Business Innovators Radio - Episode 14: From Commodity To Collaboration- Transforming How We Work In The Building Industry With Annette Jannotta and Tim Spindlove

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Part of our Construction Executives Live Series: An invitation to transform how we work in the building industry. We will discuss strategies on how we can change the way we develop and converse with our team and labor force.Annette Jannotta is an award-winning architect, artist and “workplace whisperer.” She focuses on enhancing the human spirit through strategizing and planning multi-sensory design and art moments throughout her projects. Seeking a more expansive way for architects and builders to work, Annette created Building from Within, a presentation model that shares the value of crafting a design process founded on collaboration, trust and authenticity. She explores how to challenge and reframe common assumptions in ways that honor team relationships along with bringing more joy and meaning into our work.Tim Spindlove has over 15 years of successful sales, talent acquisition, business operations, and leadership experience. Over the course of his career, Tim has become a trusted advisor to business owners, C-level executives, HR & financial professionals across multiple sectors, including construction, energy, manufacturing, public service, non-profit, and retail. He has advised on recruitment best practices and assisted with the implementation of strategic recruitment programs to help drive performance internally for stakeholders. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Tim focuses his efforts on recruiting for the real estate development and construction sector across North America. Tim has worked with the largest recruitment and staffing firms globally and is currently with DMC Recruitment Group.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-14-from-commodity-to-collaboration-transforming-how-we-work-in-the-building-industry-with-annette-jannotta-and-tim-spindlove

Welcome to In the Zone, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here are your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome, everybody. This is Construction Executives Live. I am your host, Jeremy Owens. I am owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements in Sunny Fulsom, California. We will. be a balmy 89 degrees today. Thank you guys all for being here. We have a great show. I have a couple quick updates for you on the U.S. Construction Zone side. Our goal at U.S. Construction Zone is to bring more education to you guys this year. That's part of why we, the reason we started construction executives live. We're looking for those unique opportunities and ways for us to, you know, connect, collaborate, you know, start mentorship and just start the conversation. So we're one quick platform update for you guys. We have the ability to set up private communities for you now.

So if you have a large team, if you're a trade organization, or if you're a group of like-minded people and you want to start your own private community within our platform, we can do it. So if you have any questions about that or would like some further information, feel free to email me at Jeremy at usconstruction zone.com. So getting to the topic today, we're going to be talking about a commodity to collaboration, we're going to discuss strategies on how we can change the way we develop and converse with our team and labor force and attract new talent. We have two great speakers. If you're not familiar with Eremede, I know this is new to a lot of us over on the right side. You'll see a little chat function. Everybody can chat if you want amongst each other

during the presentation. You can talk as much smack about me as you want. I don't care. The Q&A button is the third button over there. That is the questions for the speakers. Feel free to drop a Q&A in there. Matt will help me put that on the screen at the appropriate time. Also, there might be a poll question as well that pop up. So without further ado, let's get to our first speaker. Annette Genota is an award-winning architect, artist,

and a, quote, workplace whisper. She puts on enhancing the human spirit through strategizing and planning multi-sensory design and art moments throughout her projects. Seeking a more expansive way for architects and builders to work, Annette created Building from Within, a presentation model that shares the value of crafting design processes, founded collaboration, trust, and authenticity. She explores how to challenge and reframe common assumptions in ways that honor team relationships along with bringing more joy and meeting into our work. So please help me welcome.

Annette Janota, thank you for being. here. Hi, Jeremy. Thanks for having me. Yeah, and just a quick peek behind the curtains for everybody else. We've had a lot of conversations on Zoom and, you know, we could probably talk for hours and bore everybody. We'd be having a good time, but everybody else would be like, come on. All right, enough. So I'm going to try to keep this to 25 minutes, so I'll do my best to manage that, but we may go off on a few tangents here, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So let us all know. How did you get started in the AEC industry? So I'm getting some feedback here. Are you hearing that? I am not. It could be maybe try taking your earbuds out and see if that works. Not sure.

Will or won't? Better? Better? Not better? I'm getting a little feedback now too. Welcome to live shows, people. Sorry, guys. That's okay. I hear you fine. You still getting feedback? I am, but I'll do my best. Okay. So I'm an architect, installation artist, writer. I got started in the field climbing trees and building dollhouses. And so I feel many people are called to the industry as kids. And that's what I did. So I studied architecture and eventually went into interior design.

