SIDEBARS
- NEW THINKING: Vocabulary Test
- BUILDING ARTISANS: The New Old School
- MISSION EDUCATION: Crafty Thinking
- WORLD OF CLICK: Social Recruiting
NEW THINKING
Vocabulary Test In an era of coffee shop baristas and auto shop technicians, there’s an argument to be made that remodeling titles such as “laborers” and “helpers” sound distinctly old-school. Marketing consultant David Alpert suggests considering language that speaks more to the dynamism, skills, and growth opportunities that have become inherent in remodeling work.
How about, for instance, construction assistant, residential construction technician, associate carpenter, or building science apprentice?
Alpert is president of Continuum Marketing Group, which has many clients in the remodeling industry. Looking outside the construction sector, he cites a litany of job titles that “have been pushed into the vocabulary” to shed negative connotations, resonate with a new generation, elicit respect, and/or more accurately reflect the jobs’ status and responsibilities.
“You never see people advertising for a ‘secretary’ anymore,” Alpert says. “It’s all ‘administrative assistant’ or ‘executive assistant'” ? titles that connote the higher-level work that these positions often entail. Similarly, “many people don’twant to be called a ‘salesman,’ so you have ‘sales associates,’ ‘sales consultants,’ ‘account executives,'” and so on. Others:
Restaurant server, not waiter or waitress;Sanitation engineer, not sewer worker;Service technician, not repairman;Retail associate, not clerk or salesperson; andBuilding engineer, not superintendent. Alpert also points out companies that have nurtured wholesome images by — among other things — rebranding their workforce as a whole. You won’t find any “carnies” at Disney World, for instance. Instead, they’re called “cast members.” —L.T.
BUILDING ARTISANS
The New Old School One of the most ambitious efforts to restore respect for the skilled trades and create a new generation of master craftspeople is deliberately small in scope. With all of 45 students now in their freshman, sophomore, and junior years, the three-year-old American College of the Building Arts, in Charleston, S.C., has an exceedingly low instructor-to-student ratio and no more than eight students per major.
Students don’t major in broad construction topics but in: architectural metal, architectural stone, carpentry, masonry, plaster working, or timber framing. Instead of taking notes from the back of lecture halls, they spend 20 hoursa week in hands-on workshops. Instead of being barely known to teachers, students often work with master artisans one-on-one. Instead of studying abstract academic theories, they learn about history, science, business, economics, language, and civics as they apply to the building trades.
“We cover all the topics of a typical liberal arts education but everything is very much focused on the building arts,” says Deborah Bowman, director of enrollment and student services. More arts college than vo-tech school, the four-year program is academically and physically rigorous, she says, as well as expensive, at around $20,000 a year for tuition alone.
But the students are “amazing,” she says, as are the faculty and corporate supporters. “They fell in love with the concept, and they get what they’re doing.” Learn more at www.buildingartscollege.us. —L.T.
MISSION EDUCATION
Crafty Thinking In lieu of a national effort to ignite interest in the construction trades, remodelers might want to look to Fort Collins, Colo., where the upstart National Center for Craftsmanship aims to develop next-generation craftspeople one community at a time.
“We know the challenge has been four decades in the making,” says Neil Kaufman, director of the nonprofit organization. “It will probably also take at least that long to turn it around.”
A few years ago, he and a colleague brainstormed NCC as a possible solution to a crisis that Kaufman become aware of in the late ’90s as a graduate student studying construction management. Concerned that U.S. culture was rapidly losing its connection to the skilled trades, he foresaw the need for a national effort “that first and foremost has the educational mission of creating next-generation craftspeople,” he says.
Education programs are hands-on and involve partners including small contractors, schools and municipalities, and Habitat for Humanity. In February, NCC began its first large-scale project: Its DeConstruct Training Program teaches high school students to have fun while systematically deconstructing, reusing, and recycling three buildings that were donated to the effort.
Similar programs could appear nationwide. “Our vision is to have regional and state offices,” Kaufman says, based on the Fort Collins “pilot” and its more than 300 members. He’s had inquiries about local offices elsewhere but, he says, “We recognize the importance of building the systems and doing it right. We’re creating the fabric of a sustainable concept.” Learn more at www.nccraftsmanship.org. —L.T.
WORLD OF CLICK
Social Recruiting Can social-networking sites do for remodeling what they’ve done for friendships? Like global employee-referral systems, sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are becoming critical spokes on the recruitment wheel. In fact, as employers confront the reality of employees chatting online during working hours, some are opting not to ban these functions but to embrace them as business-building opportunities.
The sites seem to welcome the new thinking. Of the tens of millions of member profiles on Facebook and MySpace, many are more oriented to career than to music or partying. Employers can search for people by variables such as where they’ve worked, or can set up their own networks, engage in forums, and place classified ads.
Employers can build community as well. Technology giant Cisco Systems, for instance, encourages its 65,000 employees to use the sites to facilitate creativity and collaboration. KPMG, the tax consulting firm, has a Facebook “innovation hub” where staff can discuss ideas. Banning the sites, in turn, can backfire. A British law firm tried this last year, only to anger 700 employees who were members of the company’s own network on Facebook.
And remodelers? Besides searching for people or setting up a network, you might ask your staff to use their social-networking profiles to talk up their good jobs (assuming, that is, those profiles don’t have personal information that might come back to haunt you). They might even link their profiles to your company’s Web site, with its own employee profiles — photos and narratives showing who they are, what they do, and why they love it. Just an idea. —L.T.