Helping young roofers develop bright futures with new skills

By Evelyn Witterholt. 

Here’s how Johns Manville is helping the future roofing workforce develop their roofing skills. 

Although many sectors of roofing are still having a hard time filling positions, that isn’t stopping this industry from growing. With nearly 39,000 job openings a month this year alone, roofing companies and associations are looking for ways to get those jobs filled. Many are turning to the future workforce as a solution to this growing problem. In an episode of our Read, Listen, Watch® series, we spoke with two roofing industry leaders about how they are appealing to future roofers through organizations like SkillsUSA. 

One of the main problems with this labor shortage is retaining quality workers. Jennifer Ford Smith, the head of marketing and product management at Johns Manville, says that getting the younger generations interested in roofing is a top priority for them. As roofing manufacturers, she says it’s up to them to be innovators and make roofing an appealing career choice. 

“There's a lot of opportunity in our industry. There's a lot of different types of jobs, but we're just having a hard time filling them,” she said. “It's the number one topic the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) talks about at every meeting that we have.” 

The NRCA sees this need for labor as an opportunity to create positive change in the industry. Not only do they want to provide contractors and manufacturers with labor, but they want them to have crews who know what they are doing. John Esbenshade, the director of workforce development at NRCA, says that training the future roofing workforce could be a long-lasting solution to this problem. 

“If you jump on an opportunity at the right time, you can see extremely interesting and positive results. And I think that's kind of where we're at when it comes to attracting newcomers into the industry who have talent,” he said. “We're making those connection points to career and technical education schools and offering some of those trainings to students to springboard them into a very successful career.” 

Earlier this year, NRCA and Johns Manville teamed up to sponsor the first commercial roofing competition at the SkillsUSA competition. SkillsUSA is an organization that helps kids get interested and trained in the trades industry. For years it has helped young people get interested in working in construction, but the roofing sector of this industry has not been involved until now. 

“It's gotten to the point where now we have enough industry support, we have all the structural things, we have great manufacturer and contractor relationships, and everyone sees the benefit of it,” John said. “Now is a good time to connect with this wellspring of very qualified future leaders.” 

Read the transcript, Listen to the podcast or Watch the webinar to learn more about how Johns Manville is shaping the future roofing workforce.