to do is in light of the your mitigation process map. Right. That process outlined. In light of kind of the environment that you're intentionally creating with your company, the stage that you want to set with your employees. Map out ,in writing, intentionally lay out the next. I think we did forty five days with this particular individual. Forty five to sixty days of what OJT is actually going to look like. And just for some reason, if you missed it, OJT on the job training.
[00:47:23.640] - Brandon
Right. Throw them and throw them in the service businesses. Look. Yeah. You can kind of Q&A about such a big part of the training but you learn a lot doing it right. But map out what those first forty five sixty days are going to look like and I'm not going to go into the back and forth about what that conversation looked like anyways. The individual did it, did a great job with super intentional and then we just walked alongside of them as they actually took that employee through that onboarding process and they stuck to it.
[00:47:49.770] - Brandon
They stuck to it like a champ. And here's what happened. Granted, it was a good hire. It was OK. So granted, that does make or break. But what they did is they did not leave to assumption what we may have the opportunity to get done and or in that with that action, they drastically reduced how long it took to get an individual to the point where they were actually providing operational value to the team. OK, don't get me wrong.
[00:48:23.530] - Brandon
And for them, they were producing work, so I don't have time to do that. Turns into one hundred and eighty days of half assed training someone. And then at the end of that six months, you're still struggling to know if they were a good fit or bad fit?should i hire them? they don't know if they're in or out? Whatever.
[00:48:41.470] - Brandon
So this exercise probably a couple hours mapped out a forty five day plan. And I think we were only 10 days or two weeks into it and clearly confident that that forty five day timeline was going to get hit like with a gold medal. Yeah. So that's another one of our things here is we touched on this creating an onboarding experience those first few days. What does that look like? Being proactive, introducing them to this idea of a battle buddy? Right.
[00:49:10.930] - Brandon
Again, we're not talking about bleeding money here, folks. Introduce them to a battle buddy. Get them extremely exposed to the right players on your team right away and then plan out what the first forty five to sixty days of OJT is going to look like, meaning be clear on what things they'll be going over. Right. Be clear on the phases of training. You and I talk about this a lot of establishing your protocol, this idea that someone needs to watch you do it while you talk about the why behind what you're doing.
[00:49:41.650] - Brandon
They need to move into this place where they begin to try it and you're walking them through the steps, coaching them through the steps, and then eventually they move into this area of they're now responsible for executing and there's an opportunity for quality control and accountability. So build that in to what you do with this new employee. Now, whether you're assigning them to that battle, buddy is their trainer. If they're getting assigned to a mitigation lead or whatever the case may be, be intentional.
[00:50:08.530] - Brandon
Hand the person the road map so that they know what they're focusing on. Allow them to be the one that sits in the cab and says, hey, I feel really strong about X, Y and Z. What do you think? How what's your feedback on how you're doing? And check it off and give it some signatures. Like this is not rocket science, but it changes everything. In a particular case like this, we're setting the tone to that individual.
[00:50:33.550] - Brandon
Again, we're a professional business. We care about what we do. We've proactively thought about what we do. We want to share and teach you what to do so that you're extremely confident in your own skill set and you can grow more independent and be a contributing member of our team. All of that is being said and mirrored by you just proactively laying out the first 60 days of work.
[00:50:57.520] - Chris
Yeah, right. I think one of the barriers to us doing this goes back to our assumptions about our people.
[00:51:05.980] - Brandon
oh Man.
[00:51:06.550] - Chris
And particularly assumptions when we're talking about our frontline laborers. Yeah, they're swinging hammers. They're doing demo doing drills for carrying equipment. These are labor force that get the real work done right. We have these assumptions about what they do or don't care about. And I think in a lot of cases, we believe that they just they just want to put their head down, do their time and go home.
[00:51:29.260] - Chris
And what we're discovering is that when you lead them into the trade. You are deliberately scheduling time to talk about certain principles, standards, values, trade craft, specific items with intentionality that they eat it up. Most of them, if it's the right hire, they will.
[00:51:51.400] - Chris
If it's the right hire, they will
[00:51:53.920] - Brandon
if they don't give a shit you hired wrong.
