Re-recruit Your Employees

Good morning, everybody. Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper.

I had the opportunity to be at the AGC Convention this last week and had some interesting experiences as we always do. 
One of the ones I want to share with you today, we're sitting in a seminar about company growth. And looking back on 
our membership, gosh, we're averaging over a seven-year period here, about 100% growth plus, couple 100% growth and 
profits. So really, really good stuff. But when you think about growth, this particular seminar was about the various ceilings 
you hit along the pathway to growth. You hit these places where it's hard to continue forward, and a lot of it was about 
the changes that have to go through.

But what I learned from watching this is, really, at each stage of growth where people hit those plateaus, it was all about 
people. It really was all about people, whether it was the managers not being capable of taking it to the next level, or not 
having enough skilled people, and project managers, and pre-con people. Really, at each stage, it was about people, and 
skills, and just having enough to keep moving it forward. And of course, as you add people, you don't want that diluting 
the average quality of the company as well. If you just think about it, it's hard not to dilute as you grow. So, it really is 
about that growth challenge.

So, when they went to the audience for suggestions about how to get through some of these plateaus that they reached 
along the way, I thought the greatest suggestion I heard was to re-recruit your current employees. And at first, I thought, 
"What's that about? What do they mean there?" But then I thought, "Okay, we are involved currently in the great 
resignation. Everybody can make more money simply by changing jobs today." I mean, that's just the reality. Anybody on 
your team can leave and make more money. And people are reassessing their life. And we're having a lot of these 
resignations.

So, what can you do about it? First of all, the key to continued growth is, really, to keep your people and maximize your 
people. And so, I thought this suggests of re-recruiting your current employees was actually a great one because if you 
think about it, to get new employees now, you really got to work hard, you got to tell a story, show them the opportunity 
for the future, what a great culture we have. Takes a lot of pay and benefits to bring them on board. Or what about your 
current employees? Think about it. If you take them for granted, they're likely to be working somewhere else, and 
somebody else is going to take them away. If you take them for granted, somebody's going to take them away.

So, the concept of re-recruiting your employees, and just looking at your workforce a new, if I were recruiting each of 
those folks today, what would I want to do? What do they want? How is their job going? Are they truly engaged? Do they 
care about the purpose of the company and the purposes of their job? Are they stuck in something mundane? Are they 
having to work with some people that are downers? Have they had a significant raise of late? Are they incented properly? 
All of those things, if you were recruiting them today, what would you want to tell them about their position in their 
future? And what would you want to do for them to make sure that they thought that was all fantastic. And then, are you 
doing what's necessary to help them be their best self to contribute the most to the company?

I talked a couple of minutes ago about dilution of talent. Well, your people need to grow in order for you not to become 
diluted as you add people. So, you need your people to grow. So, are you doing everything you can to make sure that your 
people can grow, they can be their best selves, they can contribute the most to the company, they can be prepared for 
the next position or the next opportunity? What are you doing to improve the office environment, the technology, the 
training, all of those folks? Technology can be a real downer for folks because some people don't like change, and some 
people are not as skilled at it as others. And I hate to say it, as construction companies, I think, universally, we're pretty 
weak at the implementation and the training of those new technologies when we launch them. And that can be frustrating.

Reinforce your company purpose and the connection of all of your people to that company purpose. I'm not going to cite 
the bunch of statistics, but in this particular presentation at the convention, they did an engagement survey. And the level 
of engagement they found was so low, and the norm out in the industry is really so low, that it's really pitiful. So, are your 
people engaged in their work? Are they seeing the company purpose? Are they grabbing that connection? And again, if 
you think about re-recruiting your employees, reinforce that connection, make sure they're getting it. If they're not getting 
it, what can you do to help them get it?

Social involvement at the company. When somebody comes on board and you're onboarding, you might make sure that 
some folks take them out to lunch, they get a meeting with the CEO, maybe there's a little cocktail party after work or 
something to get them engaged with folks and connected socially, but have you lost some people along the way? Again, 
the idea of re-recruiting your employees, how do you make sure they're connected with the other employees, that your 
workplace has a special connection for those folks? Because that's what's going to make them want to stay there and 
what's going to make them want to improve themselves and work harder.

And then, finally, and probably most importantly of all, back to appreciation. I know we've been talking about appreciation 
a lot, but meet with your folks, appreciate them, make sure they're feeling that appreciation, all of that. So just the whole
concept of re-recruiting your current employees, look right down the line, who may have lost that connection and how 
can you recreate that connection as if they were a new employee? So, think about that.

Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper.