Grow Sustainably with Great Talent

The contractors who want to attract and retain the best talent must provide opportunities for their career growth and that comes from having a strategic growth plan.

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This means a tough and scary strategic leap of faith for many contractors who are already suffering from labor shortages at the craft and management levels.  

Leadership Tools: Which came first? Chicken or Egg compared to Talent or Growth. You can't grow sustainably without great talent.
  1. Design your future state 2X org chart for where you need to be 5 years out.  Look at it with the assumption that you will be able to find internal and external candidates to fill key roles as well as to build your field workforce if applicable.   
  2. Identify those who will likely be leaving on their own or with some help in the next 1-3 years and 4-7 years.  If you are a self-performing contractor include a percentage of your field workforce that you know will or needs to be turned over.
  3. Review your internal team for accelerated development opportunities to fill larger roles on the organizational structure while providing them the scaffolding of training, coaching and mentoring from both inside and outside the company.  
  4. Clearly identify your talent gaps that need to be filled roughly by year - both recruiting and training requirements.  
  5. Invest more aggressively than you ever have before in building your capabilities around the 9 Talent Processes.  You will close those gaps if you develop a plan and execute relentlessly towards your goal.



Time-on-Tools and Minimum Required Installation
Labor productivity IS NOT the biggest problem with field productivity. Under similar conditions the variation in how fast two crafts people actually “turn wrenches” is about 2X but there are far bigger problems to tackle. Focus on these three areas.
Business Developer (and Management) Hurdles
Finding a customer that will pay you is the first thing a contractor does. Scaling the business development function with growth is one of the most challenging things a contractor must do for sustainability and succession.
Accountability + Compensation: The Myths and Realities
No amount of accountability or compensation will create the competencies and capabilities required to deliver results. If your results are falling short, make sure that you are diagnosing the root cause correctly so you can design the best solution.