What Does the Next Gen Labor Force Look Like? - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Chris Czarnik, keynote speaker on hiring & retaining talent. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Hello and welcome to Contractor Outlook Newscast from The Coffee Shops. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and we are here to really get with people who you may not always hear from. We're lucky enough. I'm lucky enough as I travel, I'm able to listen to some of the best speakers, the most knowledgeable people who are out there and that's what we want to bring you in, Contractor Outlook newscast. And I have to tell you today is a treat.
We have Chris Czarnik, who I have heard speak a number of times about labor, recruiting the next generation. Oh my gosh, he's absolutely amazing. And we have him here on Contractor Outlook newscast today. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Czarnik: Well, Heidi, boy, I better be good after that kind of intro.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, I have to tell you, you have inspired me so many times listening to you as you talk about the next generation, as you talk about recruitment, as you talk about the trades. And of course, you're very good friends with Reid Ribble, which always makes me excited because I love visiting with you, with Reid, with all the thought leaders who really are doing something to make a difference in what we're experiencing in the trades today.

Chris Czarnik: Yeah. I have to tell you, I'm on the road almost a thousand days the last four years, teaching companies how to recruit, retain and develop talent, mostly in the manufacturing, construction industries. But the roofing industry is incredibly important to me because my good friend Reid Ribble, when he was in Congress, he was the one who got my work initially to Congress. And then, after he left Congress and became the head of the Roofing Contractors Association, he had me write this book that we're going to talk about today for the roofing industry about how to recruit, retain and develop talent. And so, I have a special place in my heart for sure, for the roofing industry as a whole and all those people in it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Well, let's start out with an introduction. So, in your own words, if you could introduce yourself, talk about what you're doing about your book, I want to hear it all. So, let's start with that.

Chris Czarnik: Sure. So, again, my name is Chris Czarnik and I have spent the last 20 years figuring out why people go to and leave organizations. It's been the focus of my life, but the important thing for you to understand is that I'm not some theory guy. I'm not a guy from the ivory tower in New York telling you what theories might happen. Before I taught companies how to find people, I was involved in 8,000 jobs searches. I was a career coach for some 8,000 people, whether they were high school students, college graduates or mid-career professionals.

And I taught them a process called Human Search Engine that I had created and Reid had gotten into Congress. In fact, human search engine as a research project was adopted by... It was identified by the 113th United States Congress as a national job search model. And in 2017, they adopted it as outplace as one of the tools for outplacement for Congress. So, before I taught companies how to find people, I taught people a project-oriented way to figure out how to go to work and how to find it. Because think about it, there's virtually nothing in your life that we spend less research on than where we go to work.

You wouldn't buy a car without research. You wouldn't buy a house without research. Most people wouldn't go out for pizza on Friday night to a new place without going on Google or Yelp. And yet, somehow what we've all been taught and what I'm trying to teach people, what we've always taught is job search. Well, you just send a resume to a person you've never met, at a company you've never heard of, for a job you've never done, cross your fingers and hope it's a good fit. And so, I thought there was a better way and I've spent the last 20 years figuring that better way out.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is so cool. And it's so true. You're like, "I just want a job," so you don't take that time and vice versa, really. But I love the fact that Reid Ribble really encouraged you to write on your book. Tell us about Winning the War for Talent.

Chris Czarnik: Yeah, sure. I'm going to show it to you right here. I'm super proud of it. This book has sold tens of thousands of copies. It's used by about 4,000 organizations around the country, but actually wrote this for the National Roofing Contractors Association.

Reid came to me and he said, "Chris, we're going to have an issue with labor in the roofing industry." And I wrote it about five and a half years ago, and he said, "You're the person who knows most about labor and teaching people where they belong and how to find it. Can you help us find great people and bring them into this unbelievable industry that frankly, very few people know of and even fewer people know what an incredible career they can have in it?"

And so, I wrote this book for the National Roofing Contractors Association. Many of the stories and chapters in it are very specifically for roofing companies, and I'm very proud. 18 months ago, I was the keynote at IRE, the International Roofing Expo and I spoke on the topic in front of 3,500 people down in Dallas. And so, I owe the roofing industry a lot. And so, if I can help a roofer, I've had a pretty good day.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. The first time I saw you, you were speaking at the Roofing Alliance about this book.

