Small Company Depth Chart

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George Stolz

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
My buddy and I are trying to determine how we would like to grow. Currently, we're sitting at him, me, and an experienced apprentice. We are getting a lot of calls from guys out of work.

If we hire a journeyman, two small crews can be in two places at the same time. The journeyman (if he's worth his wage) can be left to take care of a job by himself.

However, adding another experienced apprentice would be cheaper, and would get the two licenses we have moving in and out faster.

Work is trickling in, but almost too strong a trickle to handle with what we got. I'm kinda leaning towards doing nothing at the moment, finish the main job we've got going right now and see where we're at.

What is your ideal growth pattern? What does your ideal depth chart look like? At what point do you pull the trigger and hire one more?

We deal mainly in residential, probably 70% / 30%.
 
480sparky

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
Who's minding the store?

If you and your buddy are out in the field everyday, I'd say get an apprentice.

If one of you are going to land in the office and become more of a foreman/supervisor/estimator, get a JW.
 
chris kennedy

chris kennedy

Senior Member
Location
Miami Fla.
Occupation
60 yr old tool twisting electrician
These are strange times. My small crew and myself have worked 16 long days straight and will work through until the holiday break. I can't in good will hire anybody now as I may have to lay them off in two weeks.

Good luck George, I'll be keeping my eye on this thread.
 
S

SEO

Senior Member
Location
Michigan
George Stolz said:
At what point do you pull the trigger and hire one more?

QUOTE]

When you can't keep up and are turning work away. The current market is very challenging so only you will be able to make that decision. I don't think anyone has seen the economy like it is now. Good luck.
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M

macmikeman

Senior Member
Location
Planet macmikeman
Padawan, what are your growth goals? That has to be determined first. By the way, apprentices if properly trained become j-men in the blink of an eye to somebody who has seen 3+decades of this stuff. Thats how I would roll it, use the untrained and train em. Score yourself a mini mall or a 100 seat resturant, and then put j-men on that job to run it.
 
brian john

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
1. As noted who's minding the store?
2. What is the work like in your area at present.
3. Are there future leads or just promises of work.

I have done it by the seat of my pants and hired when I was buried in work, covering the extra work myself until I had a new man on board. Not the ideal business plan but Oct 1 is 24 years.
 
masterinbama

masterinbama

Senior Member
Location
Huntsville Alabama
It has been my experience that leaving a J-Man alone on new construction is counter productive. Hire the J-man and give him an apprentice to train. Make it his responsibility to turn that apprentice into a top notch J-man. Most of the time you will end up with a 2 man crew that will produce more than 3 solo artists.
 
Rewire

Rewire

Senior Member
Location
Lake of the Ozarks
I think the first thing you need to do is sit down with your buddy and decide what you want your business to de in a year,in five years and in ten. I was told early that if you don't know where you are going how are you going to get their.

If you want to be a two man operation with a helper then you have reached your goal. Now you can stay their or you set a new goal.

One thing to look at is your organizational chart and decide who is going to wear which hat.Play to your strenghts if he is a better estimator then he should wear that hat if you are better at marketing then you wear that one. You will probably each wear several hats. One of the first hats I removed was Office manager hiring a good office manager can free alot of your time she does accounts payable/recievable, payrole,billing, job scheduling and marketing.

I would recommend getting a J-man first this will allow you to take off your tools and focus on growing your business also if you or your buddy are sidelined your business wont come to a screeching halt.

Dont wait till you need help then you will be in a rush and prone to just hire a pair of hands, take your time to find someone who fits your vision and will help you get to your goals
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Who says you need to hire anyone full-time/perm? Hire on a JW 'at-will/need', if he works out keep him going, if work dies off let him go. Get good at laying out guys with quick communication and it's easy to run a few jobs at a time - put your brain to work with someone else's hands. Tell 'em what you want and supervise an hour or two a day.

I think the most jobs I have run at the same time was four. Had a good guy on the big one to run a few rope-a-dopes and a few single guys elsewhere. Hit the ones who need the most guidance first thing in the morning - give detailed instructions - then hit the others. Swing back and check progress....