Nice, nice. So how did you get the term? workplace whisperer. Where did that come from? That's such a unique thing. So I started out as a joke because I'm pretty intuitive. And when I work with my clients and staff, I was kind of teased about it because I think a lot of people have this. When you go into a space, you can kind of feel, oh, this feels off, kind of know what to do to remedy it. And then I think I just, sorry, it's really hard to talk with this feedback, but I'm going to do my best. And I came from a generation that you had to decide what you wanted to do with the rest of your life,

like at 15, 16. And I stressed about it so much when I was in high school. So I obsessed about vocation and whatever I choose, it has to be right. because it's going to be my whole lifetime and I can't make a change. And when I went into, when I studied architecture, I stumbled into, I went to use bookstore and stumbled across a book called Working by Studs Terkel. And it was this really elegant series of interviews asking people, you know, about what they did all day and what they chose to do for work.

and it had me thinking so much about how people choose what they go into, what they do all day at work, how they feel about it. And I like to use my talents to bring out the best in other people. Right. So you're kind of like my wife in that you, so you have a lot of empathy, right? So when you walk in the room, you kind of feel energy, you feel she's the same way. me crazy because like she's like do you feel that i'm like feel what you're gold in here you know but it's it's a it's a unique skill that i mean i can see her going through those moments of highs and lows

based on the energy of the room and i'm like i don't necessarily have that skill um but it's it's i guess a blessing and a curse right it's a blessing and a curse um and the hardest thing is knowing what's yours and what somebody else is oh that's tough i mean i have enough as it is i don't know if I want to carry anybody else with crap. It's involuntary. Well, I mean, were you also the type that, did your parents really push you to college, or did you kind of guide yourself that way?

My parents nudged me. Actually, it was just assumed. Although my father, he's a doctor, but he started out in trade school. You know, he was from the south side of Chicago. he learned how to weld on marine welding or something when he was young. Got it. Got it.

So did you always want to get into architecture or was that something that you found in college? You said you kind of needed to decide early. I guess when did you decide that was your career path? In high school, I had a couple of good friends that I was really stressed about making this decision. It was so silly to think that. you have to know what you're going to do for the rest of your life at that age. But they observed that I really was sensitive to place and environment. And they brought up in different ways like, hey, do you know about interior design?

Or what about architecture? You're always walking around critiquing the buildings around you. Right. And then that's when I learned about the profession. Interesting. So, I mean, how did that the human spirit, I guess, that component to your work life? When did that start to take hold and kind of change the way you went to work, I guess? I, when I was in architecture school, AutoCAD and commuterated design was just entering the industry. And everybody was really excited about it because, oh, it's going to save you. time, you're going to have more life balance. You can actually spend more time designing and asking the whys of why we're doing this versus that. But after being in the industry

for decades, seeing that technology has consumed us in a way. And I started seeing like we stopped asking why and everybody's asking, well, how do you get this program to work? What about that program? And we're these human beings with whatever we came in here with. And we're trying to keep up pace with machines. We've lost control. And I think a lot of people are suffering because of it. I totally agree. It's like the fine line of, you know, we want technology to make us more efficient, which in a lot of ways it is. But it can't replace the people. connection and you have that hard balance where you have to communicate with builders and in your design team to make it all come together and like you said you your favorite contractors are the ones that you can communicate with you know the ones that you guys can bounce ideas off of and

instead of it just being here's your design go do it you know go build this go go build that and then they look at you like you're crazy right yeah so i mean then there's no program for that there's no the collaboration needs to happen right so you know, I guess that's where we got to make sure we keep that, that human connection in there. And Matt, when you get a chance, put that poll question up that we had and that I'm curious about how, how do you find joy at work? And, you know, we'll just, we'll just put that poll question up there. You guys can answer whenever you want. But I'm curious because, you know, obviously, you know, we all have different things that make us joyful at work. For me, it's, it's the relationships in collaboration, solving problems, those types of things are what kind of build me up.

I am not built up by a boss jumping down my throat or, you know, some of the old school ways in construction. I grew up, I'm the third generation. So management back when my grandpa was growing up is quite a bit different than now. And that's part of the reason I had to be my own boss was I couldn't handle it, basically. So what do you, what would you answer to that? And how would you answer that question of how do you find joy at work? Yeah, so building within, I talk a lot about it being safe to express joy at work and to be authentic.

And I grew up in a Catholic, I had Catholic upbringing. And so I had this mentality, like you have to suffer to succeed or your value is based on how much misery you're expressing. And when I was entering into the field, one of my bosses was this really talented designer who had fun while he was working. He joked a lot. He had a sense of humor. Even at meetings with clients, I was utterly confused by him. Like, he's having fun and he's letting everybody know. And so I would, that was such a great way to start out.

in the field. So for me, joy at work is being able to be silly, being playful while I'm co-designing with somebody, letting, you know, them having fun too and not feeling you have to look miserable to be productive. Well, we talked about that earlier in that there's not enough joy in our workplace. And I think you could probably say that about a lot of industries. That's not unique to us, but it's kind of funny that a lot of managers feel that if people are messed around having fun, that that's not being productive when all of the statistics are quite the contrary to that. It's like if you have a fun environment, if you have, you know, that pool table maybe or that kind of away or connection point in your office, it increases

productivity. You take that 10, 20 minute break, but then when you get back, you're productive, you're loyal, you're, you know, you have a smile on you face. It's just, it just seems like a different feeling altogether. Yeah. And when I work with clients and workplace, one of my favorite questions is, is finding out, like, where do you get your aha ideas? And, you know, it's never working ferociously. It's kind of when you allow for the pause, when you're jogging, taking a shower, meditating, walking on the beach, you know, so, you know, we, you know, we, that's where we're innovative. Yeah. And I guess how do we as a team advocate for our joy in the workplace?