[00:51:56.470] - Chris
Exactly.
[00:51:57.100] - Brandon
It's not a system problem. You started out of the gate on the wrong foot.
[00:52:00.460] - Chris
Exactly right. So what do I mean more specifically? Well, one of the things we talked about, this forty five day onboarding plan was specific topics every day because again, they are busy and like they hired and they had a bunch of influx of jobs and they lost somebody because of some move out of state. And so they were in they were in a desperate mode when they brought these people in. But but he took the two hours to map it out.
[00:52:24.970] - Chris
And what it looks like is, hey, on Monday, at the end of the day, at four o'clock before we were certain to go back to the shop and load out and everything else, I'm going to talk with them about our greeting process. When we respond to a water loss, we're going to specifically chat through the initial greeting to the customer, the explanation of the work authorization form and in our rapport building with that customer, that's it.
[00:52:51.970] - Chris
And it's going to be a twenty minute conversation. And I'm going to model it. I'm going to say it out loud. I'm going to ask what questions they have and we're going to have a dialog about it for twenty minutes on Monday. We're not spending three hours. We're not pulling the laptop out of the truck to watch some fancy training video or something like that. It's just the intentionality of me as the owner operator, the GM, the mitigation manager who never has a plan and execute the plan.
[00:53:19.430] - Chris
Then on Tuesday, we're going to talk about how to scope a loss. Or we're going to talk even smaller nugget. We're going to talk about how to take great photos of a loss. 20 minute conversation, a little bit of modeling, go into a room, either at the shop or at the last customer job or the first customer job. But it's intentional. It's not haphazard. It's today at some point or at three o'clock or first thing in the morning before your first job.
[00:53:48.860] - Chris
We're going to talk about taking quality photos on every job we do and we're going to teach them that part. And then on Wednesday. So every day of this forty five day plan, there was a topic. And one of the topics you talked about was our culture. In one of the tools we help owners define culture with is what are the things that we always do and what are the things that we never do. You can get as big and wide as you want on that? Or it is specific on collections where we're making doing collections. We always do this. We never do that. And you can really teach people what your culture is by the standards you allow.
[00:54:22.790] - Brandon
Man
[00:54:23.360] - Chris
talking in terms of standards because not everything in our business is black and white, but some things are. And that's what makes us unique.
[00:54:30.950] - Chris
And so he had a bullet on there.
[00:54:32.910] - Chris
One of the calendar days was to talk about those standards and what is our culture, what are we trying to make it feel like and how are we trying to make customers feel? What's our target here? And on and on for forty five days? And the idea feels overwhelming. It was overwhelming him at first.
[00:54:46.640] - Brandon
I think the yeah, exactly.
[00:54:47.910] - Chris
He's like, oh wow. OK, what do you mean exactly. And and when we refined it and he's like OK. But then I think he found out it was a couple hours of a couple hours of thinking of outlining it. He sent us the outine, it was great. It was a single Google doc that he then put into his calendar with reminders.
[00:55:04.760] - Brandon
So well, and here's what was so beautiful about that. Does he really need to reinvent that now? Every time?
[00:55:09.890] - Chris
No, he's got a process for every future on board..
[00:55:11.660] - Brandon
He's got a processor.
[00:55:14.150] - Brandon
So now all of a sudden he could delegate an onboarding of a new team member to someone else.
[00:55:19.670] - Chris
That's right.
[00:55:20.960] - Brandon
It's amazing.
[00:55:21.950] - Brandon
OK, so and again, guys, I know we make jokes and we we're kind of smart asses in regards to I don't have time. Look, I we get it. I get it. We've made the mistakes. I'm going to make the mistake later this week. I'll probably make it this evening as many times as we can not make the mistakes that perpetuate the same problems that we're fighting, the closer we get to a sustainable business that can actually manage itself.
[00:55:49.220] - Brandon
Right.
[00:55:49.670] - Chris
And that we enjoy
[00:55:51.170] - Brandon
and that we enjoy that.
