How You Can Use the Strategic Growth Flywheel to Hire a Great Workforce

Welcome to The Contractor's Daughter, your go-to podcast for eliminating random acts of strategy and marketing in your highway construction business. Hello, friends. I'm your host, Jeani Ringkob. I'm a third-generation asphalt contractor and an absolute brand strategy and marketing geek.

Welcome to The Contractor's Daughter Podcast. I'm your host, Jeani Ringkob. We made it. We are in part three of our three-part series about workforce. I am speaking on this topic a ton. Everybody is talking about this topic, I'm having conversations with clients, I have clients onboarding every single month for this process trying to figure this out in their businesses.

So I wanted to bring you some of the things that we are seeing, doing, and implementing to help get you thinking about how you can not just minimize this problem, improve your recruitment, or reduce your turnover, but how can you actually own the solution inside of your company, therefore solving the problem for yourself, allowing yourself the opportunity to decide how much you want to grow and not be limited by the bottleneck that has been holding you back, that workforce bottleneck, and also to increase the value of your business by building this asset inside of your business?

The first episode, we really reframed the whole problem, because in order to have the right mindset to tackle this problem, you have to be willing to think differently about it. In the second episode, we talked about some of the divisions, resources, team members that you may already have inside of your business that are actually going to be part of building the solution, letting you really leverage what you already have there and also giving you a little bit of clarity if you have some gaps that you need to be thinking about in order to internalize this solution.

Today, we are going to kind of wrap this all together and give you marching orders or give you something you can visually see, how do you move forward from here, and we are going to go back. You're going to want to make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast.

If you haven't already, not only are you going to want to go back and probably start at the beginning of this series, you might want to actually go back and check out our Strategic Growth Wheel series where we talk about the model that I developed inside of my business working with clients to develop their brand and their market positioning strategy and how we actually turned it into something that we're using here. That's what we're talking about today.

We use that same model. There's just a whole toolbox full of models that I pull out and use. But this is one that actually works to help give us a path and some guide rails and how we know where do we start in this process, what comes next, what comes last? It doesn't have to be more complicated than those three steps. I'm going to talk about the activities that you engage in during each step. This is going to be partially a review of that Strategic Growth Wheel but then also how does it simply apply to our workforce solution development inside of our own businesses?

Now remember that you can use this as a step-by-step guide so that you can develop your own solution. We use it to help companies develop their strategy, their marketing, their market positioning to launch products, all kinds of incredible things, including their own workforce strategic solution inside of their business.

Workforce challenges should be seen as opportunities, opportunities to create strategic advantage. I cannot say this enough, and I have said it in all of these episodes around this, but the companies that figure that out are going to be the companies that win the war for talent.

I really believe coming from being one of the owners, growing up with parents who were owning these companies in this industry who came from multiple generations, I believe it's really, really important to own our own solutions, to figure this stuff out, and thereby also increase the strategic advantages that we have in our marketplaces continue to grow our businesses into something that has more value on the backside, whether that's something you're building for a family, whether that's something you're positioning to sell to a current employee that's coming up through the company, a competitor, whether or not you're positioning to be purchased by a larger company, whatever it is, if you're going to start this company and putting in all the risks, you have to be thinking about the long term game, the long term plan, and increasing the value of that business. But do it right now so you can also reap the rewards today.

Let's talk about how we use the Strategic Growth Wheel to do this in your business. The first part of that Strategic Growth Wheel if you remember is Investigate. You can always start with a thesis. It's hard if you're actually in your business, working on it, to not have a thesis about what you think the solution is going to look like, maybe what you've seen somebody else do. But you always want to inform that thesis with actual research and data, the data and the research that is unique to you, your marketplace, your competition, all of those things that are unique and different about you and your scenario.

The best employees for your competition might not be the best employees for you. But you need to know that before you embark on this journey. That is something that you need to identify early and build towards. During this Investigation Phase, one of the things that we're looking at is understanding your own current asset. Who is your team? What drives them? What motivates them?