Like what are some things we can do to really, I guess, start this conversation. For a lot of us, this isn't something we talk about. You know, we put our head down in construction and we get busy and a year goes by really quick. So this is something that we might have to really kind of be intentional about. How do we do it? You do have to be intentional. And I think the most important first step is you start with yourself and you know what brings you joy. What brought you into the fields?

Not everything has to be a big vocation, but some people like to build and work with their hands and think about what sparked you as a child maybe to do that. But you have to start with yourself and then it can be safe for others. Yeah, it's funny. I was interviewing a friend Brent Darnell and on our podcast and he had said something that was so true. He says he usually tells his clients. He said, you know, name your favorite project

you've ever done, ever built. And, you know, so they say it. And then he asked a follow-up question. He says, okay, how were the relationships on that project? And it's always, oh, man, it was great. We had the best time. It was just such a fun time. And then he said, now name your least favorite project.

How are those relationships? And they go, yeah, hey, I see what you're doing. there. But there's a kind of a tendency to, you know, be project driven for us as opposed to relationship driven where, you know, if we don't have those good relationships, well, not only your peers, but the labor side, it's just not going to be fun. Not going to be fun for them. It's not going to be fun for you. And then it becomes about the money. Right. You know, I mean, when it's all about relationship, that book working, that was the big take. way. It's like you could be reading about a doctor or a lawyer who went into the field, not because they

were called to, but for external reasons. And you have somebody else who's working at a market as a cashier, but they know themselves and they're extroverts. And they just love connecting with people. And, you know, guess who's happier? Yeah. No, no doubt. I mean, it's just, you know, part of the reason we wanted to talk about, you know, labor as a commodity and things like that is because this is what we've done in construction for generations, you know, not decades, generations is that we've made it about the money. We've made it where the labor force chases money around because we haven't created loyalty. We haven't developed them. We haven't asked them about their family.

We haven't talked to them about their sons of baseball game. We don't do anything about typically, I'm generalizing. We don't talk to them like their people or friends. We talk to them like they need to do labor. And then we get mad at them for chasing the money. It just doesn't make sense, but this is what we've been doing. Yeah. And you know when you're being commoditized.

I mean, it happens everywhere. Like, even as a designer, it's like it sucks the soul out of you when you're seen just as a commodity, even though that in some way is a reality. of the situation. But you and I had a great conversation just about sharing stories. And it's all about relationships. That's the bottom line. It really is.

And kind of to end with that, it was like, you know, this is an opportunity for us. So as a management team, you know, we're all managers here typically. What do we do with this opportunity? I know, we kind of talked about we got to be intentional. But, you know, maybe we can talk about a few examples of how we can take. this as an opportunity back to our team and really start to implement this today. Are you asking me like how? Yeah, yeah.

I kind of feel like we could brainstorm with the audience if we had more time. But I think what's coming to me is just asking questions. Stop talking, ask questions, and listen. Just listen. Yeah, exactly. And we kind of talked about that before when, you know, when you ask a question to, you know, I guess a macho construction guy, you say, how are you feeling or how are you doing? And then you have to say, again, no, how are you doing?

Because, you know, the basic stuff is not just, you know, surfacy. We have to really get back down into the nitty gritty. And, you know, regarding that poll question, if you guys see the little poll thing on the right side there, I kind of wanted to see if we got some feedback because I'm curious what most people say. I'm guessing we're going to be in the same ballpark in that people probably are responding the same way. And that's what I'm seeing here is building relationships. Building relationships is one of the most valuable pieces to our job. But yet at the same time, you know, we don't talk about it enough.

So I think what you do, you know, being a whisperer in your job and maybe, you know, leading your team in discussions like this, we don't have a lot of them. So I think we have a lot to learn from you. And I would say keep going with that, with speaking, getting in front of not only women in construction, but all of us because it's something that we have struggled with our entire lives. And now we're coming up with this new generation of managers that are open and willing to change it up a little bit. We don't have to go back to the old school, how Papa Bob did things.

Now we try to figure out the, you know, the new way. And the new way is going to be the only way we're going to be able to attract millennials and a diverse workforce. We're not going to be doing it with, you know, being a hard ass all the time. No, it's all about empathy. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you, you waiting through those technical issues. And I really enjoy our conversations, both offline and online. And we'll keep the conversation going. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye. Right. Well, we'll get right into our second speaker here. We're going to switch up the topic quite a bit. We have Tim Spinlove with us, and he has over 15 years of successful sales, talent acquisition, business operations, and leadership experience.