[00:55:52.220] - Chris
We have no money. Amount of money in the world compensates for how chaotic this industry can be. Yeah. How demanding it is from us. Yeah, but it is possible to reduce that. And it is no doubt this is part of it.
[00:56:06.350] - Brandon
We like to call it stress less leadership, not stressless.
[00:56:11.000] - Chris
because anybody who cares is always going to carry the weight of, of their people and their business.
[00:56:15.800] - Chris
But yeah.
[00:56:16.820] - Chris
So other onboarding stuff, I think in general we really fail to connect new people to the rest of the team. That that's so. I have a buddy who runs a a technology company up in Portland and it is actually it's a marketing firm, a marketing agency, the graphic design websites, all that kind of stuff.
[00:56:35.990] - Chris
And whenever they have a new employee that week, there's a little reception.
[00:56:40.250] - Chris
Now, I'm not advocating for giving alcohol to your team and all that kind of stuff. In fact, I'm probably more of a naysayer when it comes to alcohol in your business and giving it to your employees. But they have a bar in their little staff room and they have sodas in their fridge and they they're kind of set up for it. And everybody meets at the end of the the day on either Thursday or Friday. And that week when they have a new person and everybody shows up and pops it, it's kind of a drop in deal.
[00:57:07.490] - Chris
People are coming in for meetings with clients and whatever they're there, they're mingling and they're getting to know in a social setting this new employee. And I'm like, that is great idea. Could you do a version of that in restoration? Absolutely. You could do a version of that.
[00:57:22.130] - Brandon
Totally.
[00:57:22.850] - Chris
Go get a box of pastries and a jug of decent coffee. Yeah, something out of the ordinary. Yeah. Go spend fifty bucks. Yeah. On that new hire and get a box of pastries and a good jug of coffee and bring it to your morning stand to. Yeah. On that person's first day. Hey guys, we got we got somebody new joining our team. Yeah. I want you all to meet Sally. I want you all to meet John.
[00:57:46.880] - Chris
Yeah. You can thank them for the pastries this morning. Right. I love it and have a process for introducing to make people feel special and feel good. It's not that hard.
[00:57:57.170] - Brandon
Yeah, I think everything about what we're talking about, it's not easy, but it's simple.
[00:58:02.690] - Chris
It just needs to be planned.
[00:58:04.010] - Brandon
It just needs to be planned out is really is instead of I mean, it's not unlike calendar management, right? But we won't go into that right now. So here's one of the themes that I think is standing out to me, or I guess without covering every What-If scenario, every possible scenario. I think an element, and you mentioned this a little bit earlier, is OK, so an onboarding process is an outstanding way to set the stage and the tone for someone new coming on to your team. It's an outstanding way to create stickiness, to create an environment where those who went through that process and then experienced other ongoing good culture interaction, they want to promote and advertise these opportunities to other team members. There's this idea that beyond that, then what do we do next? Well, we have to maximize those that we have, those who we have on the team already. And you kind of touched on this a little bit.
[00:59:05.420] - Brandon
And I actually thought you were about to take off down that direction. So I wanted to hold on to it. But it's this idea of, OK, hiring new is hard means retention is vital, retention is vital. Not holding on dirtbag's, but holding on to good employees is vital. And so part of the ways that we create that stickiness or that we get the good people to stick around like that's part of this, too. That's that's part of this bigger conversation.
[00:59:33.440] - Brandon
One of the first things that stands out to me is we make jokes about not hiring demo donkeys. And sometimes what I say it out loud like that, I'm like, maybe I should use that term. But here's the point. Is hiring people right out of the gate with this expectation that they're no more than someone that can show up, beat some shit up and throw it in a bag, a black trash bag.
[00:59:58.130] - Brandon
We've allowed a industry to really like that's common like that. We have an organization full of folks that the day we hired them, the highest bar of expectation we ever even started with was the idea that this person could fog a mirror, show up on a job and with micro level management, be able to tear some crap apart and throw it in a bag. OK, so if you start out the relationship with that level of expectation, what on God's earth makes you think that that individual will ever do anything to go beyond that level of expectation?
