How do you find good employees?

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Lol I’ve flown as far as 1,000 miles to reprogram a PLC on multiple occasions. The local staff is terrible at maintaining PLC batteries.
 
OK so sii flys to petersonra home town
while blueheels2 has to drive to oldsparky52's turf
while oldsparky52 had to drive over to sii's town,
petersonra got sent to oldsparky52's town
all reprogramming PLC's
 
tortuga said:
OK so sii flys to petersonra home town
while blueheels2 has to drive to oldsparky52's turf
while oldsparky52 had to drive over to sii's town,
petersonra got sent to oldsparky52's town
all reprogramming PLC's
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Maybe they can all go cut each other's grass next time
😅😅😅😅
 
Coppersmith said:
..apprentices are not allowed to work without supervision so you can't put them on a service truck by themselves
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As a passenger in training, I was known as "the carpool dummy". The prospect of filling those shoes took the pressure off, and made me feel I had more in common with my peers.
 
Coppersmith said:
I'd like to point out that my original question was "where do I look for these employees". I have never looked for an electrical job. I'm a union electrician. When I want a job, I go to hall when there is a job call. I don't know where non-union electricians look for jobs. Is there a website where electricians advertise there services to employers? Is there a Facebook page or forum where this happens? Where should I be advertising to find them. I want to hire people but I don't know where to look. Please tell me. The union hall can't supply what I need. They don't have service truck electricians. I therefore need to look outside the union.
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Indeed has the best coverage imo, they are #1 and no one is #2. Glassdoor is legit (ish), all the others I have come across are scammers. I get automated email keyword search results every day from Indeed. They pull job openings from most of the best places.

What type you are looking for ... I was doing old work residential in my father's business all through grade school, would get dropped off alone to work for the day. Jobbed out of his van independently at 16 when I got the driver's license. No formal training.

There's only one type I really consider for the type of person needed at the places I see and work at, has to be two year community college grad or in program at ;least, bonus points if the coursework includes circuits and math. Then the OJT. CC should weed out the bs'rs for you. The Professor will not take that bs for an answer, sometimes the customer is like that also. The places I work at, that's what we need. Then that guy is an apprentice.

We need two more here today, staff two short. Two years to fill my spot.
 
I have finally found one good apprentice. He is eager to learn and never on his phone which is unusual to see this day in age.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 
If we're wallowing in our sorrows, I'll add one: cleaning up a service department, watching it shine, and then watching the same people devolve before your eyes without doing anything to bring it on. People are the funniest critters I know. I almost want to hire back one of the losers that have been sluffed off just so the normal crew has someone they can always look down on, it seems like the least crazy way to get their minds right again.

I would think the only way to make it work is to hire green and turnover until you find a solid prospect, then treat him like family. Then again, I've watched actual families fragment into different companies, so...
 
George Stolz said:
I would think the only way to make it work is to hire green and turnover until you find a solid prospect, then treat him like family. Then again, I've watched actual families fragment into different companies, so...
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At one non-electrical company I worked for, they had a policy of once a year firing the worst 10% of their employees and hiring new ones. The idea was the new ones would on average be better than the ones they were getting rid of thus the average quality of the workforce improved over time.

If my company ever gets to the point where I can afford to open a training center (in order to provide a finishing school for newly minted j-(wo)men that I would hire), I will constantly be training a new person so I can immediately replace someone who quits or I want to fire. This would also allow me to add a service truck to my fleet immediately if business is good.

This is how an employer takes back control from an unstable staffing situation. It's just a matter of money. I can see a bunch of similar (and friendly) service companies getting together to create such a training center. They already do so with union and non-union apprenticeship training. This is just a more advanced and specialized training.
 
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Coppersmith said:
"I really want to hire union" - Since you are a union member, you really have no choice. If the hall finds out you are running a nonunion shop, you will be brought up on charges.
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Not sure what this means other than if you had a sizable IBEW pension?
Will Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito will pay you a visit?
I imagine you can roll your pension into an IRA before starting your independent shop?

There was a ~100 man local union shop in this city that voted to de-certify about 20 years ago.
And it happens from time to time

MGest said:
One possibility which came up when talking with the company president was to start an In-house apprenticeship. Granted it costs money...
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Coppersmith said:
I'm not sure of your definition of apprenticeship. Do you mean some limited in-house training that runs a few weeks?
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No, you get one of your people certified as a instructor and go thru the hoops of registering with the state as a continuing education and apprenticeship program.
It takes finesse, a massive amount time, meetings, phone calls, and mountains of paperwork... but not much actual money.
We do lots of training 'in house' dis-organized by yours truly, (glad we dont have that 10% policy LOL).
Its extremely common at Utilities to have in house Lineman apprenticeship.
Granted I have a lot of fun with it, and did the state continuing-ed certification on my own time.
Shameless plug for Mike Holt, but he has 'canned' packages you can use.
I have used them with great success.
 
Since recruiting is tougher, IBEW lineman shops go straight to double time after hours, pay full days for working half, and sometimes feed people after work, among other things that inside shops will never provide.

The saturation of Inside wiring applicants makes them bottom feeders of the IBEW.

Lineman shops sub-contract for utility hazardous duty work, and use inside wiring travelers as groundmen to jackhammer & dig 10ft holes for power poles.

If groundmen, in Basic military style training, don't like digging thru rock, mud, & clay, working during lighting storms to repair downed poles, or won't be recruited, lineman shops won't keep them around.

Traveled 600 miles for work at a lineman shop after inside wiring apprenticeship was terminated. Enjoyed digging & jack hammering, but freaked out when lighting flashed overhead. Supervisors told me if lighting hit close enogh no one survives on the ground or on the poles.
 
ramsy said:
Since recruiting is tougher, IBEW lineman shops go straight to double time after hours, pay full days for working half, and sometimes feed people after work, among other things that inside shops will never provide.

The saturation of Inside wiring applicants makes them bottom feeders of the IBEW.

Lineman shops sub-contract for utility hazardous duty work, and use inside wiring travelers as groundmen to jackhammer & dig 10ft holes for power poles.

If groundmen, in Basic military style training, don't like digging thru rock, mud, & clay, working during lighting storms to repair downed poles, or won't be recruited, lineman shops won't keep them around.

Traveled 600 miles for work at a lineman shop after inside wiring apprenticeship was terminated. Enjoyed digging & jack hammering, but freaked out when lighting flashed overhead. Supervisors told me if lighting hit close enogh no one survives on the ground or on the poles.
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I worked a large job that was mostly travelers in NC putting in a large solar installation. It was a job for inside wiremen but they were running short of men and had some linemen available so they sent them out. They were a rowdy bunch. Not used to working on the ground I guess. They did the pole digging mostly.

I'd never be a linemen. I think those people are crazy. My job can be dangerous. Theirs seems many times as dangerous.
 
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