Ryan Englin on Roofer Growth Hacks: Hiring Rock Star Employees

I went on Roofer Growth Hacks with Chris Hunter to talk about why roofing contractors keep struggling to find good people and what to do about it.

Here's the truth most roofers don't want to hear. You don't have a hiring problem. You have a retention problem disguised as a hiring problem. Go back and look at your payroll for the last 12 months. Count how many W2s you issued versus how many people you had on December 31st. That gap tells the real story. If you issued 60 more W2s than you had employees at year end, you can't tell me there weren't 5 or 10 of those people worth keeping and investing in.

We covered a lot of ground on this one, but the big idea I kept coming back to is this: recruiting is a marketing activity. It's putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. That's marketing 101. Stop giving it to your HR person. They're a compliance function. They don't understand what it means to be a job seeker and how to create a great experience for one.

I walked through the Apple Framework, which is how I explain the employee experience. Think of your business as an apple. The skin is your brand experience. The flesh is your customer experience. The core is your employee experience. Most companies work outside-in. They invest in wraps, uniforms, websites, and reputation management. But all of that is for nothing if the core is rotten. Your employees execute your customer experience. Your customers take care of your brand. Flip the order. Start with the core.

Then we got into the fishing analogy. When you go fishing, the first decision isn't where to fish. It's what you want to catch. That decision determines everything else. The rod, the lure, the location, the boat. But most contractors skip that step entirely. They go straight to Indeed, which is like fishing downstream from a nuclear power plant and wondering why they keep pulling up three-eyed fish. Get clear on what you want first. Think about the one or two people on your team you'd clone if you had a magic wand. Write down their behaviors. They show up on time. They clean up the job site. They talk respectfully to the crew and the customer. They're willing to learn. Now build your Core Fit Profile around those behaviors, not demographics. Most demographic identifiers are protected classes anyway.

I also challenged the room on pay. Only about 9% of employees leave for money. That's it. If someone left their last job for a $2 raise to come to you, they'll leave you for a $1 raise to go somewhere else. You're not competing against every other roofing company. You're competing for eyeballs against Amazon warehouses, Target distribution centers, and the gig economy. A Corvette commercial never shows the spec sheet. It shows people enjoying life. Your job ads need to do the same thing.

We talked about speed. Only 2% of Americans can go 30 days without a paycheck and still pay all their bills. Almost 60% can't miss a single check. If someone applies today, they need an answer tonight. Not this weekend. Not next week. You wouldn't let a customer with a 4,000 square foot roof sit in your inbox for a week. Stop doing it with candidates. Who ghosted who first?

I spent time on employee referrals and why most programs don't work. You're asking your best people to convince their friends to quit a good job, skip a paycheck, lose tenure and PTO, and run through a gauntlet of risk. And you're equipping them with nothing. No talking points. No story to tell. No reason that actually compels someone. The fix starts with getting clear on your core. Your values, your purpose, why you do what you do. When your people can articulate that through a core story, referrals happen naturally.

We also hit vision. When an owner says "we're going to double the size of the business," employees hear "you want me to help the boss get rich." That doesn't get anyone on the bus. And when the bus breaks down or hits a detour, people who aren't excited about the destination get off. Communicate a vision that includes what's in it for them. Make the destination clear enough that people fight to stay.

If you liked this, I go deeper on the Core Fit Hiring System and all of these frameworks on Titans of the Trades.