Welcome Back, Everyone! In today’s episode, Steve and I dive into how you can transform negativity in your workplace into opportunities for growth and innovation. We’re here to share some game-changing strategies that can help any blue-collar business owner turn challenges into catalysts for positive change.

Here’s What We Cover:

1. Embracing Technology:

• We discuss how Bob Dietz and Sons are setting new standards by using technology to attract and engage a younger workforce. There’s a lot to learn from their approach!

1. Making Incremental Changes:

• We talk about the importance of small, consistent changes in your business practices. These incremental steps can lead to significant improvements over time, without overwhelming you or your team.

1. Crafting Appealing Job Ads:

• We share insights on how to create job ads that really speak to younger workers by focusing on what makes your company culture and benefits unique.

1. Flexibility in Work Schedules:

• We explore how flexible scheduling, like four-day workweeks, can boost job satisfaction and keep your team happy and motivated.

1. Utilizing Social Media:

• Learn why letting your team use social media to showcase your business culture can attract tech-savvy talent and refresh your company’s image.

Join Our Community: Don’t just listen—get involved! Subscribe to "Blue Collar BS," and don’t forget to like, share, rate, and review. Your feedback helps us grow and improve, and we love seeing your comments and suggestions. For more insights and discussions, reach out directly to Steve or me through our official contact channels. Let’s keep strengthening blue-collar businesses together!

Steve Doyle:

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Brad Herda:

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Welcome back to this episode of Blue Collar B's with your co host Bradley and Steve. There you go. You caught your line this time, Mister Fantastic. How you doing today, sir?

Doing pretty good. Doing pretty good yourself.

You survived some storms this week, it looks like.

Yeah. Yep, we did. We've lost power for two days, but, you know, nothing that people can't live with technology for a couple hours or, you know, two days, aka my daughters.

So millennial like you, that must have been a struggle to keep the phone out of your head.

Not really. It was real easy. My kids, on the other hand, though, that's a different story.

Gen Alpha, very different.

Oh, yes.

So for those who listen to the show, Steve contributes to the show often. And this is another, this is another one of his contributions. This week, he provided us with today's topic about kind of rethinking our business and how can we make our business more profitable, more attractive to all generations. And Steve, you shared an article through your smart brief about the 2024 contractor of the year winner, Bob Dietz and sons out of New Paltz, New York, sponsored by Caterpillar. Familiar with them? I think so talk to me about what you found interesting as to what they're doing differently for their, for their business.

So it really, what they, what they share is really how do they look at attracting talent differently than most people? And when they really look at it, it's not just, you know, the flashy, you know, the new vehicles, the new tools and stuff, but it's also, how can they use technology in their business to attract that younger workforce such that it's no longer everything done manually, everything done, pencil and paper, it's really leveraging technology and using the younger generation to help drive that change. So that, for me, was one of the, the real eye opening things of how this company's been doing it year after year for several years to make the changes that they've made.

Right. And it's a journey. Right. Too often, I think, older, more mature business owners, particularly even with more mature businesses, they look at the daunting task of massive change instead of breaking it down into the small incremental steps of, like, what can we do today? Maybe technology is you're trying to find a technology solution but today you could use a whiteboard, you could use a clipboard and a piece of paper to schedule or communicate. You could do a lot of different things within the data set and tools you have within your business today to implement change, to show that there you're going in a direction instead of the rip the band aid off theory of, well, it's all or nothing. Well, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It can be incremental.

Yeah, all or nothing is. Is more like an exercise in futility, because when we do the all or nothing, we get burned out because it's so much stuff to do versus making incremental changes over a period of time. And that's what this company did, was make those incremental changes over a period of time. And they continue to refine what works to make it work for more people. But they also looked at, you know, hey, this isn't working. So they didn't just abandon the idea, they actually tried to refine it to make sure that, yeah, this just isn't going to work for us.

So yesterday, ironically, yesterday I received a email from a colleague of mine, a networking partner, saying, hey, my brother in law just bought this plumbing firm. He's looking for some miracles with his resources. Any chance you can help him out? Okay, you know, my saying, back when I was at Busyen, my subcontract days was, we make miracles happen every day. They just cost. Right? So we got on a phone call, and he shares a lot of the background information and things like that, and he's in search of some journeyman plumbers. And I said, okay, so tell me exactly what that means for you. Right, we got the state licensing problem and process and apprenticeship, and you gotta have so many hours and this and that. I said, so walk me through what your perception is of all those things that happen.

