Short on talent: a lack of qualified labor has some firms worried. Here are the challenges to hiring a top-notch staff

Pool & Spa News, August 22, 2005 by Shabnam Mogharabi

John Tortorella searched for a project manager for nearly six months. Finally, the president of J. Tortorella Swimming Pools Inc. (No. 44) in Southampton, N.Y., set his sights overseas.

Bringing in unskilled foreign laborers on work visas for periods of six to nine months provides Tortorella with employees who are hungry to learn. "We're bringing them in from all over--Central America, Jamaica, Poland, Slovakia," he says. "It costs thousands and thousands of dollars, but we have to. The number of semi-skilled and skilled laborers [in the United States] is down dramatically."

More than half the Top 50 Builders this year believe the industry is in dire need of qualified, capable workers. And they're right. On the one hand, construction is considered one of the country's high-growth industries, adding 1 million new jobs between 2002 and 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the foremost challenge facing the construction industry is "a critical, and growing, shortage of workers" to fill those jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

That need, along with a lack of work ethic among many of today's job hunters, has created a major challenge for the pool industry. These labor problems can be difficult to overcome, but the country's best builders are facing the issue head on.

Ain't got no skills

Today's construction industry workforce is composed of unskilled laborers, semiskilled and skilled tradesmen, project superintendents and college-educated executives. However, most builders say there's a huge lack of pool-specific tradespeople. This includes tile setters, plumbers, deck/concrete finishers, masons and steel crews.

For a sector as specific as pool construction, such abilities are hard to come by, despite the recent home-building boom. "You might be a house plumber, but that doesn't mean you've ever plumbed a pool," says Dale Overson, owner/president of Barrington Pools Inc. (No. 17) in Barrington, Ill. "If you drywall houses, it doesn't mean you've ever seen a swimming pool sprayed. If you the a bathroom, that's completely different from tiling a swimming pool wall. Workers today don't realize that."

Part of the problem is that few qualified people are breaking down the door to build swimming pools. "Unless you stumble into the pool industry, you're probably not looking to get into it," says Rex Richard, president of Mesa, Ariz.-based Build Your Own Pool Inc. (No. 28). "No one leaves college and says they want to be in the pool industry."

Richard is trying to change that by developing a trade skills training seminar. "By the end of 2007, we'd like to have a school that anyone in the country can attend to get trained in specific trades like decking, shotcrete and tile," he says.

Richard is not alone. Nationwide training programs exist as well. Take "Helmets to Hardhats," which seeks to place military personnel into the construction industry once their service is completed.

"Veterans are a tremendous source because they have the skills and discipline," says Dan Sloan, a project stabilization agreement coordinator for Parsons Constructors Inc., an architecture and engineering firm in Pasadena, Calif. "We see such quality people with leadership ability come out of that program."

What's more, a significant portion of the construction workforce is made up of individuals with limited English skills--whether foreign workers or immigrant labor. That makes communicating with these employees frustrating, which is why some companies look for applicants with strong reading, writing and verbal skills--even if they lack the necessary training.

"Most of my workforce is Hispanic. They're hard workers, quality employees, but the shortage is in supervision," says Ron Robertson, president of Robertson Pools Inc. (No. 27) in Coppell, Texas. "We are having real trouble finding good communicators, someone who will interact with the homeowner and not be afraid to address problems."

Boomer withdrawal

Builders like Robertson believe that the lack of supervisors is related to the looming retirement of baby boomers. "We don't need the baby boomers' construction knowledge," he says. "We need their management skills and work ethic.

"I have people working for me who are 60 or 70, and their work ethic and sense of urgency is a lot different than the young people," Robertson adds.

Such talent shortages are only expected to escalate as more and more baby boomers retire over the next 20 years. And the re placement staffers simply don't have the same quality, builders say.

For Bill Clark and Larry Rambaud, co-owners of Visalia, Calif.-based Master Pools by Paul Haney Inc. (No. 41), newer workers lack basic professionalism. "It's the baby boomer's children who are in the workforce right now," Clark says. "The baby boomers were so motivated and driven, but the younger workers don't seem to have the same drive.

"If they did, I could teach them the trade part. But they need to have the dependability, professional appearance and communication skills--those are the three essentials," he adds.