And over the course of his career, Tim has become a trusted advisor to business owners, C-level executives, HR, and financial professionals. and he does work in the construction sector as well as others. But he has advised on recruitment of best practices and assisted with the implementation of strategic recruitment programs to help drive performance internally for stakeholders. He's out of Canada, but we're nice to him, right? He's just in Vancouver. That's not too far. Tim focuses his efforts on recruiting for the real estate development and construction sectors

across North America. and we welcome and please help me welcome Tim Spinlove. Hey there, Tim, are you there? There he is. There's that handsome face. How are you doing, bud? How is Canada this morning? Yeah, I'm up here in Vancouver, typical rainy day up here, unfortunately.

Okay, yeah, we're 89. It's okay. Are you watching the hockey now? Is that something? Oh, yeah, that was a marathon last night. Let me tell you. A lot of overtime happening last night for sure. Yeah, I saw a little bit of that triple overtime game.

You know, I know both of our teams are not in it, so we don't really have a lot to root for, but it's always fun to watch hockey playoffs, right? Yeah, in Canada, now it's all about making sure the Maple Leafs don't win. So that's the season we're in. That's not a good start for you then. No, no, it's not. Well, thanks for being here.

How did you get started in the construction industry? Yeah, I mean, I started working with construction companies directly back in probably 2007, 2008, kind of right around the economic fall of that year. But I was working with a pre-employment screening company, so selling things like, you know, criminal record checks, reference checks, credit checks, all that kind of stuff. Worked with a lot of construction professionals then. And then since I've kind of transitioned into sort of the talent acquisition and HR consulting space, done a lot of work, a lot of recruitment, done everything from, you know, recruiting accountants

to project managers, construction managers, site superintendents, coordinators, also on the real estate development side, you know, handling recruitment efforts for that. So since about 2008. Cool. Yeah, that's kind of an interesting time to get started in recruitment, right? Well, it was. I mean, and no one falls into recruitment, like, or no one like, there's no test, Luckily for me, there's no test to get into recruitment so I can kind of just get in there and do it. But you talk about building relationships and that's what I'm good at. And it kind of makes sense from a personality standpoint is talking to people every day and getting to know them and sort of having those conversations. And it's a good fit.

Yeah, it probably wouldn't work too good if you're not a networker, right? I mean, no. They have to trust you. You know, you have to be taking Zoom calls and, you know, I can see how you, you, you know, I can see how you, you, you know, you would have to be a people person. Otherwise, they're not going to trust you, right? Yeah. I mean, being a recruiter is a combination of, you know, being able to build relationships, but you're also, you know, a bit of a counselor, a bit of a motivator, you know, there's this multifaceted aspects to it. That's for sure.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So how do companies overcome the struggle of recruitment in this kind of market that we're at today? Yeah, I mean, that's big right now, right? coming out of this whole COVID thing, you know, the landscape has certainly shift culturally, not only, you know, in Canada, but in the U.S., of course, the political climate on both sides of the border. But as, you know, small to medium businesses, I think there's probably kind of three things

that I would maybe point to answering that question. And the first one is, you know, utilizing your established relationships. Like you're talking to people every day. You're talking to, you know, you're talking to sub-trades. You're talking to, you know, lawyers. You're talking to whoever you're talking to throughout the day. Right.

Utilize those relationships, reach out through the network and see who they know and utilize that relationship base. Kind of in the same vein, like business or, you know, college relationships that you have, a lot of alumni networks that you can reach out through. Yeah. You know, and employee connections. Your employees are a vast network of, you know, of talent as well. So utilizing who they know in the marketplace is a very strong tactic at the moment.

And this one's a little bit off the mark, I think, or a little bit of a tricky one for some companies. But I think when you talk about utilizing your employees to sort of drive that recruitment effort, incentivize your employees to do those efforts for you. Because if you just say, hey, who do you know? They'll be like, I don't know, let me think about it. And you'll never hear from them again. But if you say, hey, I'll give you. you, here's a $500 Amazon gift card.

You know, that's a little bit of a different, different story. So what a lot of companies will do is incentivize their employees to say, if we hire someone that you refer to us, if they're here after their three-month probation, we'll give you X, Y, Z. Yeah, that's a unique one. You know, with this pandemic thing, I've been trying to figure out this mass exodus thing we're seeing. Like, people are changing careers at record levels.