[01:00:35.090] - Chris
Well, and I think the sad thing or the the reality behind that is there's a good chance that no one's ever asked them for anything more than that either.
[01:00:42.740] - Brandon
Right.
[01:00:43.610] - Chris
So we take people at face value versus what they could become, you know, not to get too woo woo, but that there's an opportunity there that we're all generally overlooking. Right. Is when you expect more out of people, some people are going to rise up to what you expect. Right? We've all seen it. Everybody listening to this has experienced that. And yet we fail to really build that into our system of how we take care of people, how we frame job descriptions, the expectations and standards that we set up in our company like we know that works.
[01:01:16.850] - Chris
But the whole industry is pretty stuck in this hierarchy of you just got general labor, just tear stuff up and carry equipment. And then there's this other level where they're able to collect the work authorization, able to talk to a customer. And I think a big part of it is, is that some of these people, we judge the book by its cover and we just think they're not capable. Yeah, we just make the judgment in our own head, this person that their demo is one of the demo guys.
[01:01:48.540] - Chris
Yeah.
[01:01:49.190] - Chris
Yep. They're OK. Hey, how is that new hire?
[01:01:51.920] - Chris
Well, you know, demo guy. All right.
[01:01:54.200] - Brandon
So let's unpack this scenario that we're all really good at creating for ourselves. So I'm a mitigation manager. I'm a owner, whatever the case may be. So I'm going to have because hiring is hard and hiring skilled labor is hard.
[01:02:08.990] - Brandon
I'm going to take and accept two, three, four people that I've already deemed can't do anything more than basically maybe maybe control demo under tight supervision. And somehow, in my mind, that seems like a better course of action to somehow stop the chaos in my business and give me the opportunity to get out of the weeds than it is, of course, because costs the cost of labor. So these are fourteen dollars an hour people. I can't expect a whole bunch.
[01:02:40.940] - Brandon
So it's smarter to hire four people, three or four people at fourteen bucks an hour that you can't leave alone for more than ten minutes than it is for you to hire two people and pay them twenty eight bucks an hour and they're actually competent enough to lead a standard mitigation job on their own. So I think what we're talking about here is this idea when we hire. Right when we set the the correct level of expectectation. And we again take a step closer to the business model that we want to have versus being stuck in this self-perpetuating cycle of I'm never going to get out of the weeds, I'm never going to be able to this. I don't have the time to train anybody.
[01:03:19.900] - Brandon
So think about that. Think about from the perspective, are my team members force multipliers or are they just bodies? And here's what I mean by that. We talk a lot with our companies about raising the bar in terms of the level of expectation they have for their mitigation techs as an example, because the reality of it is if you have three experienced, trained, invested in certified competent mitigation technicians and they're actually following the sequential steps that should be identified in your process outline. Those three people at any given moment in time based on workload, can split up and become three different jobs starting at the exact same time, because then that's when we come in and supplement with our relationship with a temp labor staffing solution or something like that.
[01:04:12.370] - Chris
Independent of an estimate or a project manager completely, or mitigation manager or a sales guy that needs to go collect work authorization nonsense.
[01:04:22.660] - Brandon
And that's what we're talking about, is you're not going to have a staff of 10, maybe. Of a staff of 10, of underperforming, undervalued, not paid very well workers. Those days are not in the near future for us any longer, which thank God from my book. But that's another preaching scenario. But you can create an environment and pay in such a way and value people in such a way that differentiates your company from someone else. It allows you to track someone that's skilled and then it's your job to invest in them and make them a force multiplier for your team, get them certifications, get them extra training, invest in them in terms of your time and what your sharing.
[01:05:03.940] - Brandon
Get them engaged with the why. Teach them about the systems and the processes.
[01:05:08.380] - Brandon
Right. Because when we do that, we can have a smaller staff. They're paid a little bit more. Right, because it's required. But then what that team can get accomplished is massive. Right. It's massive when compared to its higher number counterparts of people that don't really give a crap.
[01:05:27.700] - Chris
So, you know, I follow you follow a lot of industry people on LinkedIn.
