Competitive wages help companies attract and retain employees. But in the commercial and residential pipe-cleaning industry, where tough, dirty work can make good workers hard to locate, contractors often must offer more than just decent pay to attract good people and keep them on board.
The methods they use to minimize turnover vary. Some companies find that health insurance and retirement plans do the trick. For others, an emphasis on workplace safety pays dividends. Bonus programs also boost employee loyalty. Here’s what three contractors had to say about what works for them:
“In terms of attracting employees, the industrial-cleaning industry is not the easiest business to be in,” observes Brooks Bradford, CEO of AIMM Technologies Inc. in Texas City, Texas, which provides hydrokinetic cleaning, mostly for the chemical industry.
“But with our processes, we make it much easier and safer for employees to work. We’re so much faster than typical hydroblasting – 50 to 60 percent faster. And the process is automated to the extent that there’s very little manual work involved, so to a large extent, it eliminates fatigue.
“We’re very proud of how safe our employees are. We stress safety every day. As a result, we’ve never had a lost-time accident in the history of the company. We have classroom training at least once a week, where we’ll bring employees in and sit them down and go over some new concepts, or review areas where another company we know about had an accident, and try to determine why it happened and how we can avoid it.
“In the long run, our employees know that we value their health and their lives. They’re not just a number or a percentage to us. We’re truly interested because we want the total person involved in our operations.
“Along with standard benefits, we offer employees profit-sharing. We find the main thing employees are interested in, aside from health and safety, is their paycheck. We have a very liberal profit-sharing plan and as a result we have some very long-term employees. Employees get a profit-sharing check every quarter if we make a profit. It can be substantial.
“Employee communication is also important. Our weekly classroom meetings are not restricted just to safety. We also may talk about profit-sharing, for instance. We also listen to employees – try to find out about their problems, and what we can do to make ourselves a better company.”
“There are a lot of jobs in our area in the oil and natural gas fields, so it’s tough to find employees, especially good employees,” explains Dave Teeter, owner of Action Drain Services Inc. in Craig, Colo. “The pool of workers is very small, so the quality isn’t up to par, in most cases. Good employees get snapped up quickly.
“So we have to be very competitive in terms of wages and benefits. We pay 75 percent of employees’ health insurance and offer them a Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE) IRA for retirement, in which we match their contributions up to 3 percent of their income. We also offer two weeks of paid vacation when they start, and it goes up from there.
“My wife and I believe that small businesses should offer benefits and compensation packages just like large businesses, like coal mines and power plants, do. There’s no reason why small businesses can’t do the same. I’m a small business owner, and I believe if it was my family in the reverse situation, I’d want health care coverage and vacation time to spend with family and friends, and I’d want to make enough money to go on vacation.
“Sure, it hurts our bottom line a little bit. And we still have turnover. It seems there’s always someone who moves on because they want more money, or they think the grass is greener on the other side. But good benefits help us retain the quality people.
“We have had bonus programs in the past, but we find they work well for a little while, then fall on their face from one quarter to the next. I don’t know why. Maybe the payouts need to be more frequent – monthly may work better than quarterly. We’re still trying to figure out how to reward guys for extra work, besides just paying them.
“For overtime calls, we charge a flat rate over and above the usual call fee, and our guys get 80 percent of that. We’ve had to raise the call price on weekends because of demand, so that 80 percent went way up. They still hate working overtime, but I’ve had guys who’ve made an extra $1,500 a weekend, over and above their wages.”
Mike Greenwood, vice president of Greenwood’s Sewer Service in Des Moines, Iowa, says his company attracts and retains employees through competitive wages and a bonus program. “We provide a SIMPLE IRA retirement plan and give our employees two weeks of paid vacation, as well as paid time off on holidays, if they aren’t on call.
“We also run a monthly bonus program that’s based on the number of calls our guys make per month after hours and on weekends. They get a percentage of the total cost of the job they do after hours. That percentage goes in a ‘bank,’ and employees receive the bonus at end of the month.
“It costs us extra money, but it keeps employees happy, and gives them an incentive to go out after hours, which keeps customers happy. It also helps keep our employees out of competitors’ hands.” n
