In this episode of Builder Round Table, Jackson, Jake, Luke and Shane explore the age-old quandary of investing in employees. If you spend a lot on training them, aren't you just training them to go out on their own and compete with you? While most contractors have debated this, all four start from the premise that they need to invest heavily in their employees. Only when crew members become the best that they can be does a company become the best that it can be.
Most of the qualities that lead to success in our industry are intangibles: Being able to problem-solve, being able to communicate, being able to manage a fragmented, dynamic environment. So how should you nurture these intangibles? The Builder Round Table digs into the challenges of mentoring, guiding and instructing employees, most of which happens on the job. They aren't pretending that new hires are going to learn exclusively from trade journals and social media. Construction is about doing the work. But even before that comes passion. "I'm looking to bring on guys that have an intrinsic motivation to be in construction," explains Shane Durkin of Patriot High-Performance Homes. "They have to have the passion for it first and foremost."
Builder Round Table features four custom builders, each building high-performance homes in different parts of the U.S.: Jake Bruton (Aarow Building, Columbia and Kansas City, Mo.), Jackson Andrews (Jackson Andrews Building + Design, Virginia Beach, Va.), Luke Mann (Rangeline Homes, Evergreen, Co.) and Shane Durkin (Patriot High Performance Homes, Coronado, Ca.).