[01:05:31.750] - Brandon
Oh, yeah, sure.
[01:05:32.380] - Chris
And I love I've been following Andrew Dobson. He's a ServPro owner in I'm not sure where they're at actually offhand, but he posts these monthly employee appreciation videos.
[01:05:46.810] - Brandon
Yeah. You see that free shout out to you Andrew, and he doesn't even know who we are.
[01:05:51.130] - Chris
It's so it's so awesome and it's well done. And I've looked into if I had to guess, either they have somebody in house that's and they have someone helping them edit the video and all this kind of stuff, it's really pro like it's cool and it's like it's like a four minute video where the employee of the month gets interviewed and it's really classy. And I thought to myself, why is this not more commonplace in this? Goes back to the technician thing?
[01:06:20.770] - Chris
Because I think that's really the growing edge for our industry is learning how to develop and inspire our technician level people. Yeah, a lot of times we're pulling our project managers from they have more sophisticated experience from commercia GC's or they're coming over from some other trades business and they tend to be higher pay all the things just different level with our technicians. Like what would it be like to be a technician in a company making 16, 18 bucks an hour and to be featured in a company video that gets shared out where they talk about all the things they appreciate about you and what you bring to the company, what you contribute to the team, impact the way you've affected customers?
[01:07:05.110] - Brandon
As a technician, what is it like to hear somebody else talk to you about a talk about you like that in public? Most technicians, I would assume, have never experienced that kind of affirmation. And public encouragement in their entire life. Yeah, and what did it cost, Andrew? I mean, I'd love to know, man, because I'd love to find out. But my guess is there's different versions of that, probably less than five hundred dollars.
[01:07:34.380] - Chris
And when you think about it's incidental. The cost is just incidental to the impact, whatever it is, frankly, probably a thousand dollars to do that every month. And it'd be worth it because of the impact on what it says to that person in a powerful, memorable, I would venture to say, maybe even life changing in a bigger legacy, legacy impact. And also for what it says. Having a program like that in your business highlights a different employee every single month or twice a month.
[01:08:05.740] - Chris
I don't even know. It seems like I've seen them every few weeks or so
[01:08:09.240] - Chris
But what is it to tell your whole company about what the employees mean to the company? Man, it's just we haven't given this stuff enough air time as an industry. And I'm convinced it's not because we don't think it works. I think it's just we don't it's hard for us to see how it's possible when we're stuck in the chaos.
[01:08:29.720] - Chris
Yeah, it's just there's this awkward transition you and I experienced more than once as we grew because, you know, from from two to three million, totally different ballgame then when you're at six or seven million and then likewise you break the ten million barriers, like you have a different business in some ways, but at every stage you have a different kind of chaos. Yeah.
[01:08:54.780] - Chris
And there's an awkward, really ugly in some ways at times like process of just trudging through the mud to get that new behavior in place. But once it's in place, it's as though it's always been there. It's like once you're there, it's not it doesn't require the labor. But, man, when you're trying to implement new stuff, change the way you've always done things, it is miserable at times. Yeah, right. Is that is it fair to say
[01:09:23.040] - Brandon
yes. Like it doesn't give it the feeling right from the experience.
[01:09:29.490] - Chris
And it just also feels impossible. It's just like you come up with these good ideas or you hear about another restoration company is doing X or Y and you're like, oh, we need to do that. Jeez, they're making tons of money or they're getting more people or whatever the case is. And you try it, you kick it off, you bring it up to your team or your partner or your GM or whatever, and you say, let's do this.
[01:09:49.710] - Chris
And then you start to get into that trough of sorrow. You know, you get into the mud and you're like, OK, no, let's really let's do it.
[01:09:58.320] - Chris
And then more resistance. And then twenty two jobs come in over a period of ten days and people are maxed out. And maybe, you know, I don't think we do this. I think we'll just have to pick this up in the fall. And we just quit because it's hard.
[01:10:13.320] - Brandon
It is
[01:10:14.460] - Chris
Gosh, it's hard. And I think the other thing too is it feels like there's nothing for us in it right now. Those long plays that we try to start, it is so hard to keep the value of it front and center with all these competing things start hitting us.
