How to Attract and Retain Good Preconstruction Employees

attract and retain good workers

Everyone wants skilled workers in the field and the office, both for their talents and to avoid the cost of turnover. But, it’s often easier said than done. Here are some tactics to follow to make your business attractive to hardworking job seekers.

How to Make Your Company Attractive to Job Searchers

Turn your company into a place where competition among applicants is fierce. You can make people want to join you by:

Paying well and offering excellent benefits. While it might feel like a hit to your profits, the best workers can afford to be picky on salary and benefits. So, offering a package that doesn’t compare well to competitors might get you some takers, but it won’t be enough to attract top talent.
Clearly defining expectations. Your job descriptions should list the responsibilities and tasks you expect the new hire to handle. Be honest in interviews so potential candidates make a well-informed decision – don’t try to make a job sound more exciting than it is.
Recognizing potential. You might get applicants without much previous experience. Pay attention to their answers to questions to determine if, even though they don’t have expertise, they have the capacity to learn. The best workers are often those who feel their employers took a chance on them.
Tapping your current talent. Happy, hardworking employees can be a great source of referrals. When applicants have inside information from current employees, they know what they’re getting into and are more likely to understand if they’re a good fit for the role. Likewise, if the applicant is a connection of an existing employee you already trust, you get the peace of mind that they’re probably a good worker.
Diversifying your recruiting efforts. Post jobs in multiple locations, not just the usual online sources. Try college career centers and organizations for minority students, and if you can, offer resources for non-native English speakers who might apply.
Maintaining a positive reputation. Word gets around, whether it’s good or bad. Make sure you treat all employees with respect, deliver on your promises, and give back to the community when possible. You can also ask your current employees if they’d be willing to write reviews on job sites like Glassdoor for candidates to see and consider local, regional, and national best workplace recognition programs. These are a great way to solicit employee feedback and position your company as an ideal workplace.

4 Strategies to Retain Your Best Employees

Once you’ve hired those great additions to your company, you need to make it enticing to stick around. The direct costs associated with employee turnover are high, and indirectly, a lot of turnover can hurt morale among remaining staff. So, make it a point to keep your good employees happy.

1. Provide ongoing training and learning opportunities.

If people don’t know what’s expected of them or how to achieve their goals, they get anxious and may become a flight risk. Make your onboarding process detailed and clear; pair new employees up with a seasoned mentor who can help with questions. Take advantage of any training available through software tools that you use as well.

2. Approach people with empathy and be as flexible as possible.

When you know your employee is a hard worker, always gives it their all, and gets the job done, be sure to cut them some slack from time to time. Let them know you appreciate their efforts, and treat them as humans rather than just human resources.

3. Give them the right tools to do their job.

Especially in preconstruction, things can change quickly. Be prepared to adapt to new technologies that become available, and provide your employees with software that will allow them to excel. For example, if you can help them speed up takeoffs or eliminate the tedious process of transferring data between tools with a single platform, be ready to adopt it to help improve workflow.

4. Set reasonable goals and encourage professional development.

You should expect a lot of your employees, but they can’t do the impossible. Communicate regularly about goals and performance so they know if they’re meeting expectations, and give them opportunities to learn new skills and develop their expertise within the field. This will help reduce the temptation to look elsewhere and can make them an even more valuable asset to your business.

Using these tactics will help you to reduce turnover and stabilize your workforce. But you can’t keep everyone from leaving – you will still lose good employees to relocation, offers you can’t compete with, or other personal factors.

In these cases, let the separation be on good terms and maintain a professional relationship with the employee. You never know when they might refer someone they know or even choose to come back to your company.

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