Creative Ways to Fill the Roofing Labor Gap

Ever since business rebounded following the 2008 housing bust, the roofing industry has experienced significant workforce shortages. These shortages have persisted even as the global landscape has shifted due to the COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic, which has disrupted almost every industry, including the home improvement sector. Millions of people are unemployed, largely due to the virus. However, many contractors and businesses have been deemed essential businesses.

With the growing need for essential workers, roofing contractors have an advantage finding skilled laborers during this challenging time. Here are a few creative ways to attract talent to your workforce.

Differentiate

It is evergreen advice that to attract top talent you need to offer a competitive edge or angle.

In marketing, that’s called strategic differentiation. Your differentiator could be offering a superior wage to attract workers. Consider some of these cost-effective methods and perks to have your company stand out as a place that skilled workers want to work.

· Training. Companies with a long-term view can differentiate themselves by offering informal or formal apprenticeship or mentoring programs. This helps a potential employee see that you’re willing to invest in their future. This strategy can be pulled off by having one or more knowledgeable and communicative senior employees step up to guide junior-level employees. Another avenue is to offer workers subsidies or rebates for continuing education at local community colleges.

· Flexible work hours. Potential workers can be attracted by offering the opportunity to shift off of a regular 9 to 5, five days per week schedule. Such flexibility can bring people into the labor force who otherwise can’t due to child care, elder care, or the need for a second job.

Diversify Your Labor Force

Another way around the tight market is to diversify the composition of your labor force. Women are increasingly filling historically male roles — why not in roofing? And, consider workers who have been displaced by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, such as those coming from retail, manufacturing, or agriculture. While they won’t arrive with the exact skill set you’d most hope for, these employees can come up to speed quickly to fill their gaps. Make sure your job postings make it clear you will consider people of all types, and especially those not traditionally in the roofing space. A diversified workforce can also bring your business new ideas that can help in unexpected ways.

Expand Your Radius

Consider recruiting further outside the city. Rural areas typically have fewer employment opportunities, thus there are more workers looking for jobs. You can also look to neighborhoods adjacent to industrial areas where workers have been displaced. This strategy depends on geo-targeting those potential employees as well as adjusting your employment offer to meet their needs.

Increase Referrals

Like many small businesses, roofing contractors often rely heavily on getting new employees through referrals from employees, family, and friends. Think about systematically increasing this referral stream. One of my favorite resources on this topic is from Tim Templeton’s book The Referral Of A Lifetime. At the risk of oversimplifying his approach, here’s a summary of the key takeaways:

· Be clear on why you’re a great employer. It’s crucial to have your own clarity on why you are a different and better employer. If you can crystalize that differentiation, and communicate it, you will attract interest from talented individuals from varying backgrounds.

· Ask. This is hard for many people, but it’s essential to let trusted contacts in your network know that you are looking for employees and to ask them to help you. If you don’t ask, they won’t know that they can help.

· Thank them. When your network contacts refer employees to you, an evergreen recommendation is to take the time to thank them for the help. It’s surprising how many people forget this. Your thank you might be a simple handwritten note or a heartfelt personal email. Even more effective is a shared beverage or treating them to lunch. Explicit thank-yous encourage repeat good behavior by your network. Even closer to home, when an employee refers a friend to come work for you, that’s the time for a good, hard cash bonus.

Get Digital

For new employee recruiting, specific resources like Construction Jobs provide online job forums for people specifically looking for your type of career. Also consider Craigslist, which has become the classified ads of our day. And, for the strategy of recruiting outside of the expected demographics, you might try recruiting sites like Indeed to set up your listings and profile to accept a broader range of applicants.

Automating ancillary tasks with digital tools can also help you adapt to the worker shortage. Services like JobNimbus make it easy to track your roofing projects, recruitment efforts, and most routine tasks. These tools keep tabs on your current workforce, plan, and track what they should be doing and are actually doing on an hourly and daily basis. It can keep all of your ongoing roofing work organized.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiting new talent can be essential for sustaining your business. Use this time to recruit digitally and set up for success tomorrow— and well into the future.

About the author: Jason Polka is the CEO of Modernize, a company that uses business intelligence software to connect homeowners with contractors. Polka has led numerous initiatives to identify and execute new service and differentiated product opportunities within the contractor referral market. For more information, visit www.modernize.com/pros.