[01:10:29.740] - Brandon
It's very true.
[01:10:30.450] - Brandon
Yeah. Yeah, but we don't I think the key piece to that, those you have to come back around and land on the fact that we don't have a choice. Yeah. you're going to burn yourself out like these are not options. These are just this is how you create viable, sustainable, successful businesses. You don't have a choice.
[01:10:48.630] - Brandon
Some of the stuff's very simple.
[01:10:50.190] - Brandon
It's just not easy. It's not easy to execute on. before we inevitably kind of reach this kind of summary wrap up piece. I wanted to just kind of draw a picture out for folks. And this is really just meant to encourage you guys when we're focused on the right type of people and we have the correct level of expectation and we invest in them from the very first day with our mindset, with our thoughts, with our behaviors, with our communication of the wise, with the way that we are onboard them.
[01:11:20.970] - Brandon
This is the kind of stuff that happens. And I've been able to experience this firsthand multiple times. And then I got to watch, most recently an example that was really phenomenal just from a distance. it's when you have someone come into a team and granted it's not always delivered perfectly, but when we're falling forward with the investment that we're putting into the development of our culture and how the tone that we want to set with our people. You're going to get individuals that buy into that concept and they become loyal to the concept and they become loyal to the relationship with you as key leaders because they see you stand out among the noise as someone that actually gives a shit about them.
[01:12:06.630] - Brandon
And because regardless if you want to admit it or not, we're all so desperate to be valued that when someone does, we respond in kind. OK, and I know we had the opportunity to watch two amazing, I had an opportunity to watch tens, if not many people experienced this, but we had to rock stars that came up from the ground front line technician positions and became absolute monster key leaders within our organization. And one of them has since moved on and is now an entrepreneur and running his own company.
[01:12:43.730] - Brandon
And he's a fierce competitor. And he's still an individual that to this day, when we think about certain initiatives and things that we want to do, his name always comes up and you and I have to spend 10 or 20 minutes going, OK, how is there a way to get him on and whatever. But it's these watching as people come into a system that they believe in, that even though it's not perfect, they see what you're trying to accomplish.
[01:13:06.750] - Chris
That's the key, right?
[01:13:08.030] - Chris
They see what we're trying to try.
[01:13:10.310] - Brandon
And we're and we're talking about it like, hey, we fell short here. But here, remember, here's the goal. Here's where we're headed. And they get in and they start to perpetuate that mission and they believe in it so strongly that they become part of the day-to-day driver for it. And they're contagious. They create better sales. They create better retention because more people want to work around that person.
[01:13:32.990] - Brandon
Right. Because it's contagious. And one of the most recent ones that I watched and this one was so profound from a scale of economy. Think about this. We had an individual at the last organization I was participating in and this individual came in as a water technician, straight MIT Dimo guy. All right. And I'm going to describe the individual just because I think from a stereotyping perspective, it helps us kind of gain perspective. And granted, this actually was me when I came into the industry, but skater shoes tore up bottom of the pant legs.
[01:14:03.680] - Brandon
Right. The clothes are kind of half assed, thought through. Looks more like we rolled out of a duffle bag than we did actually think about what we were going to look like that day. And I think less than two years later, this individual was writing more than four or five million a year in estimates. I know our commission structure at the time, this person was earning more than most of the folks, maybe even listening to this podcast.
[01:14:28.740] - Brandon
OK. This was a fourteen dollar an hour person that got brought into an organization that is not perfect. Many things are not awesome, but they did have some things set in stone and very clear. And one of them was they did give this individual an opportunity to chase a goal. He was taken under somebody's wing a regional estimate or a large loss estimator. And this kid was so hungry, he literally just said, tell me what to do and I will do it.
[01:14:57.260] - Brandon
And that individual did it. And there are six figure heavy, six figure earner. And they're kicking ass and taking names in one of the largest companies in our business. And so I want to remind people of that. And the reason I want to remind people is that your time investment, doing this shit that seems like you're too busy to do is the very stuff that will take your company, not just from good to great, but it'll give you an opportunity to be a business owner instead of self-employed.