Well, they go to apprenticeship. They do this, they do that. It's about five years, long before you can get your german license and we can blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm doing my math and I'm like, okay, so the younger side of those journeymen are going to be 27, 28 years old. I said, okay. And his business is located in downtown Milwaukee area. And start, you know, not a lot of journeyman plumbers want to work in a downtown area because you got to park the truck, you got a double park, you got to walk, you got to do different things. It's just not pull up in a driveway, walk in a nice little subdivision, and get greeted by the dog, and away you go.

It's just a different setting. So I asked him, I said, how's your ad read? He goes, just like everybody else is. I said, oh, okay, cool, great. Perfect. And how's that work out for you?

Great, just like everybody else's.

Right? So we had the conversation about how do you change that ad? How do we attract that younger person that might have done their apprenticeship with an organization who treats their apprentices like crap? Who now they're journeymen, but they still treat that kid like crap because they still see him as the apprentice inside that culture of that organization. And you got to go through and get like, go put your ad out there for that. Go put out the fact that you're looking for somebody that might live in the eastern part of the city so that you make it because they want to be downtown. They may live there already, you may not, but your ads, not attracting them. He's like, wow, never thought about that. So those are the incremental things that you can do, is reformat your ads to target who you want to have from a behavioral perspective and from a generational cultural perspective versus just looking for licensed, you know, journeyman, plumber, paying X number of dollars an hour. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. No one cares.

Everyone's going to look over that, particularly if you're at a location disadvantage.

Yeah. The other thing that I see, especially in those ads, since we're going to keep playing on that ad concept, is just how the age at which we wrote it, meaning the generation that wrote it, is really targeting the generation that they're from. And they have a lot of misconceptions about those. The other generations going, well, they like this, too. So.

So what misconceptions do you have of me, Steve?

Well, well, I mean, since you asked, you are a boomer and I mean, you're ready to retire. So, you know, it's.

I wish.

I mean, all joking aside, though, when we look at those ads as we're writing them, right, it isn't just about the X's and O's anymore. X's and O's, meaning what are the dollars, the cents? What is the time we're paying X wage? You're going to get four weeks time off. You're going to get this healthcare, all of these things. It comes to those other intangible benefits that the other generations find valuable, those we also need to capture in some of those ads as well, for things to work.

Right. What's the culture? What's the thing? So he plumbing company, I'm talking about here in this example, he bought the company and he brought in technology. They went from paper and pen to technology, and he lost 40% of his workforce because of that. And he was okay with it because it wasn't going to be worth the effort to deal with all the emotional rhetoric. And if they didn't want to go along for the ride, then that's okay. But setting the direction of the organization was what was important for him to work on his culture, to work on what he's trying to create, what he wants his business to be along the way. And one of the things you brought up in this dietz and Sons piece to it was the flexible, the flex scheduling, the choice of work hours, and can I work 410s versus five eight, and how do we make that work and go forward and all those things. Talk more about what you saw or.

What you liked about that, not just with this company, but with others that I've worked with. What works well is when everybody comes together in more of like a brainstorming session, because we're defining part of the culture of the business. And when everybody comes together, we actually can identify, hey, what roles can actually be a, you know, four day week versus a five day week, or, you know, things like that. And it's not just even the roles, but not everybody wants to work a four day workweek, but some people do. So how do we handle the flexibility within the organization for that? And the one key thing that these guys also brought out was the impact of having everybody have that conversation to actually see what would work out. So now there's more buy in from everybody about, hey, I. Why is it that, you know, Jamie, why does he get to work four tens? And why can't Dale work 410s? Why does Dale have to work five days a week? Well, Dale doesn't want to work four tens. He's got some other things to go that, that have to happen, and that's okay.

But Jamie needs to be home on whether it's a Friday or Monday to help take care of the kids. Those things don't come out unless you're having those conversations. And so it's the importance of having people together when those decisions are kind of brought about and see what actually can we do. Now, there are some roles in that that you probably can't have work for ten s, right? So, you know, if it. If something needs to run every single day and you don't have the manpower to run it, well, then unfortunately that role can't do that. But are there ways that we can brainstorm to make sure that there are no other possibilities and no other opportunities that exist that somebody can't run that equipment, and lo and behold, you'll find out that somebody is willing to be cross trained. Weird. Weird.

Shocking.

Well, then I'd have. Then I. Then I'd have to keep track of who can do what and might have to have an employee and, you know, skill matrix involved.

What you mean?

You know, you might have to actually manage my talent.

