Teresa Ramirez - Finding Labor - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Teresa Ramirez from Southeast Contracting Services. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Intro/Outro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. This is Heidi Ellsworth. I am here to be with my very special friend, Teresa Ramirez, who is with Southeast Contracting Services. You're going to all wonder, you're going to be amazed when we talk about labor shortage all the time and people are like, we have this huge labor shortage. There are so many amazing people and Teresa knows them. So, Teresa, welcome to the show.

Teresa Ramirez: Hi. I am Teresa Ramirez and I work with Southeast Contracting Services.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. Thank you for being here today.

Teresa Ramirez: Thank you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm very excited. I really want everyone out there to learn more about your services, to know who you are. So, let's start out with an introduction. I mean, obviously you just introduced yourself, but tell us a little bit more about you and your company.

Teresa Ramirez: Okay. My company provides labor force to the roofing industry, as well as others industries. And usually, what we do, we send people out of town to work in anywhere our clients may need.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Tell everybody about the beautiful area that you're located in.

Teresa Ramirez: Okay, great. Heidi, we live in a very beautiful location, which is South Texas. We call it RGV, which means Rio Grande Valley. And it covers Brownsville, Texas, McAllen, and Laredo, Texas. So, basically, we have a lot of good people that are in the area, that are in need for job anywhere in the US. Usually, they're ready to travel and learn new trades in any type of construction industry.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And you and I have talked about this before, is that the wonderful people who you work with from the RGV, they like to come home during the winter. So, they love to travel up north during the season, and then come home and be with their families. So, talk just a little bit about that.

Teresa Ramirez: So, usually the people that are going up north from the Rio Grande Valley, they are used to go up north to work for in the busiest season. So, they're happy and they can be there from two to six months with no problem. And they want to come back with their family, because usually they are happy living in the Rio Grande Valley, because we live very close to Mexico. And all our people usually are US citizens that has a lot of Mexican culture. Also, we have a lot of permanent residents which are legal too, and they are familiar with the culture in Mexico. So, they are not willing to go and stay up north. Basically, they want to go spend 2, 3, 4 months or even up to eight months, I will say not all of them, but some of them, and then they want to go back to home.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, it makes sense. And so, let's talk about the services that you offer, how you help the installers and the people who are looking for employment, how do you place them and how does that work?

Teresa Ramirez: Usually, what we do, we have a request from our clients. They say, "Okay, Teresa, we will need, I don't know, two TPO roofers, three laborers with some experience in the roofing industry or even of a general construction." And they put the request, we work very fiercely to get the right people for our clients. So, we go through to start talking about the job offers that we have and then they start stopping by to our office. We go through a face-to-face interview, which is very important because you need to see the worker and see what conditions the worker are. Also, we go through a drug test, criminal background. And we believe in second chances very strongly. But we will clarify our client, "Okay, this is what we have," and if they're happy with of what we have, then we send the people to their job locations.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. And what services do you do to take care of the employees that the employers don't need to?

Teresa Ramirez: First of all, face-to-face recruitments and all the hiring process, the employee will sign a contract with Southeast, which we clarify on each step the duration of the project, what are the employer are willing to provide, and the season that they require the workers. So, basically, we have a very good communication with the workers of what they will expect from our clients, which is the employer. Also, one of the good things is that we explain, okay, this work will be for two months, and they will be happy knowing for how long. Sometime they feel like, I don't know, maybe shy to ask all these questions to the people up north, for example, to big companies.

Sometimes they, "Ms. Teresa, I rather to talk to you, because I feel comfortable talking and express myself of what are my expectations." So, basically, to help them to be a good connection. Also, we provide workers' compensation, which is very good because we are in Texas. So, we go through the Texas Workers Compensation. If it's in another state, we need to figure it out what is the best prices we can provide, but also we provide in any state of the US, except California, Illinois, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So, really, when you're looking at it on the roofing contractors from most of the states, not all of them like you just said, but from most of the states now are able to get employees who can fill in and fill out or build out their crews. So, you don't provide crews, you provide individuals who can come up and join crews and bring specialties like TPO installations, shingles, all the necessary skills for them to be able to install the type of roofing that the contractors may need, right?

