Attracting and Retaining Talent - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Lorna Rojas of Tremco and Gaetano Mastroianni of WTI. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Hello, and welcome to RoofersCoffeeShop Lunch & Learn. This is the place where you're able to really sit down together as a team in your company and watch and learn something that's going to really help your company. So these lunch and learns, you'll have a discussion sheet that you'll be able to go through, plus we have a quiz at the end. My name is Heidi Ellsworth, and today I am so excited because we're going to be talking about recruiting and retaining talent. Nothing more important in this day and age. So we asked the experts at Tremco to come and help us out with some questions and really best practices on how to recruit, retain and build that strategy. So, first of all, I would love to welcome Lorna and Gaetano to the show. Welcome.

Gaetano Mastroianni: How are you?

Lorna Rojas: Hi, [inaudible 00:01:05].

Heidi J Ellsworth: I am very good. I'm so excited to have you both on here. Let's start out with some introductions. So Lorna, if you could introduce yourself and tell us what you do with Tremco.

Lorna Rojas: Yes. My name is Lorna Rojas. I've been with Tremco for three years now. I'm in the HR division recruitment. So I'm a recruiter, we have six different recruiters and I'm in charge of three regions.

Heidi J Ellsworth: That is great. That's great. And you and I do a lot on National Women In Roofing too.

Lorna Rojas: Yes.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yes, we do. And Gaetano, can you please introduce yourself and tell us what you do with Tremco and WTI?

Gaetano Mastroianni: My name is Gaetano Mastroianni. I work for WTI, we are a subsidiary of Tremco. We are the contracting arm and the field side of Tremco. So I manage the Northeast region for the company, state of New York and all the New England states. Anything that we run through GC or self-performing, it all runs through me.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Excellent. I am very excited and we have excellent representation here. We're going to work through this lunch and learn. So just as a reminder, again, I know I already mentioned this, but as you're sitting there at this lunch, please pull out your discussion sheets. You'll be able to take notes as you go through, and then when we're done with the lunch and learn, you can go online and take the quiz and you'll have a certificate of completion at the end. So let's get started on today's lunch and learn.

First of all, let's talk about the learning objectives. The learning objectives for today are one, identifying talent, two, retaining talent and three, building a hiring strategy, all things that every office and every company need. So let's start with that first learning objective, identifying talent. Okay, so Lorna, as you are getting resumes in, having people bring them, how do you really understand what you're looking for in new hires and kind of put that together with all of these applications and resumes that are coming in?

Lorna Rojas: I think a lot that helps recruiters, first their experience. For me, it's really easy sometimes just to identify what's going to be a good roofer. But I think the most important thing is that you need to understand the job description. You really understand to understand the position. It's like I always says, you need to be on the roof and sometimes see what exactly are the skills that you need, what kind of soft skills you need and things like that. It's not only the physical.

I have to have someone open to work in a team, open to understand what is a team, someone that engage with the responsibilities with the company. I think it's a lot of elements that will help because you can train for some skills, but there's some attitude that you need to see in a candidate before you can actually offer a job.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah, because you really, if a person does not have a good attitude or maybe doesn't, when we talk about identifying the skills that you need out there, it's also about wanting to be outside, that part of the rich roofing culture and the culture you have at WTI. So Gaetano, as you are working with some of these folks that Lorna is sending over to you, what are some of the key points that you use to help identify what you need in the field with these new hires?

Gaetano Mastroianni: Well, you just said the perfect word and it's culture. We're looking for someone that can fit our culture. And we might be doing things a little bit different in every little pocket of the country, and especially even in my region, the business that we have in New England might be different than we have in the New York City Metro and different than what we have in Western New York. So we want to make sure that whatever their skillset is aligns with what that business is.

Whenever I bring somebody on, the goal is to obviously make them successful. So we want to always give them the tools that they need. So we try and get to know them, what their history is, where they're coming from, if they have experience, why are they leaving their current company, what may have happened. Because we don't want them to join our team and then they're going to run into the same situations that made them unhappy at their last position. Or if they're brand new to the industry, we just want to make sure that we're setting them off on the right foot to make sure that they're aware of what the job is and what they're going to be getting themselves into.

We even ask simple questions on our interview checklist. It's obviously a roofing position, but one of our simple questions is, are you afraid of heights? And sometimes it's not necessarily all that made clear. We did once hire someone and they were afraid to go up a ladder and it ultimately didn't end up working and it was before that question was asked. So now we make sure that we do.

