Different … But the Same Karen Dowd, owner of Potomac Builders in Alexandria, Va., has two key employees who came to her company without experience in remodeling. Margaret Haberman, Potomac’s controller, is an accountant who formerly worked for an agricultural trade association. Her experience in setting up the same systems in offices all over the world makes standardizing everything at Potomac a piece of cake. Potomac’s production coordinator, John Wyman, has an extensive background in the food and beverage industry and still works part-time at a trendy Washington, D.C. nightspot. “If he can withstand pressure behind the bar on a weekend night,” Dowd says, “he should be able to withstand the pressure in the field.”
Indeed, there are certain positions within a remodeling company that require skills that translate directly from other professions. Sales is an obvious example, but there are others that, although not quite as apparent, are nonetheless accurate. Ben DePrenger, general manager at John Kiernan Construction in Bradenton, Fla., said the company recently hired a project coordinator, Kelly Merino, whose previous work had been with Pepsi. “We were initially looking for an experienced production manager,” De-Prenger says, but he and owner John Kiernan were uninspired by the candidates — until they interviewed Merino. “She said the right things as far as understanding project management systems,” DePrenger says. “Project management is an art, and that experience is a big part of why we hired her.”
John Kiernan Construction is hardly the only company that has realized that certain skills are universal. Jim Stephens, owner of both Stronghold Remodeling and a consulting company called Crossroads Business Development in Boise, Idaho, had as a client a construction company that hired a production manager from the information technology industry. “This person had clear knowledge of the production process,” Stephens says, “and made a great production manager.” In other words, process is process, no matter the finished product. A person who understands the essential steps to getting from point A to point E (stopping at points B, C, and D along the way) will be effective overseeing any production, provided that they are properly trained in the details.
Train For Success That doesn’t mean you can pick successful people up off the street, drop them into your company, and expect them to thrive. It’s still important to follow basic business principles to get the new employee up to speed.
First and foremost, you need to follow sound hiring practices. Just because a person has an impressive resume and a skill set that would translate well to remodeling doesn’t mean they’ll be a good fit for your company.
A Minnesota remodeler who requested anonymity in exchange for his candor hired a general manager from outside the industry to help his company grow. The employees were onboard with the idea, excited about the company moving forward. But from day one, there were problems. “The cultural piece is the most important,” the remodeler says. The GM came and tried to make everything more strict and rigid, “because that’s what he knew.” He also tried to implement an incentive-based compensation program. “It sounds perfectly legitimate and sensible,” the remodeler says, “but a lot of our people aren’t working here just for the money.” The general manager wasn’t flexible enough to adapt his corporate viewpoint to the remodeling business. Three employees left the company during his tenure, and the day he left the company, “it was like a breath of fresh air,” according to the remodeler. “We hire for attitude and train for aptitude,” says Erik Jackson, of Jackson Remodeling in Seattle, echoing the old saw. Jackson’s experiences with hiring people from outside the industry have been overwhelmingly positive; his success stories involve field employees. Trusting people who have no experience with the craftsmanship aspect of remodeling is something most remodelers are hesitant, if not unwilling, to do. (After sharing a story about a field employee who didn’t work out, Marinkovich says she’d “never again hire somebody out in the field who didn’t have any experience in construction.”)
But Jackson has made it work. He convinced an acquaintance, who was working as a baker at the time, to come to Jackson Remodeling as an apprentice carpenter. “He had a great work ethic and was wonderful with people,” Jackson says. Once on the job, it became clear that he was destined for stardom. “He had the drive to learn, he was just a sponge,” Jackson says. Four years later, “he’s our stud lead carpenter.” Jackson now has another employee — a woman with a background in writing — in that apprentice carpenter slot. “She’s going to be a wonderful lead carpenter,” Jackson says, adding that the apprentice carpenter position works something like a baseball farm team, grooming talent for the company.
Once you have hired the right person, you need to train them properly. When DePrenger joined John Kiernan Construction from his corporate finance job, he “shadowed” Kiernan for two or three months before taking the reins on a couple of jobs. Now, three years later, he’s in charge of operations as well as finance at the company.
Kiernan’s patience and accessibility were crucial to DePrenger’s development and ultimate success with the company. Bill Connor, owner of Connor & Co. in Indianapolis, made himself similarly available to the utility worker he hired as a project manager four years ago. “I spent a lot of time with him up front, and made sure my door was open at all times,” he says. Connor also suggests breaking everything into manageable chunks. “I’d send him out with tasks and information, and then tell him ‘When you reach this point, let’s get back together.’” The employee now runs all of the company’s production.
Generally speaking, you want all of your employees to be accountable and able to perform their duties without getting approval from you first. Instilling that confidence is an ongoing process with all employees, but it’s especially important with people new to the industry. Marinkovich says that she often finds herself reminding Tadano that she knows more than she thinks she does.