Teresa Ramirez: That is correct. For example, if they have their own crews, what we usually do is just build out to complete their crews. For example, in a crew they have six guys and they are missing two spots, then just let us know and we'll be very happy to assist you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: For the contractors who are listening to this and they're saying, "This is great," talk about the process. How long does it take for you to fill, for that employee to travel, to get there, to all the paperwork, everything like that? What's the process?

Teresa Ramirez: Usually when you require laborers, for example from one year experience, I can get the guys in less than seven business days for sure.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, wow.

Teresa Ramirez: But if you require a skilled worker, maybe it takes a little longer, like 15 business days, because sometimes everybody's fighting for the good guys and the guys that knows the trades. So, basically, it takes a little more time. Sometimes we're super lucky and we can get guys in five days, but I will not say that we will do that. And one of the things that is very important is, for example, if one of the employers submit a request to us is very important. And that's one of the things that I would like to explain. If I say names and expertise of each of the employees that I am sending to you, usually the guys are willing to wait three days, no more than five days. So, if you take time to decide, "Oh, I want this and this guy," maybe these guys will not be available. And it's not because of me, because they get another job offers and I cannot hold them for a long time.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. No, that makes sense. I mean there is a huge demand and they're going to take the first ones to come. So, if you hold off thinking about it, it's probably going to be somebody different as you go through it. So, this podcast, people will be hearing it. It's going to come out probably in May, June. We know we have a labor shortage and we need to be bringing good people into the industry and letting them see how great roofing is. And you're doing that. You have a pipeline of people who want to be in roofing, and I think that's just so amazing and exactly what the industry needs.

Teresa Ramirez: Thank you, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. So, a lot of people out there, maybe they're thinking, okay, this is a temporary agency, this is a staffing agency, yes, but it's also very different. So, tell us why Southeast is different from other staffing agencies.

Teresa Ramirez: First of all, we provide people from the RGV area only. For example, if you have a company in Iowa or Amarillo, Texas, or I don't know, Arkansas, we will send people from the Rio Grande Valley. So, we are your out of town staffing agency that [inaudible 00:10:18] in roofing. So, this is the difference between a local staffing agency that maybe you have in your location. And what I can assure you is... Basically what I do is to talk with my clients and say, "Hey, Mr. Smith," for example, "What are you keeping us?" And they usually say, "Teresa, I'm going to be very honest with you, because the guys that you send us, usually they stay for at least two, three months. And it is one of the good things." I'm not talking about the other agencies, but what I can assure you is that the people that I'll send, since they're not from the same town, they are willing to stay there for at least two or three months. And they can help you at least with some of the labor that you need to fulfill.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. And you take care of all this. I mean, we already talked about this, but you take care of all of the state regulations, you know what's going on, and which states you can be in and which states you can't. I mean to me that is super important, because if it's a local staffing agency, they only know local. But what you know, is you know the countries. So, if people are traveling or they're in different states, you take care of all that.

Teresa Ramirez: That is correct.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So, Teresa, I love what you're doing. And I'm so happy that you're on RoofersCoffeeShop. We have a directory with all this information on it for Southeast Contracting Service. And you and I are going to be continuing to talk, doing more podcasts, but also we're going to do some in Spanish. And I'm pretty excited about that too.

Teresa Ramirez: [foreign language 00:12:01].

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. Just stay tuned because Teresa's going to be helping us with a lot, celebrating our Hispanic and Latino culture within roofing. And thank you for all you do for the industry. You're just amazing.

Teresa Ramirez: Thank you for having me.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you. And thank you all for listening. Stay tuned, there is going to be a lot more on this. And if you are interested, if you're looking for skilled labor, looking for skilled roofing professionals, you need to get with Teresa. And you can find her on the directory in RoofersCoffeeShop under Southeast Contracting Service. Or of course, ask any of us and we will get you connected. So, thank you so much for listening. And please check out all of our podcasts under the read, listen, watch navigation under Roofing Road trips. Or on your favorite podcast channel, be sure to subscribe and hit those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We will see you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Intro/Outro: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.