Heidi J Ellsworth: That makes so much sense. And that first glimpse that, as you are recruiting, the first glimpse for new applicants is that job description. So how do you both work in what you're just saying, right? You're not scared of heights, you're okay to climb a ladder, do all those things, how do you get all of that into that job description so that at least they're coming in hopefully with a good idea of the requirements of the job? Lorna, maybe you can start us off.

Lorna Rojas: Yeah, I think some of the success part of WTI, beside the job descriptions, is the fact that we have a really good communication. And I see the difference when your team, we have a really good communication between the former supervisors. So I don't, like me right now if I read a resume and I will going to send it to some supervisor in particular, I know what he's going to say because I know what he's looking for, what exactly are the attitudes that, like Gaetano say, each region is different, the needs are different, the people. So you need to know, as a recruiter, you need to know your supervisors, their personality, just to see if this person is also going to be a good fit on the team.

But otherwise, in the job description, besides the regular skills for a roofer, the basic skills for a roofer, is it's more that, just that attitude that you want to learn, that you want to work together. That, for me, is the most important part, because at least Tremco have a lot of training and a lot of resources just to train new employees, so [inaudible 00:08:19].

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah. When you think about it, that job description is kind of their first look. So I know in our job descriptions, we have our core values in there and we have some of those types of things that really hopefully help them kind of see what the company's going to be like. And hopefully, they've done a little bit of their research. But I also, once they do get in there, I really like what you're saying, Lorna, about whoever's doing the recruiting or looking over the resumes and the applications really understand and are in sync with the supervisors in the field.

So Gaetano, one of the things that you mentioned was we asked how do you feel about heights? What are some other important questions that you use to identify the talent that's going to fit into your culture and into your teams?

Gaetano Mastroianni: So one of the things that's most important to me is leadership. We want to try and identify the future leaders of our company as well. So we always ask them what are their intentions, what are their goals? Are they trying to move up? Because there are individuals out there who might just want to apply to this position and then they're going to be very happy in that role for their rest of their careers. But we want to identify to make sure that we're at least building something around them and for them.

So I recently met with a technician yesterday, we're hoping to try and promote him into a team lead position. And I asked him ahead of time in his evaluation and we were just trying to find a path. And obviously, everyone's career can change, but we always just try and build around that. So we're looking for leadership and asking those types of questions.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Because yeah, you're not hiring just for that one job, you're hiring for a career, which is kind of a different way of thinking about it. I think that's a nugget for everybody to take out of there. Right? You're hiring for a career, not just one position.

And Lorna, I have heard this about you so many times. And just actually sitting here on this lunch and learn, Gaetano, I can already tell this is going to fit you to a T. But one of the things that's so important is to also have those career champions, people who are helping other people find their careers, find their fit.
So Lorna, how important is it, when you're talking to all these new recruits and applicants and kind of getting to know them so you can figure out where they're going to fit best, how's it important for you to be their champion to help build their career?

Lorna Rojas: Yeah, I think part of the responsibility as a recruiter is to make sure that you present an applicant that fit the need of the company, that fit the culture. But at the same time, you need to see the person you have in front of you. And sometimes there's people that they have different opportunities, but sometimes you have good applicants that probably you are the only person that probably provide a good opportunity. Try to see behind the applicant. You know what I mean?

Listen, usually what I do is I ask some personal stuff just to try to have a social feedback, where this person is coming from and try to take the best of this person and try to focus them or build a new perspective and let them know this is not only a job, this is an opportunity for a career for you to be a better person. Kind of talk about the benefits and how great company is Tremco, like we provide opportunities for career advance. And after that, based on what I explained about the company, sometimes what they would like to do or how can they see themselves in Tremco probably in five years or...

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah. I bet a lot of people haven't even been asked that question. Where do you see yourself in five years? And especially, and it shows that you care as a company. And out in the field, as you are doing these interviews, Gaetano and really looking at some of these new recruits, where do you see yourself as that champion for them? And especially once they come on, that career champion, to help them find that path? Because a lot of people don't always get that chance.