Chris Czarnik: Exactly. What's fascinating about it is that was the genesis of all of this. I was actually speaking at one of the events down in Florida, and a good friend of mine who has become a good friend, Charles Antis from California, who is a well-known name obviously in the roofing industry, he heard me speak and he said, "Wow, you'd be a really good Vistage speaker." And I said, "Well, what's a Vistage?"

And since then, I've done almost 300 Vistage presentations in front of about 4,500 CEOs across the country. And so, again, much of my success around the country and now around the world as my work moves into Europe and Canada because they have the same issues that we do, is really directly related to Reid and his trust in my work.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is so awesome. And they do. The problems are worldwide for sure. So, let's talk about that. Let's talk about some key challenges that not only roofing but construction overall, the trades are looking at when it comes to recruiting skilled labor. What are some of the key issues that you're seeing?

Chris Czarnik: Yeah, sure. So, I got a chance to see this from a very firsthand view. I was the career services manager for the largest technical college in the state of Wisconsin. I was in that office for 10 years with the career services manager for three and a half years ago. So, some 23,000 Millennials and Gen Z's came into our office and said, "Okay, I have this two-year degree in manufacturing or in construction. Where should I go to work?

How should I choose one industry over another?" And so, I very firsthand knowledge of the fact that people don't have a clue that the roofing industry exists because most of them, the only roofing they've ever seen is their neighbor either trying to tear off the roof themselves or having their roof torn off. And because most commercial roofing happens three to five stories above the ground, nobody's ever seen it. I mean, when you're seven years old, you can look at a fire truck going by and say, "I want to be a fireman." You can see a policeman and say, "I want to be a policeman," but we don't see commercial roofing in our own daily life.

And so, the demographics though, are a grim note and that's why I wrote this book for this industry because the mathematical certainty is that we're 8.5 million people short in the workforce for the next 10 years. As my baby boomer, the generation, I'm 60, almost 63 years old. My generation is a retiring at a rate of 2,500 people per day in America. And the generation that's filling that void that's coming in to replace us only has 1,500 people a day in it for the next 500 days.

So, not only are we already 8.5 million people short in the workforce, but for the next 500 days, we lose another 1,000 to 1,200 people a day. And so, that's grim. I know that for people watching this, but the most important thing you need to know as I tour the country teaching companies, you need four. You don't need the demographics of the entire United States to change in order for your company to be successful, you need four people or eight or 12 who are currently reliably showing up for way worse jobs than yours who don't even know roofing exists as an opportunity and certainly has no idea that the average roofer will make $50,000 in their second year of roofing and will be able to earn more than $2.5 million in their lifetime if they get involved in commercial roofing along the way.

And the statistics are not that far off for residential roofing as well. And so, the bottom line is, for the last 40 years, companies were able to post a job ad line formed and we got to choose who came to kiss the ring of HR and kneel in front of the altar of our organization. And that is not the case anymore. So, if you keep in mind, "Are you working as hard to find your next great employee as you are your next great client or customer? If you're not, then I'm telling you the numbers are against you. And my work is designed to try and help you get those great people into your organization."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Those numbers are staggering. And really as all the trades, not just roofing, but all the trades are dealing with this, there's competition. So, for all of these young people who are coming into vocational schools, they have a lot of choices. And roofing hasn't really been at the forefront of that.

Chris Czarnik: I'd really love to speak about that for a second, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Chris Czarnik: So, again, for 10 years, I was in the off-career services office of the largest technical college in the state of Wisconsin. For three and a half years, I was the manager. I did not have one roofing company, not one in 10 years walk into the office. And our program had a residential building program. We taught people, we taught 18- to 25-year-olds how to build houses.

And of course, building houses includes roofing and structures and all those other things. And so, I want you to know that one of the easiest things for people to do in order to bring great people into the roofing organization is go create a relationship with the technical college or the trade school in your geographical radius. I know why you haven't done it yet. You never had to do it before and people just came to you. But these schools are training the exact people who may not have fit exactly in high school into the read Shakespeare and write it down on a test kind of book.

