Recruiting Tips for Growing Home Service Companies

When it comes to building or expanding a business in the trades, two things matter more than anything: hiring good professionals and retaining them.

A 2022 study by DailyPay showed that the average cost required to replace one hourly worker is about $1,500. A trained professional can get those costs as high as $50,000. This gives you even more incentive to have good retaining strategies in place and reduce your turnover rate.

Today, we’ll discuss the best recruiting tips designed to attract qualified workforce and how to keep them for the long haul.

The Best Recruiting Tips for Home Service Businesses

The recruitment process needs to be thought out carefully, because, depending on your approach, finding a replacement for your vacant position can take between days to months. 

The industry average for specialty trade roles is 45-60 days, with the onboarding process sometimes stretching to 12-18 months before the new hire reaches full productivity. So, it’s in your best interest to move fast.

The following tips will help:

Transparency When Hiring

Always be upfront about the job’s specifics, including the monetary compensation. Extra points if you do it in your public announcement. Not everything needs to be there, but the essentials, like salary, bonuses, schedule, and job requirements, do.

People prefer to value transparency because it values their time. Nobody wants to go through a 1-hour interview just to find out they don’t like the compensation.

Up Your Competition’s Rates

Try to up your competition’s rates by 10-20% if possible. Keep in mind that money is the main drive for the vast majority of people. 

This may sound like something Captain Obvious would say but, in a market where businesses use “a positive and vibrant working environment” as their sales pitch, without mentioning the salary, it may not be as obvious. 

The higher pay is guaranteed to increase the pool of applicants, boosting your chances of bringing real value into your business.

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Leverage Social Media to Find Applicants

You want to leverage social media to expand your reach and have access to a larger number of potential applicants. Even if you’re only looking for local workforce, social media is still a better bet than the local newspaper or, even worse, word of mouth.

A strong online presence can also increase your business’s visibility, allowing you to showcase your internal culture, professional achievements, and growth. This matters even more if we consider that 83% of job seekers will research the company’s reviews and reputation before applying.

Highlight Clear Growth Opportunities

The initial pay may be good enough for people to take the job. But it may not be good enough for them to stay with you 1-2 or 5 years down the line.

The solution is to have some solid career opportunities in place. It could be something as basic as a structured payment boost plan (10% salary increase every 6-12 months, for instance). Or something with more meat on the bone like role progression (novice → veteran/workforce trainer → team leader → manager, etc.).

Work With Professional Recruiters

Sometimes, you don’t have the time necessary to screen candidates, conduct interviews, and trim the pack. Professional recruiters do, because that’s their job. 

A pro recruiter can reach out to hundreds or thousands of active and passive (people who could need a job, but aren’t actively looking for one) candidates on social media channels, conduct interviews, and only select the ones that best fit your search criteria.

These tips will help you fill your vacant positions fast, but retaining the new workforce is a different game altogether.

How to Reduce Turnover Rates for Home Service Businesses

Here are some quick facts about job retention as highlighted in a multi-headed study by Emapta:

• Investing $4,700 in retention strategies per employee increases retention rates by 87%
• 75% of workers leaving the job are preventable
• Supporting the employees’ wellbeing reduces their risk of leaving by 69%
• Targeted retaining initiatives deliver a 4.2x ROI in returns

The conclusion is clear → A good worker retaining strategy will not only lower the turnover rate, but also produce substantial ROI.

With that in mind, here are some retaining tips to consider for your home service business:

Offer Performance Bonuses

Rewarding performance keeps your workers motivated and happy. Something as simple as a $25-$50 bonus for every 5-star review the technician is getting will increase both their retention and on-job motivation.

For the employee, this is a gift of appreciation. For you, it's a smart investment.

Respect Your Promises

Always respect the career growth plan that you’ve advertised during the recruitment process. If you’ve promised a 10% pay increase after the first 12 months, do it. The same goes for any subsequent promise, whether it relates to pay boosts, off time, or professional recognition.

This builds trust and solidifies your relationship with your crew.

Become More Personal With Your Workers

Learn more about your employees, their families, and their situation, so long as it remains in the realm of decency. If one of your technicians needs an off day to take care of some urgent family matter, grant it.

This type of flexibility and understanding will make employees feel like they’re welcome, understood, and appreciated. More importantly, your kindness will be repaid in higher worker loyalty in the long run.

Fix the Onboarding Program

A study by the Work Institute revealed that 30% of new hires quit within the first 12 months. Among the reasons mentioned, unclear job expectations, poor onboarding, and the lack of support from leadership were at the top of the list.

A good and supportive onboarding program, helping new employees integrate within their roles and assimilate into the company’s culture, is essential for lowering the high turnover rates within the first year.

Speak to Employees

Many employees prefer to keep their job dissatisfaction to themselves out of fear of repercussions. Then, they just quit. 

You won’t know whether there’s something bugging them if you don’t ask them directly. Pressure-checking questions like “How’s the workload” or “Are you happy here?” can expose problems that may not be obvious at a first glance.

How Field Team Software Tools Can Help

A good Field Service Management (FSM) software can help with the onboarding process and better structure your retaining strategy. A notable point if we consider that employees who’ve undergone proper training during the onboarding process report 33% higher job satisfaction than those who haven’t.

The problem is that FSM tools are tailored to the trade in general, whereas you need something tailored to your specific business operations. This means that you may need to create your own FSM software, designed to cover your unique business needs.

Whether you settle for a standard FSM model or build your own, these tools are great for structuring your operations, improving productivity, and helping new employees integrate faster.