Half the time I was putting line diagrams on the plans for them, and coming back to inspect the work.
 
Rewire

Rewire

Senior Member
Location
Lake of the Ozarks
e57 said:
Who says you need to hire anyone full-time/perm? Hire on a JW 'at-will/need', if he works out keep him going, if work dies off let him go. Get good at laying out guys with quick communication and it's easy to run a few jobs at a time - put your brain to work with someone else's hands. Tell 'em what you want and supervise an hour or two a day.

I think the most jobs I have run at the same time was four. Had a good guy on the big one to run a few rope-a-dopes and a few single guys elsewhere. Hit the ones who need the most guidance first thing in the morning - give detailed instructions - then hit the others. Swing back and check progress....

Half the time I was putting line diagrams on the plans for them, and coming back to inspect the work.
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Why not just hire people that know what they are doing,if you spend all your day driving from job to job how are going to find time to be getting the next job?
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Rewire said:
Why not just hire people that know what they are doing,if you spend all your day driving from job to job how are going to find time to be getting the next job?
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As a Field Super - it wasn't my job to find other work - just keep the obligations going, and covered. And that was an example of a few tiny one-two man jobs each with a JW on it, who knew how to do most anything, but needed guidance on scope, but otherwise little supervision. And a large job where I would be running a JW or two, with a bunch of lower guys, or temp labor from CLP at the same time - a job I would normaly be on full-time myself, but would need to deligate authority to my right hand man. While he held down the fort, I'd might be at a site meeting or laying out another guy someplace else. It's not as if you can only do one job - finish it, then move to the next. If you have multiple fires - they all need tending. And if you just sent a guy to go 're-walk' a small job with a client - if the client had time to do so - the company looks dis-organized - you walk the scope with a guy - detailed to the contract and you can leave - depending on the guy....
 
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R

Riograndeelectric

Senior Member
Location
Lakewood Colorado
George Stolz said:
My buddy and I are trying to determine how we would like to grow. Currently, we're sitting at him, me, and an experienced apprentice. We are getting a lot of calls from guys out of work.

If we hire a journeyman, two small crews can be in two places at the same time. The journeyman (if he's worth his wage) can be left to take care of a job by himself.

However, adding another experienced apprentice would be cheaper, and would get the two licenses we have moving in and out faster.

Work is trickling in, but almost too strong a trickle to handle with what we got. I'm kinda leaning toward doing nothing at the moment, finish the main job we've got going right now and see where we're at.

What is your ideal growth pattern? What does your ideal depth chart look like? At what point do you pull the trigger and hire one more?

We deal mainly in residential, probably 70% / 30%.
Click to expand...


Have you and your buddy sat down and put pencil and paper to what an Apprentice and J man would cost with Burden taxes unemployment. etc.

This is what got me in trouble few years ago was I had the work but did not realize what the % of burden was costing me.
My accountant told me to figure 13-15% fro Burden.

also what about workers comp. last I checked it was at 4% per hundred dollars of payroll. also your liability insurance will raise when you had employee(s) to the payroll.

what do the next few months look like for work can you count on the work continuing to flow in.
Good Luck George.
I will be watching to see how you do and wishing you and your Partner the best of luck and good fourtune.
Cameron:)
 
Rewire

Rewire

Senior Member
Location
Lake of the Ozarks
e57 said:
As a Field Super - it wasn't my job to find other work - .
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So now do you see how worthless your advice is to someone who runs the business who has to find the other work.Telling what you did as a worker bee does not always translate to the person who actually runs the shoe.
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Rewire said:
So now do you see how worthless your advice is to someone who runs the business who has to find the other work.Telling what you did as a worker bee does not always translate to the person who actually runs the shoe.
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Low blow or just worded that way? :roll:
Anyway - being employed by someone to run thier shop for them handling multiple fires while they and thier PM's/Estimators go find the next job is a 'HAT' someone needs to, or both need put on in a two man partnership with a newbie - JMSO Or you hire someone like me... Part of the colony - but not a drone....
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
I will also go so far as to say - unless you are a guy like me, or have a guy like me - you don't have a show to run. Just a bean counter with a lot of liabilities.
 