For some of the top performers, what is their background? What are they looking for? What were the key things that happened that triggered them and helped them accelerate through the roles in your company and really helped them feel like they wanted to be part of it? They were clear on the mission. They were clear on where you're going. All of these things can be done by interviews, surveys, and conducting that research.

Also, look at your competition. Now when we're looking at strategic competition, we're looking first off, where could your customer be spending that dollar that they may be spending on you anywhere else? That's your competition. Also, who provides the same solutions or solves the same problem as you, and then who has the same products or services as you?

We have to actually cast the net a little bit wider when it comes to workforce. They could be going and working in drastically different industries. Some of them are willing to relocate geographically for certain reasons or at least a certain distance. We have to look at all of that and it can be very unique to your marketplace, your competition, the types of employees that you're wanting to attract.

We have to get a really clear picture on that. Then we have to figure out which of those competitors are the ones that we really need to focus on, compare ourselves to, position ourselves against, look for how to differentiate ourselves from, and how to stay super relevant to the right types of employees.

Once we kind of look at this and we put all of these pieces on the board, the opportunities start to rise to the surface and this is the part of the work that I do that gets really exciting. Another thing you want to do during this investigation stage is you're going to have to look at your current brand strategy. How are you perceived by your employees? How are you perceived by employees that you're trying to attract?

If you have partnerships with schools and other associations and organizations and you're trying to build pipelines and funnels and create awareness about not just the industry but your specific business, how do those students or young individuals perceive you early on? It does not benefit you to sit down and make presumptions about this.

Do not assume that you know how you are perceived. You have to do the research. You have to also decide how you want to be perceived, how you need to be perceived in order to get the results that you want and really leverage the solution inside of your business, and you have to intentionally create a strategy that is going to do that.

It will pay off your business tenfold and will actually increase your market positioning, it'll increase awareness amongst your customers, your business partners. Doing this brand work is super essential, but it's essential and critical to this workforce solution.

The next part of the Strategic Growth Wheel is Identify. You have to build that strategy. We talked about that. You figured out how are we currently perceived? What is true about our culture, our mission, our goals, what's unique and different about our company, and where do we want to go? How do we want to be intentional about that? Then you have to build a strategy that's going to get you there and get your internal team on board.

You have to identify what that is, actually map that out, and determine how you're going to build that. Then identify which assets you have in your business. This is really important. You may have some marketing assets and HR assets. All those things we talked about in part two of this episode, which ones do you have and where might you have some gaps?

If there are some gaps in your business, is it really part of what you want to do to bring somebody internal in? Can you outsource that and really incorporate whoever you outsource or partner with into this workforce solution? They can provide that value for you because it's not the right time or doesn't fit the rest of your strategy to have that in-house? Those are gaps and things you're going to have to identify before you move on to the final stage of the Strategic Growth Wheel.

When you're looking at this stuff, prioritize, I'm going to tell you, you're going to want to start with that strategy. Know what it is. What is our brand going to look like because it has to be able to attract the workforce. That is how people identify with you, determine that they want to engage with you, determine that you might be the right fit, all of those things are super important and we want to be able to communicate that really quick, really effective, because your competition is going to figure out how to do that and you have to master that.

Then and only then can you move on to the implementation side of the Strategic Growth Wheel and here is where we look at those internal assets and we start building them. What do you need? Do you need a landing page? Do you need a place that when people are coming in looking, you're capturing those leads?

It's just like your sales leads. They may not be ready to take on that job right now or it may be a time in your season when you don't have that great role for them right now, but they're really interested and they like what they're seeing about your brand and your company so much that they want to know that they're going to hear about it first when you have that position available and open for them.

That's what we're trying to generate here. We want people actually waiting in line, raising their hand saying, “When an opportunity opens up, this is the company I want to be with.” That's what we're trying to create. But we have to have a way to capture them, to bring them into our environment, and be able to nurture them, tell them more about it, and maybe share other opportunities, ways for them to get their foot in the door, all of those kinds of things.

This could be landing pages, opt-ins, lead generators, a funnel where you can continue to communicate with them, tell them about opening positions, share the stories of your current employees, continue to share about the brand that you are that they were initially attracted to so they stay interested and you're always top of mind.

