How to find good tradespeople for your trade business

The old adage that a company is only ever as good as its employees is as true today as it ever was. This means that if you want to achieve long-term success with your tradie small business, it’s in your interest to understand how to identify the best tradespeople in your area and recruit them to work for your business.

There’s right ways and wrong ways to go about finding tradies, so let’s look at some tips and tricks for finding good tradespeople for your trade company.

1. Become an employer of choice

It goes without saying that the best tradies want the best tradies jobs. They want to work for the best companies in their industry and local area. They want to be part of a leading organisation, where their talents can shine. They also want to learn more about their trade under the watchful eye of an industry thought leader who can mentor them. They also want to work on the biggest and best projects.

It’s important to note that being an employer of choice isn’t just about being the biggest player in the industry. Rather, it’s more about the essence of your company – how you treat your staff, what your business stands for, your corporate social responsibility initiatives, how you reward success (ie, promote from within), and so on.

2. Precisely define your tradies jobs

In your job ad, ensure that you precisely and clearly define the role and what’s required of the successful candidate. To do just that, consider these three details when writing your job advertisement:

• Does the job description include all the skills, knowledge, and experience required to succeed in the position?
• Have you included the key performance indicators (KPIs) to show the expected performance standards.
• Are your tradies job descriptions enticing and relevant – especially for the types of strong candidates you wish to attract?

3. Formalise your hiring process

Take the time to figure out, formalise, and document your hiring process; that way you will have a failsafe process to follow for all hiring moving forward. When documenting your hiring processes, some steps you may consider can include:

• a 15-minute phone screening interview with applicants;
• a structured face-to-face interview with set questions;
• reference checks;
• pre-employment checks; and
• signing of the employment contract, including start date and salary details.

4. How to keep staff and motivate them

Finding tradies who are great at what they do is fantastic; but now that they’re on board, your job as an employer is to keep them. To do so, priority number one should be creating positive work environment.

Avoid berating staff, especially in front of other colleagues. Have an open-door policy so your staff feel they can reach out for help anytime. Also be open to suggestions from your new employees. New staff can bring some much-needed fresh perspective and new ideas and skills to your business

5. Five questions to ask trade job applicants

• Are they passionate about their trade?: Employ tradies who love what they do and take pride in their work.
• Are they experienced?: While on the job experience certainly counts, try to gauge what level job applicants are at and if they have the skills and on the job experience your trade company needs.
• Where are they heading?: Ask applicants where they want to be in five years. Can you count on them to stay with your business for at least a few years?
• Why are they changing jobs?: Ask candidates why they’re leaving (or have left) their current job and why they want to work for your trade business.
• Why should you hire them?: The purpose of this question is to gauge how much initiative and confidence the candidate has and if they could be a good role model for future employees.

6. Insurance for tradies

As the owner of your own tradie small business, it’s important to understand your options when it comes to business insurance. Business Insurance can help reduce the risks to your trade company and can cover the business activities of your company and your employees.

However, if you employ contractors, they will need to hold their own Business Insurance as they will be operating under their own ABN and aren’t employees of your business.

Growing your trade company takes time, effort, and no small amount of perseverance. However, the same can’t be said when it comes to securing your business insurance* with BizCover. We make it quick and easy to compare prices and purchase business insurance online. Get your trade insurance quotes sorted quickly and without fuss online or by calling us on us on 1300 920 864.