With good workers, in short supply, the
importance of all aspects
of workforce management
are magnified. In our particularly labor-intensive
industry, the ability to hire,
develop and retain quality pool and spa
professionals is essential to profitability.
With that in mind, at the AQUA Live
Leadership Retreat in December, we
brought together three different expert
perspectives on the labor problem for
a roundtable discussion. Their insights
can help you shape your own approach
to maintaining a quality workforce.
AQUA: Let’s start with company culture,
which has gotten a lot of attention in our
industry over the last few years.
Gary: Well, we need to create a culture
in our businesses so that people will
want to work there, and to avoid the
churn. When you churn through new
employees, your costs go up, and your
customer service goes down.
AQ: How do you go about creating a
good company culture?
Jane: A lot of it is just getting buy-in
from everybody, so everybody has a
voice at the company. We were very
fractured as a company for a lot of years
when I was growing up and that was
one of the things I wanted to fix, to help
us become a team.
One problem was that everybody
thought the other guy’s job was easier,
and so we did a lot of cross-training.
For instance, construction guys
thought that retail people just sat in
the air conditioning all day long, so
I made each construction guy come
and shadow me on a Saturday in the
summertime. And without fail, every
one of them said, “Please don’t ever
make me do that again.”
So they got an appreciation for
what happens in the retail store.
Things like that give everybody a little
bit more understanding so that we
can all work together.
You have to build your culture. I
almost lost a really good employee
once because he didn’t see that he
could go any further, and that kind of
changed my thinking. My message for
new employees is: When I hire you,
I’m hiring you to retire you. It’s not for
a year, it’s not for two years. I mean
this to be an ongoing thing for the rest
of our adult lives. And, of course, it
doesn’t always work out, but that is the
mindset I go into it with. And they need
to know that’s the way I feel about it.
Keeping your workforce is all about
the culture. It’s not so much about
want ads and advertising and all that
kind of stuff, it’s creating that culture
inside your own company so that
people want to work there. So they tell
their friends and their friends want to
work there.
Jeff: I agree with Jane, it’s that word
of mouth and the connections in
your community that can really
lead to some of the most rewarding
employees. Among the 14,000
apprentices in the program, I was a
part of in the HVAC industry, 90%
were word-of-mouth.
If you don’t already have an in-house
reward program for referrals
from employees, that’s obviously
something that you should work on
right away. You should be rewarding
your employees that give you good
employees, whether it’s a monetary
bonus or paid time off or something
else. That can be your best source.
PHTA has established the pool
professionals pipeline, which is
a workforce development effort.
There’s a website with a job board
we launched in May. We’ve had
26 million impressions so far, a
hundred thousand visitors, and on
the job board, 831 jobs posted by 200
companies. So it’s really kicked off well.
And we have two new apprenticeship
programs at PHTA — the pool
maintenance and service technician
apprenticeship programs.
AQ: How is that apprenticeship
program different from just a person
coming and joining a company?
Jeff: The apprenticeship program is
2,000 hours of on-the-job training
(which is full-time work for a year)
and then 182 hours of training online
through PHTA courses. At the end, after
the exams, you have CPO certification,
CMS and CST certification.
It formalizes training, so the next
person you hire six months from now,
they get the same exact training. It
establishes that consistency that you
can talk to clients about.
It’s not the only option you have,
but it at least establishes a curriculum
and a path for that first year. It has
built-in pay raises. So wherever the
company starts you, at six months you
get a bump and then at 12 months
you get a bump to whatever your full
position pay is going to be as a service
technician, et cetera. So that kind of
lays out a path and increases retention.
Everyone knows the path at least for
the next year. Which is easier for both
employers and employees.
AQ: Keeping workers is partly about
offering them a future.Gary, how are
you approaching that at Pool Troopers?
Gary: You have to show them a path
forward. As a residential pool service
company, historically, we have had very
linear career paths. When you came in,
you became a pool service technician
then upon becoming good at that, you
got an opportunity to either become a
pool mechanic or a supervisor.
But now it doesn’t have to be a
linear path. You can go up to the
Carolinas now and work in retail or
construction. Or you can come to
the corporate offices and work in the
accounting team. And we have enough
of those non-linear paths now that we
can internally advertise that and say,
“Here’s an example of three people
who’ve taken alternative paths. You’re
not stuck where you are.”
If you take the time to train
somebody and put all that knowledge
in their head, you don’t want them
to leave in the next year. You want
them to stay and help train the next
generation of people. So you have to
offer alternative paths for growth in
the company.
I’m not so sure that salary is the
only component that excites the
newest generation of workers. They
want to have that work-home balance.
So to be competitive with other
employers, we have to give them that
work-life balance, because if they don’t
feel like they have that, they’re going to
go somewhere else and work 30 hours
a week and do their side hustle.
AQ: How can we contend for workers
with industries that are much larger
and have more resources?
Jane: Well, money is one thing. You
have to be competitive, that’s a
given. But small businesses can offer
a lot that big businesses can’t. Big
companies can throw a huge salary
at you, but they’re going to give you a
bunch of other things that you don’t
want along with it. So that’s where you
have to be better.
One of my guys is really big into
fishing. He loves fishing tournaments,
and so I make sure that he can be off
to do that. That’s a big thing for him.
He came to us from a bigger industry,
making more money, but now he’s got
more freedom, and he’s got a say in
the company.
You can’t manage one-size-fits all
anymore. I’ve learned that the hard way.
(I like to learn everything the hard way.)
You’re really trying to make everybody
happy at the same time, trying to deal
with all the different personalities and stuff. If somebody asks me what I do, I
always say: “I’m a daycare center.”
AQ: How do you approach hiring?
Gary: As entrepreneurs, we should
always be in a hiring mode, always be
recruiting, always looking for talent
because talent creates opportunity. If
you have new talent that wasn’t in your
business yesterday, now maybe a new
path opens up for you because of what
they can do.
Jane: I say I’m always hiring, but I’m
very picky about it. But I’m always
looking. So you go out to eat and your
waitress is awesome, that’s a great
person for retail. They can obviously
handle multiple tables and that’s what
we have to do in a retail store, things
like that. Same thing if it’s Home
Depot, Lowe’s, whatever, somebody’s a
great worker, I hand out a card and say,
“Hey, if you ever think about getting a
new job, please come and see us, I’d
be happy to have you.”
I hired an entire landscaping crew
I met on a jobsite because they were
good, and they were being treated
terribly by their company. They were
using hand tools for everything, and
we promised them battery-operated
tools and they’re like, “Yes.”
Those are all just random things that
happen, but you’ve got to be open to it
and ready when your chance comes.
AQ: Do you look for people with pool
experience?
Jane: I don’t want anybody that has
any experience. Taking that route has
burned me. I’m looking for attitude.
I can teach you how to build a pool
or what chlorine is, but I can’t teach
attitude. I can’t teach you how to be
nice to somebody.
AQ: What about the generational
differences we hear about all the time?
Gary: In our industry, it was always the
older generation teaching the younger
generation. But the people coming
into the workforce now are the first
generation in history to teach their
parents and the older generation how
to do things, because they understand
technology so much better.
And therefore, they come to the
workforce with an entirely different set
of expectations. They expect to become
leaders a lot quicker than we did when
we were their age. We always had to
put in our 20 years, and then we got
to some sort of a leadership role. They
want it a lot faster than that. And if we
don’t create a culture that recognizes
that fact, we’re missing out.
The newest generation of workers are
coming in more technologically savvy.
They’re better at using the new tools of
the world than we ever will be.
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