I saw an article yesterday where it said, 11.5 million positions listed as available in March, which is a record. And then the amount of employees quitting is still very high as well. So I'm like, now, like, is it just that we all had time to sit and think about what we value or what are you seeing? Why are people quitting and moving on? Well, I think a lot of people have had the opportunity now to kind of do the whole work thing, right? And they've kind of had an opportunity to, you know, unfortunately, if they got laid off or whatever, they've had some time to, you know, get some support from the government in terms of being able to stay home and still kind of get some money coming in

the door and allows them to maybe, you know, retrain upskill, re-evaluate kind of where they are in their, you know, and we talked about it just now, like, what makes me happy going to work? If I'm an accountant and I hate doing numbers, but I just kind of did it because that's what dad told me to do. Now I want to be a pilot, like, let's go. Let's go be a pilot, right? So I think a lot of it is alignment with kind of what you love. Alignment with personal values is a big one. You know, in terms of kind of what people are looking for, obviously the remote work, people have done it now and they've kind of proven that they can do it.

A little bit different in the construction world, of course, because you've got, you can't build a house at home, right? So a little bit of a... We're working on that. We're working on that, then. Yeah, the AI stuff and the 3D printing, whatever. That's right. But yeah, like, but when it's a lot of...

comes to remote, you can also offer kind of some, some flexible options for employees as well. They're looking for growth, you know, continuous learning. People don't want to be stagnant anymore. They don't want to be a project coordinator for life. They kind of want to expand their personal learning. So that's a big key factor to keep in mind. Salary, of course, everyone's, you know, things aren't getting any cheaper anywhere in the world.

So, you know, making sure you've got a competitive salary and people aren't afraid to move anymore. They, you know, they're not going to put up with crap that they don't agree with or they're not aligned with. And the days of people lasting 50 years with an organization are long gone. Like if you have someone for five years, you're in a pretty good spot. That's a good point. I totally forgot about the, you know, with the remote comes the moving. You know, I can still, you know, have a job in California but go move to Idaho, you know, which is what we're seeing in California. There's a lot of people moving out.

And, you know, I guess the difference is like we're on the heels of like this kind of economy that feels a little weird. You know, but the different when in 2008, there was no jobs, right? Which is like when you were recruitment, which is hilarious. But now it's like there's a record number of jobs. Yeah. We have a weird economy. It just feels different, maybe better because there are all of these jobs out there that if you needed to, you could go get a different one. Yeah.

Absolutely. You bang on. Yeah. Well, so tell us a little bit about how do we attract talent to our small companies. A lot of us on the call are in the medium size area. So, you know, what are some things that we could do? Yeah, it's a big question. I mean, that's the question, I think, right now for a lot of construction companies. But there's a few things like recruitment really is marketing at the moment. Like you've got to be able to kind of be marketers in the marketplace. So telling your story, like why. should I come and work for, you know, your organization? Like, what is it about, you know, what is it about you that aligns with what I'm looking for? So telling your story, having a bit of a brand voice in the marketplace. It's very marketing, and that's not my area by any stretch of the management, but it's part of it.

And that's sort of that brand recognition in the marketplace, something Matt could probably speak to at length in terms of, you know, developing that brand voice and that brand recognition in the marketplace. But that's sort of step one, like who are we, what are we doing, and how are we portraying that to the general public? You know, when you're looking for a specific skill set or a specific role to fill, you know, being very clear about what that role is. Like, and step one is if you're going to be advertising that role, be very specific on the job title. Like if you're going to hire someone for, you know, if you need an HR person, don't put a job advert on Indeed or Monster that says, you know, the morale officer.

Because no one's searching for that. They're searching for HR coordinator jobs, right? Like it's very search engine optimized stuff, right? So if you're searching for PM, project manager, don't put PM, but project manager. You know, and the keywords in your job ads are very important because it picks up on, is it residential, is it commercial, is it civil, what is it? Make sure that you're very clear on the day-to-day tasks with those postings as well. Don't make them lengthy.

Just short, sweet, make sure that you're sort of outlining a good picture. Yeah. you've got to kind of fish where they fish, right? So you've got to put your fishing pole in the right ocean. So if you're looking for, you know, trades professionals, you're probably not going to want to post a job on LinkedIn, A, because it's expensive, and B, because they're probably not there. Right. So you've got to, you've got to know where your people, people play. So, you know, when it comes to construction professionals, has been a lot of success with, you know, Craigslist postings, Facebook groups, you know, those types of, those types of activities.

Social media is a big one for searching for people in that realm. Again, kind of how do you attract somebody? Like, show your company culture. What are your values? What are you as an organization? So I would prefer to bring someone into an organization who is slightly less talented but fits the culture versus someone that's extremely talented but not a fit culturally at all because that's just going to explode in your face. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it's funny that I see this happen a lot in construction.

and that's, you know, part of your culture comment is like, you know, lack of pictures, you know, team pictures, team building things, you know, like you said, if this is what your guys are about as a team, talk about it. Take pictures of your, what you guys did at that charity organization, the team pictures, the family pictures. Like, if that's important to your business, you know, be about it. There's like this kind of misnomer about, hey, we don't want, we want to look big, right? We don't want to, you know, there's no real families involved here. This is just all just a giant corporation here. We want to appear big nationwide. You know, it all comes down to people eventually, right? You buy the person eventually. So I just like to get in front of that.