[01:15:28.130] - Brandon
And that's absolutely, absolutely critical.
[01:15:30.920] - Brandon
So it's not like this stuff is all about everyone else. And you're a servant leader. Like all that stuff sounds good on paper, but it just makes business sense. It gets you closer to what you want and wow, it establishes a platform where people can succeed and thrive and be really excited.
[01:15:48.170] - Chris
And you can build legacy.
[01:15:49.430] - Brandon
Man,
[01:15:50.420] - Chris
I think all of us reach a point. We talked about this in one of our recent podcasts. All of us reach a point where the money is great, we love it, buys us nice things, gives us experiences.
[01:16:01.820] - Chris
It's not the thing that endures, though. It's the way that we've impacted other people, clients. I mean, certainly we all have these really wonderful, warm and fuzzy stories which have helped people at a time of really desperate need. And that's deeply meaningful. But there's something incredibly meaningful about bringing somebody on and helping them become something different. Yeah, and a lot of cases, something they never would have seen for themselves. Right? I mean, that's the truth.
[01:16:33.800] - Brandon
How many of your people their personal life experience is saying the opposite all the time.
[01:16:40.220] - Brandon
Right? Shitty home life, crappy broken marriages, parent failures, whatever environmental conditions. How many of our people are showing up every day at work with a message that's been telling them for years, maybe decades, that they're worthless and not valuable? And all of a sudden they step onto the stage at your company and they realize there's an entire team of people totally dedicated to telling them how valuable they are. Yeah, wow.
[01:17:08.450] - Brandon
Do we do a wrap up?
[01:17:10.160] - Brandon
I think you and I are crying and sniffling
[01:17:15.260] - Chris
yes, wrap us up.
[01:17:16.790] - Brandon
OK
[01:17:17.630] - Chris
we covered a lot of ground.
[01:17:18.890] - Brandon
Man we did. And I kind of want to come back to this like 14 more times.
[01:17:23.840] - Brandon
Here's the boiled down version, guys.
[01:17:25.880] - Chris
Hard to recruit.
[01:17:26.570] - Brandon
I know it's I think hard to recruit is the understatement of the year. It's it's very difficult. Keeping people is absolutely essential getting the one or two great team players that we can absolutely essential. So what do we got to do? Let's just start with a couple of simple things. Rearrange your onboarding process to ensure that it's proactive. It's thought through and sets the tone, professional tone that you've just hired someone that you believe has value and that you believe will contribute great things to the continued success of your team.
[01:18:03.290] - Brandon
Let's introduce a battle buddy. Let's introduce someone on the team that has bought into what you're doing, understands where you're going, even if it's not perfectly outlined yet. Even if you're a work in progress. Find that one two people on your team you trust that gets it, that does the right things at the right time, get them connected with this new employee and help set the tone of introducing them into what is laid out in front of them in terms of their journey and how they'll contribute.
[01:18:32.390] - Brandon
The other thing that we say is map out the first forty five to sixty days of OJT. Make it intentional, be really focused on these ideas of phases of training and make it so clear that this new employee can in their hand see the things they'll be working through. Identify when they've gotten the signature of a supervisor, that they've passed the test, that they understand they're compitent in that thing, make it super public, super obvious, give them the tools that they can lead and manage and control their success.
[01:19:06.500] - Brandon
And then this last thing is more of a global idea, and that is we absolutely have to maximize the team that we already have, invest in them, prioritize them, raise the bar in terms of your expectations. And for some of you, this means that as you continue to hire, that maybe we change our practices a little bit on who we bring in on the team. Let's not bring someone on the team that you know very well, tying the shoes is the limit of their capacity.
[01:19:37.790] - Brandon
And if we don't know that, let's not draw that conclusion and let's give them every tool and resource we can to allow them to go from skater shoes to six figure earner on our team.
[01:19:51.200] - Brandon
All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM podcast.
[01:19:55.790] - Chris
And if you got something out of it, share it with a friend. Hit subscribe. Hit follow. Leave us five star review. Thanks a lot.