Gaetano Mastroianni: So I always preach building relationships. So we're a big team oriented company, so the more people that you can build relationships with and work with, it's just going to make everyone's lives easier. Whether someone's my subordinate or my manager, I always do whatever I can to make their lives easier and I try and build those relationships because if I'm successful, then the people below me are successful, the people above me are successful because we're all just trying to look out for the better part of each other and the company as a whole.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah, that's so true. And this really leads us into our second learning objective, which is retaining talent. So we've got them in the door and they're hired, but in order to retain that talent, that onboarding is so important. So Lorna, once the interviews are done and you've got thumbs up, talk a little bit about your onboarding process and how you're bringing these applicants in.

Lorna Rojas: I think something that I really like to do is open that line of communication. I usually, once I receive an approval just to hire someone, just either a call or maybe a text that, "Welcome to the company, I'll be calling you," and things like that.

And also very important, the orientation, the HR orientation and the safety orientation. Just try to be both go simple, as simple as you can just to make sure that they understand everything. Something that I really like about Tremco is that we do things in Spanish and English and we just want to make sure that the new employees understand their benefits. And I think once employees start seeing that you care about them as a person and make sure that they utilize their resources, they start changing the perspective about the company. And again, just try to put yourself not only as a supervisor or as an office staff, just another coworker trying to get better, just trying to build that solid communication.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah. Kind of like that champion again, really helping them take to that next step. And talk about your onboarding process, Gaetano. How does that work? And really, from day one, I know, because I want to talk a little bit too about your apprenticeship program and how important that is, so kind of start us out on that.

Gaetano Mastroianni: The themes are very much the same. So one thing that we do a lot is we just really focus on finding a great mentor. You pair somebody with someone who's either a peer who's been doing it for a little bit or a manager of some sorts just so they can just bring them along and coach them up. One of the struggles about working with us is that we are a very remote company. We don't have one big office that everyone reports to in the same place every day, so we have to pair everybody up and you've got to be able to communicate. That's one of the skill sets that probably has to stand above the rest for anyone that works with us.

So as long as you're communicating and you've got a solid mentor and somebody that you can lean on and trust, of course, you have to be able to trust that individual, you'll be able to... That's truly how we develop. And do you want me to go into the apprentice program now?

So our apprentice program, and essentially how it works is we give you some online coursework, as you slowly progress through your career. We pair it with on-the-job training. So however many hours that you complete with your on-the-roof work, then you can graduate into each phase through the program. And then the on-the-job training, that field work is when you're working with someone who's more qualified and you're building up your skill set. And we have four total phases, so it allows our technicians to become a journeyman.

Heidi J Ellsworth: I know in the first phase, the very first onboarding is all about safety, right?

Gaetano Mastroianni: Yes.

Heidi J Ellsworth: For people out there who are looking to join the roofing industry, I think there are basic fears of height, of what are you going to be doing up there? It seems to me like that safety being the first thing that is being trained and during the onboarding would be so important and kind of reassuring to new applicants. What have you seen with some of the feedback? Maybe Lorna, start with you, some of the feedback from some of the applicants after going through that safety training and how they feel after that.

Lorna Rojas: Yeah, honestly, I hear very good things about all the safety trainings at Tremco and we have provided training in Spanish and English too. So which is very important, especially on safety, just to make sure that they understand and when they are in the roof, they know the process, they know what they need to take care of everything. So I just think it's part, safety and communication is part of our culture and that makes Tremco really good on that side and how we start with the new employees.

Heidi J Ellsworth: And really, when you're looking at, it's an apprenticeship, so the program is already there, like you said, Gaetano, where you have your phases that they go through and they graduate to the next thing, so many hours per stage. Putting that plan together, Tremco put a lot of hours and time into developing this apprenticeship and this full onboarding program. What difference has that made to your crews and to your hiring and really retention of your teams, having that process, that apprenticeship and into journeymen available to your teams?

Gaetano Mastroianni: So it also gives our technicians the faith that we're able to give them hours outside of what they're getting on the roof because they're able to have that continuing education online and they're seeing that. But to elaborate a little bit more on the safety front, we, regardless of experience or certification, one of the first things that we do here is everyone has to do an OSHA 10 regardless of whether or not they may have had one. Before I had joined, I had just recently completed my OSHA 30 with a previous company and I still redid it because you're meeting your new team members, almost like a cohort as everyone's signing on and starting with the company at the same time.

And then we do our best to try and also make everyone start on a Monday. And typically, the first thing that we do on Monday mornings is a toolbox talk. So your first group call, you're meeting your supervisor, you're meeting your local peers and we're having that same safety talk as well.