Obviously, I'm a three generations of business. So we're all about that story. But I think a lot of people fail when it comes to just having pictures and ideas and thoughts about what we do, you know, for fun. And the other part of that, too, is like, you know, be open and honest from the get-go because if you're going to lie up front, they're going to join you and then find out it was all a lie and leave anyway, right? So there's no point in wasting your time recruiting because recruiting has become extremely difficult, finding someone on a lie because you've said, we're the greatest thing ever. And we've got all these processes and computer programs. And then you don't have those things. And they get in there like, well, I join because of those three reasons and you don't have any of them. So yeah, exactly.

And, you know, I'm sure you get this a lot. And we'll talk about millennials in a second. But, you know, the whole question about no one wants to work. I think there's there's some truth to that. I mean, if you look at the numbers, right, it does feel like there's a lot of people who maybe can work that aren't or, you know, I guess how do you respond to that and how do you motivate people that are like, hey, here's what you need to do then. Yeah, I think, you know, we're kind of. coming out of that a little bit now with kind of the subsidies are being kind of cut off and things like that.

So people are going to have to start working again, which is great for the trade sector specifically. But I think, you know, people want to work. You just have to find those people. And are you targeting perhaps some underrepresented groups that perhaps could do a great job? So here in Canada, we get a lot of, a lot of engineers immigrated into Canada. Okay.

And, you know, a lot of. of the struggle in in mindset and from a from a business standpoint is well they don't have any Canadian or US experience it's like well if they equate their P-Eng from Romania or UK or India wherever they're coming from and they've built you know massive buildings in Dubai like yes they need to come up to speed on the building codes and things like that but is that something that you can offer them as part of your your package saying hey well we'll bring you up to speed if you're, you know,

once you kind of go through your screening. So, um, but developing relationships with, with, you know, you know, high schools or community colleges or immigrant centers,

places like that are, are a gold mine for, uh, for people that are looking to want to work. These people want the opportunity to work, right? Um, so kind of targeting people that may be underrepresented in the marketplace.

Yeah. Um, and the other part of it goes back to sort of, again, that, that marketing comment, like, what are your,

differentiators in the marketplace. Like, do they not want to work or do they not want to work for you? Yeah. Yeah. Good point. And that kind of segues right into the millennial thing is, you know, I'm one of the few protesters of them. I think that, you know, we need them.

I think all of our industries do. I don't care what industry you're in. We need them. And so it's really more about how do we communicate with them. We already talked about the culture piece. but isn't that the biggest piece that we, you know, they're not always about the money. They're about, you know, what are we doing as a brand? What are we headed?

What do we give back to? They just have a different mindset. And maybe that's because they lived to the 2008 thing. I don't know what it is about it, but it feels like it's more than the money for them. Yeah, absolutely is for them. Yeah, you're bang on. I think there's probably, I've got six things here that I'll maybe point to. first one being again learning we kind of talked about that earlier there's there's a constant

want to to learn and develop and grow their their skill sets and experience base right second one is purpose so i found an interesting piece from deloitte that said millennials hold businesses to high standards when it comes to their positive impact on society 80% of young millennials say that they would be more motivated and committed at work if they felt their employer made a positive impact on society so do you have volunteer programs do you give employees the opportunity to take a paid day off to go and volunteer with big brothers and sisters or the food bank or you know whatever is important to them right um at christmas time maybe you uh were leading up to christmas you say okay this year as a company we're going to donate x number of dollars to a specific

charity of of the employers or the employee group's choice here are three choices or ask them which which you know charities you'd like to to kind of get involved with uh the third thing is again that flexibility remote stuff, again, a roadblock that we have to overcome in construction because it's a little bit of a different situation. But again, offering some flexibility, whether that's vacation time, like I said, volunteer days off, family, you know, family time, whatever, right? So there's some options you can do with that flexibility piece versus the remoteness. Fourth thing is they're looking for responsibility. So as they kind of enter the workforce, they're looking to be empowered to speak up and manage. projects and pieces of things.

They want to take the lead on important tasks. So that's a big one for them as they're kind of, you know, coming into the workforce. So I would have your managers be very encouraging to, to that group of letting them speak up, letting them kind of take the, you know, take the bull by the horns on certain things and have them make decisions and have them fail and have them learn from those, those failures as a prime opportunity as a, I mean, building a house. you don't want them to, you know, too many mistakes, but you kind of get what I'm saying, right?

We're having with them a bit, right, yeah. And, you know, fifth thing, it's manager-employee relationships. They want a boss that they can trust someone that they feel they can be comfortable talking to. I think we talked about that previously as well, kind of building that relationship piece with your employees. And the last thing is perks, right? Like, everyone loves perks, right? Like, who says no to free snacks or, like, a barbecue on site one day?