We also need to think about where do we deploy the messaging. The messaging would have been built during that brand strategy. That's part of that brand strategy you’re building. We use that messaging to create job descriptions, to create the words that we use for our internal referral programs. We have to communicate that to our internal employees, help them understand how it benefits them, how do they communicate it, how do we make it super easy for them to do that, all of those things are part of that messaging, and they're an extension of creating that brand and that feel that we're trying to intentionally create.

Then also you're going to want to implement partnerships. Once again, your messaging could be very critical in order to reaching out and really opening the door to have partnerships. As we move forward in trying to solve this workforce strategy issue, a lot of people are going to be figuring out the value of partnerships in their areas. You're going to want to make sure that you are really desirable and you're out in front of developing these partnerships.

Another thing you're probably going to be implementing dependent on the strategy and how you prioritize is an onboarding system. That also integrates highly into the referral program. We want to make sure that we're getting people up to their full productivity as soon as possible.

Also, when they're at those peak filling levels, when they really had great experiences with us, those are the best opportunities to also make sure we're educating, informing, and reminding about that referral program that we've intentionally built into the processes and the systems that are probably managed by your HR department.

Then another thing that you're for sure going to want to implement is what is that quarterly content strategy and brand awareness strategy? Are you running specific campaigns because you know you're going to need a large influx of workforce at a specific season? How do you ramp up for that? Where do you put it? What are the words that you're saying? How is it integrated with a referral program? All of that needs to be mapped out likely on a quarterly basis, and not every quarter is going to be equal in most of our businesses.

These are just a few of the examples of the specific activities that you would be doing during each phase of the Strategic Growth Wheel as you're trying to develop this workforce solution into your business. The Investigate Phase, Identify Phase, and Implement Phase.

Make sure that you're thinking about this, that you're looking at that Growth Wheel. You can find diagrams of this on our website with quick reminders and prompts that are going to trigger what activities happen in which part of this flywheel that you can always reach out and get a hold of us if you want to talk about it more, talk about what you currently have, get help clarifying what are the gaps, how do you move forward.

Now remember, I always like to say the best day to plant a tree was yesterday. If you didn't plant it yesterday, you better get that tree in the ground today. If this is dropping when I think it is, probably about in January, this is the perfect time to be thinking about that next big hiring initiative that you're going to have to take and getting this stuff into place.

This needs time to ramp up to build that awareness and that attraction and start getting those partnerships put together before you're going to actually see results. You need three to six months to really know that it's in place, the processes, the systems, how you're going to capture it. You want your onboarding ready before you're loading on too many people at once. You want those processes and systems built.

You can always build and continue to refine stuff as you go but it's really helpful if you get this stuff in place before you're so deep in your season that it makes it a little bit harder to prioritize. Now is the time to do it. Make sure that you are focused on building your own workforce solution into your business as soon as possible.

I'm super excited about this series. I know after all the conversations we've been having out there that this is going to be an incredible resource and something that's going to get you pretty inspired about the possibilities of not being beholden to outside sources for mediocre low quality candidates. You can actually own this asset inside of your business.

Now we've also mentioned that we created a resource very specific to the solution. It's actually on the website. It's there for you now. It's going to take you out five to seven minutes and you can take our Workforce Playbook Quiz, and it's going to give you kind of a health score of where are you at in terms of the health of your workforce internal strategy, and it's also going to give you some prompts for next steps that are likely what you need to be focused on in order to start implementing this in your business.

Make sure that you go take that assessment. That is at storybuilt.marketing/workforce. Take your assessment, connect with me on LinkedIn, send me your results, tag me with your questions, send me a DM with your questions, I would love to hear how does it go for you? Where's your business right? What questions do you have? Where do you think your next steps are in building the workforce solution that your company needs into your business so you don't only have the solution but you have an asset in place? Make sure you subscribe. We have some incredible interviews coming up and all kinds of exciting content, so you're not going to want to miss a thing.

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of The Contractor's Daughter. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe and review. But most of all, share this with all of your friends, partners, and customers in the highway construction business. Thank you for building the infrastructure that we all rely on.