As decorative concrete contractors, generally, you are very aware of the cost and value of your equipment. Inventory is key to getting jobs done. So, you are aware of the amounts of product and tooling that you have on hand. Every contractor is aware of the value of the vehicles and trailers that you have on the road since each of these was paid for with hard-earned dollars. All of these things are assets.
Value employees as your most valuable asset in decorative concrete contracting.
The largest asset you have, though, is regularly missed when considering your position.
Your employees are by far the largest investment that any contractor can make. Between the money that you spend each week on wages, the money you pay in payroll taxes, insurance, and worker’s comp – you spend more money on employees than all your other assets combined. Even though this is a hard fact, “employees” as an asset to concrete contractors is a hard concept to recognize for most contractors. Why is this the case and how can you remedy that situation are two of the topics that I will discuss in this article.
Think about the value of each year that your guys gain in concrete experience working for you. Look at all the lessons!
In the concrete industry, employees are even more valuable that in most businesses. When I was a contractor, I figured that each of my supervisors or crew leaders had a value of about $75,000-$100,000 for each year they had worked for me. I got to this value by looking at the lessons that each crew lead learned on specific projects. This could be anything from recognizing concrete hardness or softness, and its effect on diamond tooling, to densifier application, or dye applications and how to deal with specific colors or even things like proper disposal.
I then tried to figure out how much money I spent to do the repairs necessary from the learning curve and how much money I lost as a result. Low end estimates were around $75,000 a year.
When a lawyer goes to college and then law school, it costs about $250,000 total according to U.S. News. On average, it takes 7 years to get through law school. So, that is about $36,000 a year averaged out. Based on these calculations, we in the concrete industry can easily pay double the cost of a lawyer’s education to properly train and educate our crews through on-the-job training. Experience is and will always be the single greatest training in our industry. All the classes that you can send new employees to will at best give them 25% of the knowledge they need to do a job from start to finish. The on-the-job training is key. Supplemental training, such as our Expert Concrete Training courses, helps elevate the on-the-job training and help the employees learn many of these expensive lessons, before having to encounter them in real life scenarios.
When you have experienced crews, you can supplement their training effectively if you can use project-based experience to educate them. One large contractor recently had me come in to train their crew leads on concrete repairs. The owner realized that each crew had unique methods for performing repairs. When different crews were required to work on projects at different times, the repairs were different, which caused questions from the customer.
By taking photos of projects and using real job experiences to educate, we created a standardized repair manual for all crews and all projects. The owner realized the value of his employees and their training enough to invest in their education. Congratulations to Dave Stratton of Pacific Decorative Concrete!
Another owner recently flew me and one of my associates, Ryan McBride, to his shop where all of the crew leads were brought in for the day to have a training on polished concrete overlay installation. Again, the owner realized that different crews had different methods for prep, placement, and polishing of overlays. Some differences were inherent based on the product being installed, but there are many similar issues with all products. By having us in to train the crews, based on hundreds of application reviews, the owner made a significant investment in the education of his employees. Thank you to John Jones of Budget Maintenance Concrete for recognizing the value of this polished concrete repair training! The value of project-based training, in conjunction with on-the-job training, is a way to capitalize on your crews’ experience and make them a more valuable asset.
There is no more valuable asset in your concrete contracting organization than your experienced crew members!
Do not underestimate the value of your employees. Almost all new hires come from other industries and have to be trained how to do decorative concrete.
“If you happen to know any good guys, I am hiring!”
Think about it, finding a trained-in-concrete employee is extremely rare. I hear from contractors every week saying, “If you happen to know any good guys, I am hiring.” It almost does not matter how much you are willing to pay, finding the experienced people is extremely hard. As a result, employee retention is extremely important if you want to have a successful concrete contracting company.
I can tell you from experience that regularly reviewing pay, providing benefits if you are big enough or small side perks if you are not are MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE than hiring new lower wage employees and having to constantly pay for their education through the losses on projects. I am not preaching that you need to hold on to bad apples. If guys won’t work, or will not learn, or are troublemakers, you are better off dropping them immediately.
Consider that each day of on-the-job training is comparable to a day of college. You are paying the bill. If you have a student who is unwilling to learn, do not waste the money. Drop the quickly and find a new student. You will be paying either way so spend your money wisely.
I cannot tell you how many times I kept an employee, thinking they would turn around only to look up a year later with them making the same mistakes. All I could think about was how much money and time I had just wasted. Think about this and work on what you can do to keep or incentivize and keep your good workers and consider dropping the dead weight in favor of new students. The jobs will not stop so each day of training has a value.
Every day the most money you spend will be on your employees. This makes them your greatest asset. Treat them as such and remember that if you do not, there is undoubtedly another company in our industry who will.
*Please note: Any dollar amounts referenced reflect typical pricing at original publication date.*