And, like, I'm down for that for sure. let's go yeah no i think there's a lot to that i mean you know as i was saying with an net like the the the whole you know pool table in the lunchroom that you know that kind of thing i think a lot of people in construction think that's like you know we're not being productive here you guys you know we have a job to do but there's something to that like i know i'm more productive when i take a break whether that's you know taking a walk or getting outside for a second like if I'm just putting my head down all day, I will have probably several hours of staring at things, you know?

Yeah, I mean, the thing with the perks thing is it's, it's very personal, right? Like, I'm 41. I don't, like, if you were to cold call me as a recruiter and say, hey, like we do like beer Fridays, you know, downtown Vancouver, which is like an hour from my house, like beer Fridays, the whole team is there. We've got a ping pong table, like dogs in the office, whatever.

It's awesome. I'm 41. I don't need any of those things to be happy at work. Like, leave me alone and let me do my job. That's what I want. And like that's this stage in my life, right? Like, I don't want to drive downtown. So that's not a no go.

I don't want a Friday afternoon. I've got two young kids at home. I don't want to be downtown to like 7.30 at night drinking. Like, that's not. Right. So it's very, it's very personal. Right. So as a leader, as a manager of a team, you've got to kind of have those conversations with people like at the interview stage.

Like, tell me about you. Like, what's what drives you? Like, what's your motivated? like if we have perks what kind of perks would you want like what would what would make you be like yeah this place i need this is what i need to be happy at work like that's all part of building out a strong interview process so that you're weaving those things out and building your culture and and it's got to be evolving it's got to continuously grow because the millennials are going to come and then it's going to be the next wave they're going to be very different from the you know it's going to be it's all it's constantly changing

so having constant communication on those things is going to be very important yeah i mean i mean i I mean, I imagine, you know, your group, you guys have like a nice template to use or good questions, you know, those leading questions. And, you know, I mean, engaging with with talent to really find out if they're a fit, you know, I have no skills there. I mean, I think the only skills I have is just asking questions and hoping I ask the right ones. But, you know, I think because we're busy as a construction industry, isn't now a great time to use a firm like DMC to, to help because, you know, it's almost like learning a whole new skill. I'd rather just pay someone to do it than and then fail and do it myself. Yeah, and I'm not going to sit here and toot my own horn, but like,

recumb is not easy. It's very time consuming. You don't want to just post and pray because you're just going to, you're going to, you're going to, A, waste your time on spending money on job board that's going to get you nothing in terms of return. B, you're going to have to go through all of the resumes that you get. And that's not a simple task regardless of what platform you use, whether that's Indeed Monster, LinkedIn, whatever.

Like, you've still got to do multiple clicks and scroll and whatever. Right. You know, you could put, it doesn't matter. Like, I've posted for, what's a good example, like construction accountant, and I will get artists. I will get restaurant workers. They're just going to apply without kind of reading the job and hope they kind of get a callback. But you've got to go through the bonotony of going through that as a business owner.

You're probably doing that after hours. on family time, up until like midnight, scrolling through all these resumes. And, you know, you could have 50 resumes in there and 49 of them are terrible. And you've just wasted an hour and a half, two hours of your time scrolling through resumes that make no sense for the job that you posted. So, yeah, I mean, having an agency partner is definitely, you know, an advantageous thing to consider. Now, I would encourage everyone to kind of seek out someone that's got a niche in construction

specifically based on what your needs are. Right. The other thing is, is maybe it's not a permanent employee that you need right away. So thinking about using not temp agencies, but using a construction recruiters and get you someone on maybe a contractor, a temporeate to permanent opportunity. So, you know, you're not covering the costs of all of their insurance and things like that. So the agency can take that responsibility on. You're just paying the fee to have them on site with you.

And if they pass a three month, whatever, then you hire them on full time and then they become your employees. there's certainly ways that you can can utilize those relationships to benefit the recruitment piece for sure yeah and the other piece that i wanted to know about is you know i think twofold one is like you know you kind of talked a little bit about being specific and what we write but also you know i think we're missing the opportunity on our websites as well so you know we talked about the culture piece but you know having a way of capturing people's information on your website you know whether that is a form or whether that is like you know know, an online thing that they can fill out. I think that a lot of us miss that. Like, you know, we just expect people to scour your website and find an email or something. I don't know. But what do we miss in there? Yeah, again, that's a marketing thing, right?

And I can absolutely introduce a great company that I've worked with and recommended in the past to help you. I think the big thing is get your website mobile. If it's not mobile, optimize get, make sure that it is because people are on their phones and iPads and stuff more so than sitting down at a desk right so if they're on the bus or whatever they're scrolling and whatever so make sure you're mobile optimized but yeah i mean just again display what you're about as an organization so whether that's links to your instagram page or your facebook page and there's pictures and there's videos and there's you know maybe you're just doing some selfies talks on site and you're just being like instagram live and be i know instagram live can maybe for

some of the older folks in the in the room it's kind of crazy but you know just selfie videos and posting, though, it doesn't have to be anything that's produced. It can just be, you know, short, sweet stuff that just says, hey, like, we started this job. It sucked at the beginning, but now, hey, check out this custom-built house. And then it's the beautiful thing that you've just built, right? Right. And it's not necessarily, you know, if you're, you know, recruiting and looking for for talents on your website, it's, it's not selling the job as a carpenter. It's, it's selling the client's dream of a custom home, right? It's not what you sell. It's how you sell it, right? So you're not selling the job.