Heidi J Ellsworth: That's awesome.

Lorna Rojas: Something that Gaetano mentioned is I have my OSHA instructor license, so I used to teach OSHA especially in Spanish. And I was surprised when I started Tremco that I had to take OSHA 10.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Even though you were a teacher, you're still taking it. Yeah. Everybody. That's excellent, that is so cool.

So one of the things too, that I think I wanted to mention is when we talk about continuing education and how important it's for retention. I know that you have your apprenticeship where they can then graduate into a journeyman, but you also offer ongoing if people want to go on and get their associate's or their bachelor in construction management too. When we think about being career champions and the company offering long-term career potential, those opportunities from apprenticeship to journeyman to associate's to bachelor, that offers an incredible opportunity for free education. Gaetano, what are you seeing on that and how important is that for people to kind of... I know not everybody's going to want to do it, but to have that opportunity and for those who do, to be able to get their construction management degree.

Gaetano Mastroianni: Yeah, we call it the RISE program. We're affiliated with the University of Akron. It always starts with an associate's, but with successful completion, you can then graduate to getting your bachelor's as well.

I've got a perfect success story in my region. He was a technician who was on the roofs doing patch and repair and inspection work. He was down the South Atlantic region. He started with the RISE program, he's got his associate's degree, excuse me and now he's actually working as a construction manager associate in the Buffalo area, running a $13 million job.

Heidi J Ellsworth: That has to make you feel so proud. And it really comes back down, I'm going to say it again, I know I've said it a couple times, but it's really part of this learning objective again, is that career champion. Having people like you two who are encouraging them and then having a company that is actually encouraging them to continue to get that kind of education and grow within the company is amazing.

I do want to go onto our third learning objective, and that is building a hiring strategy. And this is really about working together. So you've got two people on here who are the best and who are doing this every day, working together from the office and the recruitment into the field. And I know we talked about this a little bit up at the beginning, but Lorna, talk about how you start building a strategy, working with the field to really know what you want or what they want, sorry, what they want and how you can deliver it. So can you kind of talk about how you build that strategy working together?

Lorna Rojas: With the field staff, you mean with the employees? Well actually, the fact that I think the thing that helped me was the fact that usually, in all the companies now in Tremco, I must promoted. But before, I used to visit different, in other companies, I used to visit all the job sites just to explain everything in Spanish. Also had the opportunity to be in corporate meetings and at the same time be with the field staff.
And I know that sometimes even if companies think that they have a really good communication, you hear something on the office and you hear something totally different on the roof. So I think it's very important managers or people that are in contact, the same recruiters or people from HR have conversations with the field staff.

In my case, just because the ones that I help speak Spanish, I can help them to understand everything. Sometimes how they feel, how they feel sometimes if there's discrimination or if any type of communication just for diversity and inclusion, those type of things. So I think you need to check on all those details.
So, basically that, I build a really good communication with them when I visit the job site, I eat with them, we go out or whatever. You know what I mean? You need to be that relationship and have that communication. If you just go [inaudible 00:24:42] just to do an inspection or to do a visit on the job site, they won't tell you anything. You need to be in contact with them, that they feel that they can trust you and that you care for them. And it's the same thing, recruiters, supervisors.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah, it makes so much sense. So Gaetano, as you are looking, working with Lorna or with other recruiters in the company, tell us a little bit about your process of do you review the job descriptions? Do you kind of sit down and have these conversations about what exactly you're looking for? How do you build that strategy with the recruitment to get the best people for your areas?

Gaetano Mastroianni: Yeah, so Lorna's not my regional recruiter, but I do have one. She's on a call weekly that I host. She's always engaged with my supervisors and my foremen pretty regularly. And just because I don't have recruiter in my title doesn't mean that I'm not always looking for good talent as well. I'm on job boards, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm trying to see resumes. And when there is a qualified resume that is presented to me, after a screening or whatever it is, I make sure I always get in depth with the recruiter to make sure that we're touching all the points. I think they'll be successful for this reason, I think they might struggle a little bit with this.

And then we also just talk about what the day-to-day of a roofing life is. The recruiter that we work with, she's never worked as a roofer, so she doesn't have a clue of what a true roofer is going through on a day-to-day basis. So I always do my best to try and break it down of what that day-to-day is so she could be even more successful on her screens to answer more questions even before it gets to my door.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah. I think that's so important to have a really good view of the job and that has to be part of that strategy. How do you, Gaetano, I'd love you to keep going on your strategy for also communicating core values of Tremco, working with your recruiter to make sure that people as they come in, not only know what the job is and how that works, but also understand the values and as Lorna said at the very beginning, the attitude that really works and means success for your company.