But these people, these students who love hands-on learning and building something in a tangible product, they're sitting, they're graduating and as soon as they graduate, they're surrounded by 10,000 different places that they could go to work. And if you're not involved in that conversation in their first semester or by best in their first year of their studies, they're almost all working within the end of their first year of their two-year program. And so, if I could give any advice to people out there that are looking to start to Winning the War for Talent, just go to the trade school and the technical college that are training the exact people who will either go into building houses or with the same skills and abilities. They're going to come and do commercial or residential roofing for you, and they don't know where they belong. Only we as business owners know where they belong, and it's a great place to start.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Chris, the NRCA has been doing so much with career and really focusing on that, John Esbenshade has really taken a lead there. And so, now contractors, not only should you be going into your vocational schools, but there's things you can take with you to be the hero. I mean, NRCA is giving track training free to vocational schools to be able to train.

Chris Czarnik: I promise you, the vocational schools have no idea that exists. Listen, under Reid's guidance and all the people have putting the certifications and all the programs and the training programs have worked incredibly hard and have brought roofing up to the same level as all the other trades. I promise you my friends who are still back in the tech and trade don't know exists, have never heard of it, have never considered it. And so, if you don't bring it to them, they are never coming to you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's easy to get. It's easy. You get a hold of us at RoofersCoffeeShop, we'll get you with NRCA if you're not already involved with them. And they want to give these training modules to the vocational schools. They want them to understand roofing. They want roofing to be upfront for all of us, which is such a turnaround from, like you said when you were doing that and still, there's so much further to go.

Chris Czarnik: Yeah. I'll also tell you one of the things that the easiest places to start for anybody is go to your local technical and trade school and ask if you can be part of their advisory board. Now, most people don't know this, but you and I were talking about this earlier, Heidi. So, by law, every technical college and trade school that gets money from the state, in other words, Pell Grants and all those kind of things, has to have an advisory board made up of companies in the industry that we are training students to serve.

So, in other words, there's an advisory board in your technical college or trade school that oversees the curriculum for the residential building or any of their building programs. One of the easiest ways to connect with the college and more importantly or as importantly get connected to the students is on the advisory board, you might spend two hours every three months. It's not a huge commitment, but you would've direct access to the dean of that area, to the instructors in that area and of course to the students in that area as well.

And you'll be able to shape and guide the curriculum. And what an amazing thing. If you could bring this curriculum with all the new training and credentialing into roofing and show it to the technical college or trade school, you could literally change the curriculum in the trade school to support the roofing industry.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, you really can. We're seeing it. We're seeing contractors every day across the country who are doing this and who are seeing great success. In fact, some of them are like, "We don't have a problem getting skilled labor because they've built those relationships and they've put that together."

Chris Czarnik: They always struggled to me why people were complaining about not being able to catch fish, but they weren't going to look for the trout pond. We're literally training the students. And I hope we get to that for a second because there's a kind of student that graduates from high school that may not have fit, that is exactly at the technical college that I think it might be valuable for us to talk about a little bit.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That was my next question, Chris, because I have to tell you, looking back and I'm just going to tell this story when first time I heard you speak, you were talking about students who just don't fit the mold. And I have two of those that I raised. I was one of them. My husband was definitely one of them. And you're not great test takers.

You don't want to sit all day. You don't want to do all these things. So, that impact of that conversation you had that day has stayed with me for so long. I would love for you to share that with everyone and really talk through that it's not all the same. There's a lot of young people out there who want to work with their hands.

Chris Czarnik: Yeah. So, one of the great things about being a part of the technical college is I got to experience a kind of student with unbelievable skills, but those skills were not really valued in their traditional high school setting. Right? In a high school setting, we read a book, we do a couple of problems. We read Shakespeare, we take a test and students who can do that really, really well get A's and B's, but students with different skills, students who have the ability to see things mechanically, students who have the ability to build some, to see how something should be built or do problem-solving.