Rewire

Rewire

Senior Member
Location
Lake of the Ozarks
e57 said:
Low blow or just worded that way? :roll:
Anyway - being employed by someone to run thier shop for them handling multiple fires while they and thier PM's/Estimators go find the next job is a 'HAT' someone needs to, or both need put on in a two man partnership with a newbie - JMSO Or you hire someone like me... Part of the colony - but not a drone....
Click to expand...

Hiring someone to manage the JW they are going to hire makes no practicle sense.A competent JW can lay himself out and should reqire limited supervision.The point of needing a full time JW is to allow the owner to stop being a tech and start running the business careful consideration when hiring that JW will eliminate the need to put out fires.
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Rewire said:
Hiring someone to manage the JW they are going to hire makes no practicle sense.A competent JW can lay himself out and should reqire limited supervision.The point of needing a full time JW is to allow the owner to stop being a tech and start running the business careful consideration when hiring that JW will eliminate the need to put out fires.
Click to expand...
I'll say this - the 'average' JW knows very little of contract compliance or the broader aspects of site communication and documentation - if he does, he's under-paid and would be taking on way too much in any job over 1-2000sq'. Sure if you told a GOOD ONE what the job was and left it would get done. If all you have is a few small jobs - that's great.... And you can only do that for so long before that good JW wants more money, a bigger position or leaves you.

You you have a WHOLE BUNCH of small jobs, or a mid-sized job, and small jobs, or a big job, and small jobs... Then IMO either YOU need to put down the bags and become a PM/Field Super/Foreman or hire one... Otherwise you're gonna throw money out the window and have unhappy non-returning clients. Someone has to watch the field.

In the situation of going from TWO PARTNERS in the field and a Apprentice - sure you need a JW. (Depending on labor laws about supervision in whatever state - you may need one JW per Apprentice) One of the partners or both need to start taking leadership over more than just one person in more than just one place. Outside of the money aspect of it with overhead and the rest of that - jobs still need to get done. And with that comes either a division of, or shared responsibility in that. And at that same point you need to start thinking of a hierarchy of specialized skills and who is going to fill them and have the time to do them right. And IMO the time to start thinking of what happens after that is right then! Especially in a partnership. (I just witnessed a nasty divorce of two partners for a mid-sized company where "momma bear and papa bear" split responsibilities Field vs. Money for way too long... Which is why I am sitting on my butt right now writing this. ;)) IMO the next step is to not just think of just handling that next level of growth - figure out who, how, and how long it will take to go to the next step after that. A hierarchy of specialized skills and responsabilites - and who will wear those hats....

  • CEO/RMO (Shared or divided?)
  • Accounting
  • Estimating/Sales
  • Project Management/Field Supervision/Foreman
  • Journeymen/Training
  • Apprentices
The two red ones IMO are the most important ones holding it all together. Without them you'll be small forever, or so loose that you'll bleed money and die. Sure you can wear multiple hats, but how long are you going to do that for before you loose track of other important skills, jobs and money?
 
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Rewire

Rewire

Senior Member
Location
Lake of the Ozarks
e57 said:
I'll say this - the 'average' JW knows very little of contract compliance or the broader aspects of site communication and documentation - if he does, he's under-paid and would be taking on way too much in any job over 1-2000sq'.
Click to expand...

most JW don't need to know contract compliance or the broader aspects of site comunications and documentation to wire a Gap store or Burger King. I am not sure why you have a limit of 1-20000sq?
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Rewire said:
most JW don't need to know contract compliance or the broader aspects of site comunications and documentation to wire a Gap store or Burger King. I am not sure why you have a limit of 1-20000sq?
Click to expand...
Yeah - I guess you are completely missing my point... Broadening the structure of management and oversight.

And not every contract is as "cookie cutter" as a Gap or BK. Most take quite a lot more decision making and interpretive ability that the average JW does not have.
 
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