Gaetano Mastroianni: Well, the more and more that a recruiter can integrate themselves with the local leaders, the more successful they're going to be and the more successful the company's going to be. So I'm sure that Lorna could certainly elaborate, but like I said before, every business is going to have its own needs and own personalities, so it's all about that culture fit. So the easier that individual recruiter is able to work with their team, they could ask the questions, the pointed questions that we know that they're going to need when they're working and they're hired on.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Lorna, can you address that too? Talking about how you communicate the core values to these new applicants so that they really understand overall what success will look like, because that's kind of what core values do, to let them know what your company's about.

Lorna Rojas: Yes, and I usually try to introduce that. Usually at the beginning, they sometimes express that they don't have a lot of experience, so they would like to know something. And right away, I introduce them and let them know that Tremco is trying to [inaudible 00:28:01] communication, letting them know that even people have different roles in the company, everyone is looking for a common cause, trying to make it better.

And I think with Tremco, it's so easy because my experience with me, being grateful. And you receive the same message no matter what position you are, if you're a technician, if you're in the office. But I usually explain them that we are here to help, that each person have a different role, that they just need to step up and explain or ask for what they need and basically that.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Yeah. That's excellent. So last question. Gaetano, I want to bring this to you. We're talking a lot about recruiting from the outside, right? Bringing new applicants in. But you have mentioned this a couple of times, the importance of also looking within for promotion, to leadership, to doing that. So how do you, through your year, as you're looking and working with your teams, how do you make that a part of your strategy and really looking at talent that is already working there and from a retention point, helping to get them promoted in leadership? Tell us a little bit about that.

Gaetano Mastroianni: We do that from the moment that they're hired on all the way through the moment where we're considering them for promotion. We're always trying to provide as much opportunity as we can. So if we have something new that we know that they haven't had experience in, we're always trying to push that issue.

WTI has a lot of different offerings, whether it's Pure Air or roof tech or all these different things. So the goal is we want to identify the individuals who's showing the initiative. We give them the opportunity to say, "Hey, we're offering trainings in X, Y, Z." And the more that they're putting themselves out, it obviously raises a flag for us to look at those individuals for other opportunities. And then we just try and put them in those new situations to see where they're going to be successful. Because if they're successful, then we're successful.

Heidi J Ellsworth: I love it. It's a lifetime, a career time of retention, career path and of really growing a strong business with strong talent and an amazing culture. Thank you both of you. Thank you for sharing your wisdoms and your thoughts. Any last thoughts, Lorna?

Lorna Rojas: Well, something that I usually do, I explain the career pathways in the roofing industry, since they start as a helper technician. So try to provide them a vision of the future and all the things that they can do. And like Gaetano say, sometimes, without saying name, we share another experience for another employee that start as a technician and where they are now and try to be positive. But that's something that I like to do is try to put that on their mind that you are here to stay. And when you talk like that, somehow you're helping with retention because they don't feel like they're going to be out next year or things like that.

Heidi J Ellsworth: Right. Yeah, I love that. Gaetano, any last thoughts?

Gaetano Mastroianni: Yeah, I would just say the best thing that we can do during the interview process is sort of give them that day in the life. That way they know exactly what they're getting themselves into because the last thing that you ever want to see is a manager or whatever is someone come in and they have that deer in a headlights look on them like, "What did I get myself into?" You want them to be happy. So the more information that you can give them upfront on that interview call and let them know, "Hey, this is how you're going to start your day, this is how you're going to finish," and just try and give them that A to B throughout each day, the more that they're going to be successful and the happier they'll be when they join on.

Outro: I love it. There's another nugget, day in the life. Share the day in the life. I love it. Thank you both so much for joining us on this lunch and learn. We so appreciate your wisdom. And thank you all for listening. This is a great informational project. I know you all have your discussion sheets in front of you, please take notes because we have that quiz online where you can get your certificate of completion. Please take the time to do that because you might be entered for a free lunch.

Thank you again, my name is Heidi Ellsworth. Thank you for being on this lunch and learn, and we will see you on the next lunch and learn from RoofersCoffeeShop.