You're going to have a business continuity plan. Plan to back up with. Somebody goes down. What? Those are big words, Steve. What?

Continuity. Continuity plan. That's impressive. Were you reading the paper today or something or what? Usually I make a picture book.

The power was out. I had to stay at a Holiday Inn Express. So I think I'm all right.

Okay, perfect. Back in 0405, and I'm dating myself because I am a dinosaur. Right. When we were, you know, up here in midwest, you know, when we still had enough people to go fill all the roles with skill. Right. I mean, we still have people, but they may not have all the skill set needed or wisdom at that point today that they did back then, the, the four day shift, they created seven days a week workforce by having a shift that would work four days and the other shift would work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they'd work 12 hours Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That was their week. And then the four days Monday through Thursday, where it got to be into a problem was on the leadership and quality side of things for the duplication of effort.

It made sense because there was enough revenue coming in to support that level of overhead. It'd be great to be able to get back to that where it was affordable for organizations to do that because I really believe that 36 hours week would benefit so many folks, particularly young families and folks that, you know, daycare costs are ridiculous, and it would prevent a so so grandchildren were not, like, one of the biggest reasons for retirement. So you may have a really great employee that's going to retire because they want to take care of, they're going to go take care of their grandchildren three days a week so that their kids can afford to do and live and buy a house or whatever. It's like, you know, if we get. We got to get past some of that.

Right? And, you know, sometimes even those work for those, the capable workforce, they may not want to work 40 hours and are you okay if they want to work 20? Because 20 is better than zero. And their expertise for what they, what they know how they know how to do it 20 hours, maybe all that's needed in your business.

Right? And too often we give ourselves excuses as to why it won't work, instead of asking ourselves, how do we make it work?

Truly, the, the mindset shift of, nope, that's never going to work. That's never going to work. Of course it's never going to work. You've already told yourself that.

But what if you started that Henry Ford? Whether you believe you can or can't, you're right.

So if you change your mindset of how can we make this work, and it's just not on you as the business leader to figure it out, have your team help come up with some ways on how to make this work. You know, put, get on the whiteboard, put, put something on the wall to write down, just different ideas on how can we make this work. If it's important to the employees and it's important to you as the business owner to make sure that the employees are engaged, you're going to figure out a way to make it work.

Right. Give them a target. Right. You as the owner need to give them a target as to what the objective is because we can't make it. Well, it's seven days a week and we're going to do. Uber eats four days a week and we're going to. You got to give them some parameters of what they can and can't do because otherwise you could turn it into Google or something where it was Sky's the limit for so many years out there.

Then when you got to start reining it in and holding people accountable, you can't do it. Correct.

So that's. Yeah, the incremental change and rethinking activity and doing small incremental changes, getting the team involved, making sure you got buy in is the best way to be able to create culture. Finding that early adopter, finding the old guy, that's like, man, this is really cool that everybody else is going to listen to get that person on board right away or whoever might be, whoever that influencer might be with all the personal power within, within the organization, have that one on one conversation, get the feedback from that person because they're getting everybody else's feedback. And you know what? When you have that one on one conversation, he's going to tell them why this is a good idea or what the bigger purpose is, etcetera.

Now, kind of playing onto that. One of the other things out of this, this article was the impact of those social media influencers that love to be on whether it's TikTok, or Instagram reels is leveraging them and showcasing, you know, small, short videos of the business and what they're doing to help highlight for those generations, those younger generations. Hey, this place is pretty cool to work. Imagine businesses doing that today that are currently not. Because the business owner is too afraid to let someone else in their business talk about their business. Because it's their business.

Oh, I can't. I can't show you that d eleven. That's special. It's no different. Everybody else's d eleven.

What'd you do differently?

It's the same d eleven. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay, good. Oh, you use technology. Yes. Okay. You're not the only one, trust me.

But when you allow employees that, one, they have a knack for the technology. Two, they have a love for the camera. Why are you not allowing them to share that expertise with your audience and also a new generation of workforce that's looking for things like that?

I think I'm going to leave it right there. That was very profound. That's probably one of the smartest, cohesive sentences you've said, like, in our show's history.

All right then.

That's impressive. That was impressive.

Remember what I said.

We just had a historical moment here today.

History. All today.

And with that, and with that, we are out. Until next time, folks. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to blue collar B's, brought to you by vision for business solutions and professional business Coaching, Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve Doyle or myself, Brad Hurda. Please, like, share, rate and review this show as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep blue collar businesses strong for generations to come.