You're selling the, you know, sort of the partnership and the dream for the client, right? So it's kind of a, it's an interesting marketing conversation for sure. Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned a couple of places that we go to post. So I'm with you. LinkedIn is going to be tough sled. And it is super expensive. I've dabbled than that before.

So you're saying where are some of those spots to go for construction? Because I think that's one that we always struggle with. We're getting hammered with ads, by the way. You know, indeed. Like, they're just like, constantly people are telling me this is where you would go to post. And I guess, you know, what are you finding for construction? Maybe, you know, talk about not only the labor side, but, you know, maybe that management level as well. Yeah, on the labor side specifically, again, it's kind of playing in the same pools as they're playing in.

So, like, I would probably recommend things like Craigslist, you know, that'll cost you at, I think, 25 to 50. bucks depending on, you know, the kind of the package you choose for Craigslist, that's got some some good traction for me on the trade side. Social media groups are excellent. So I'm included on a lot of, or I've joined a lot of Facebook groups. Even though kind of the younger crowd is kind of shifting away from Facebook, there is still a lot of traction in there. Again, for some of the older generation.

So if you're thinking about hiring a, you know, a skilled carpenter and you're thinking it's a millennial, but you're not thinking. about the people that are 40 plus and they're kind of out of work and they're there are the ones on Facebook that you can grab and have a really good experience person come join you so those types of you know those types of groups social media stuff will really help indeed is the big one it's not cheap by any stretch of the imagination but again playing where everyone plays everyone plays on indeed like if you go and search for a job where you go everyone goes to indeed automatically yeah right or monster like monster's a little bit lower but monster is another one But understanding, like you really have an understanding of where your target audience is. So are you looking for a specific demographic or whatever? Maybe you're utilizing, like I said, community colleges have, you know, internship programs that you can join. You know, they also have lots of job boards that you can take advantage of for free a lot of the time because they want their students to get hired right away, right out of school. Building those relationships within your community groups, like I said, those immigration centers, the community center.

as the community centers sometimes have some career, you know, pages and things like that that you can take advantage of for free. So just kind of feeling out the community and kind of getting a sense for sort of those larger groups that you may be missing. Cool. Right on. I love that advice, man. I, you know, my head's swimming on right now. I want to go hire somebody. Good luck. Good luck. I don't know, man. It sounds exhausting. But thank you so much for being here. I think you mentioned that you might have a leave behind that what we'll Louis, we'll email out to everybody. Yeah.

What was that, what was that form or handout you had, ready? Yeah, kind of just, just six tips on, on how to attract top talent for your, for your construction organization. So just nothing, nothing too in depth, just some tips for you to kind of take with you as you kind of move forward. And if, if anyone has any, you know, burning questions or burning needs, then I'm obviously a phone call away, happy to help advise and jump in on any recruitment activities that you guys may need. Cool.

And what's the best way to get a hold of it? Is that LinkedIn or email or what do you like? I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah, I can send you my direct, while you've got my direct contact information via email and stuff. Yeah, yeah. When you're done here, just drop that in the chat just to make sure people have it. And then, you know, you do the same.

And if you guys have questions for the speakers, feel free to hang around for a few minutes and join their table. I'll ask a question in the chat if you want as well. But, you know, like I said, we're going to be doing this once a month. We thank you, Tim and Annette, for being here. I know it's where all of our time is valuable. but we just appreciate your guys's insight and education. Thank you so much.

My pleasure. All right, thanks. And then everybody, before you go, our next event is going to be June 8th. We already have the topic. It is how to solve construction's branding problem. We're going to have two dynamic speakers, including Jennifer Todd, of LMS general contractors. And you're not going to want to miss this one. We're going to get into how we're missing on the branding side, as well as a lot of diversity topics.

You know, Tim kind of mentioned earlier that we need to explore other markets that we haven't in construction, and that is women and minority groups. So we're going to talk a lot about that on June 8th, and we're going to go ahead and put that in the chat, a place to register, and it is the USCZ Executives Live, AirMeet link. Go ahead and click on that link, register now. That way it's on your calendar, and we don't have to go chase you. We will email you as well with some more information. Thank you so much for being here.

Again, if you want to hang around and chat with any of us, we're going to be at one of our tables. Thanks a lot, guys. We'll see you next time. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone with Jeremy and Valerie Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In The Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry. To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry,

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