Personnel Issues

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    State of the Industry: WPCs

    Wood-plastic composites are steadily chipping away at the pressure-treated wood market.

     
  • Finding Mature Workers

    AARP's Deborah Russell, director of workforce issues, and The Herman Group's workforce futurist Roger Herman offer these suggestions for hiring older workers.

     
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    Mature Hiring Practices

    Although the labor pool for the trades is tight, most remodeling companies wouldn't go looking for workers in the over–55 crowd. “But the maturity that comes with an older worker is particularly valuable in this field,” says Roger Herman, workforce futurist and CEO of The Herman Group. “In most...

     
  • Survey Share

    Once a year, three remodelers in the Nashville, Tenn., area conduct a wage and benefits survey of local remodeling companies.

     
  • Children at Work: Suggestions from the VSCPA on Hiring Your Son or Daughter

    In an article titled “Hiring Your Children is Good Business,” the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants (VSCPA) offers suggestions to small-business owners who want to hire their children.

     
  • Slowing Turnover

    I recently spoke with a fellow remodeler who told me that his No. 1 challenge was retaining his people. Everybody who has experienced employee turnover — and we all have membership in that club — knows the effect it can have on productivity and morale, to say nothing of the time and effort required...

     
  • Measuring your company against the competition

    To measure one company against others, you must compare apples to apples. One obstacle to that comparison is owner's compensation, because each remodeling company tends to account for it differently.

     
  • Maximizing your personnel

    A personnel system should define a company's needs, find the best person to fulfill each of those needs, and retain those employees. David Crane, owner of Crane Builders in Nashville, Tenn., uses the DISC personality profiling system to make sure new hires fit the company culture.

     
  • Getting rid of employees

    You may find that the people who were perfect for your company when you started often aren't the right people today.

     
  • Rewarding Your Staff for Good Work

    I apologized for something I did. Word traveled the grapevine, and soon a card arrived in the mail from Craig Durosko of Sun Design Remodeling Specialists, in Burke, Va.