Ryan Englin on Dirty and Driven: The Core Problems and Solutions of the Industry

I sat down with James Devinney on Dirty and Driven to talk about what's really broken in the trades and what it takes to fix it.

We covered a lot of ground in this one. The labor shortage myth, why recruiting is a marketing problem, why culture falls apart when you can't define it, and what happens when companies treat people like disposable parts instead of human beings.

I told James the same thing I tell every contractor. We don't have a labor shortage. We have a marketing problem. For over a decade now, I've watched this industry fail at one fundamental thing. They don't know how to attract people. They don't know how to communicate who they are, what they stand for, or why someone's life will be better working for them. They post a job ad that reads like a legal document and wonder why nobody applies. That's not a labor crisis. That's a messaging crisis.

I shared the story of how I got into this work. My dad was an owner-operator in manufacturing. Worked way too many hours, way too many days a week. I thought his problem was that he didn't know how to grow the business. The real problem was he didn't know how to build a team of people he could trust. I started a marketing company to help contractors grow, and a couple years in I realized the bottleneck wasn't leads. It was people. Contractors had more work than they could handle and empty trucks sitting in the yard. That's when I realized recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR activity. It changed everything.

We got into core values and why most companies get them wrong. I see it every single time. Companies slap integrity, teamwork, and honesty on the wall in the job trailer and every person on that job site looks at them and knows it's garbage. Nobody lives like that. If you have to tell me you're going to be honest with me, what does that say about you? Are you normally not honest but this time you're making an exception?

Real core values are verbs. You see them in action. I shared the story of one of our clients whose core value is "Give a Damn." Everyone latched on to it. The people who didn't give a damn left. The company stopped working with contractors and suppliers who didn't give a damn. Every relationship now runs through that filter. That's what a real value does. It attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones.

I also walked through the three foundational pieces of what we call your Core. Why you do what you do. How you behave. Where you're going. If people aren't excited about the destination, they're not getting on the bus. And if the bus is driving in circles with no destination, people get sick and leave. You need all three pieces figured out and communicated through story before you start worrying about job boards and resumes.

James and I talked about the generational divide and how destructive the "back in my day" mentality is. I reminded the audience that 40 percent of the current workforce is retiring by the end of the decade. We needed to solve this 10 years ago. We're already late. And every time an old-timer hazes a new kid or refuses to teach because "nobody taught me," they're pushing another person out of the industry permanently. Those kids don't leave your company and go work for another contractor. They leave the industry entirely.

I brought up the auto mechanic client who realized the labor problem was solved the day he accepted he had to finish raising these kids. Calling them in the morning. Listening to their drama. Coaching them through life. The day he started investing in them as people, not just workers, is the day the turnover stopped.

We also hit on women in the trades. Less than four percent of the construction workforce is female. Half the population. If we want to solve a labor crisis, we cannot alienate 50 percent of the people available. That means changing behavior on job sites before bringing women onto the team. It means providing proper facilities and equipment. It means having real conversations about respect.

One more thing I hammered on. The disconnect between office and field. I've seen companies where office staff have never set foot on a job site in 10 years. One client does a monthly breakfast at the office and the one time they moved it to the field, the office people were furious. If you don't understand that your business is built on the backs of the people in the field, you're in the wrong business.

I also walked through the Corfit Conversation, where the employee evaluates the supervisor instead of the other way around. Most employees have never been asked for that kind of feedback. The first time you do it, they'll say everything is fine because they don't trust you yet. That's the point. Building trust takes time. But who better to tell a leader how to improve than the person on the receiving end of their leadership?

At the end of the episode I offered listeners a free copy of Hire Better People Faster. I wrote it as a how-to guide so any contractor can implement the Core Fit Hiring System without having to engage with us directly. I can't work with everyone, but I can put this information in as many hands as possible.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on all of these topics on Titans of the Trades. Subscribe for more conversations like this.