Those students are lost in high school. In many cases, they get stamped as at risk. It's a really tough place for them because if you don't do well in school or if you're bored by reading a book and spitting it back out on the test, we stamp you as at risk. Your skills are just in a different area. So, I would bet money that if the people who watched this went to their very best supervisors and roofing professionals and said, "Hey, what was your experience in high school like?"

They would be like, "Oh my gosh, it was terrible. I didn't fit in. I was a square peg in a round hole." That's exactly who you're looking for. In fact, one of my favorite things to do, Heidi, is to let people know that there's something... If you're familiar at all with Myers-Briggs Type thing, there's the people who are very good with their hands have a Myers-Briggs personality type, very different than other people.

And I'm going to give you a free one today. There's a site that you could use for your child. You could use this today, Heidi, for your child. It's called 16personalities.com. It's the number 16, 16personalities.com. It's a free site.
They won't ask for your email. They won't ask for your credit card. They won't ask for anything. And you could literally go in there and say, "What's the best personality type for a manufacturing person, for a roofer, for a construction person?" You'll be able to see, and you could give this test to your best people, find the best personality types for them. And the real key here, here's the payoff, Heidi, so thank you for letting me take the long way around.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I like it.

Chris Czarnik: Is that people's hobbies are the best indication of whether they fit in roofing. It's not their job. Remember, people are not in the jobs they want. They're in the jobs they could get. Think about that for a second.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's true.

Chris Czarnik: Nobody's ever been taught a systematic way to figure out where to go to work and how to find it. Most people are not in the job they want. They're in the job that they could get. Most young people are going to work at Taco Bell and Kohl's, not because they love that work. It's because that's where they shop.
That's where they saw the now hiring sign and they said, "Well, I guess I'm here anyway, so I might as well go." But people's hobbies, if you find people who are doing drywall on the side, they're working at a convenience store, because that's the best job they could get. But if you look at their side hustles, they're doing hanging drywall. They might even be doing roofing on the side. They're fixing somebody's exhaust in their driveway.

They're pouring concrete on the weekends, people's hobbies and in many cases, those are hunting, fishing, competitive sports. Those kinds of things are the clearest indications. So, you could literally have a job ad saying... You could survey your best people in roofing and say, "What are your favorite hobbies?" And you could have a job ad that says, "If you love these hobbies, we know you'll fit great in roofing. Come ask us how we know."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's brilliant.

Chris Czarnik: And the person will see themselves in the ad and say, "I don't know how they know I fit in roofing, but those are my hobbies, so clearly I better go talk to them."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. We talked about this earlier, but when you had said this, I think about all the people out there who are doing landscaping on the side. My husband was one of them. He had his own landscaping business, but yet he was working somewhere else, but he was doing all this landscaping on the side, because that's what he loves.

Chris Czarnik: If he'll do it on the side, he'd probably like to do it for a living, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, exactly.

Chris Czarnik: You make this huge mistake of evaluating people for the job they're in, because that's what we've done for 50 years. But if nobody's ever been taught where to go to work and where they actually fit, then evaluating by the job they're in is a mistake. But your hobbies are what you do and you can do whatever you want. Your hobbies are who you really are and the things that come naturally to you that calm you. And so, if there's one easy thing that every person who watches this can do, go find the hobbies of your best people and your next job ads should say, "You knew you were meant for more.

Come find more here." And then in the second box, you would say, "If you love these hobbies, you'll fit great in roofing, come ask us how we know." I think you might be surprised by the response you get.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm telling you, everybody out there listening to this, go on our classifieds and do this. This is great. I love it. And I think too, I just wanted to get one step even back to circle around with what you were talking about. I think that needs to happen in the schools too.

I think that needs to happen in high school. What do you enjoy doing? Because the kids also go towards what they enjoy for extra curriculum or after school hours, but that never gets talked about. It's really more about, "Well, take this aptitude test. Okay, you need to do this, you need to do that. We need a bigger discussion."

Chris Czarnik: This is my opinion, but the reason why it's hard to test for, so if you think about the idea of having to test 3 million people a year and put them where they belong, how do you test for somebody with mechanical aptitude or analytical problem solving or working well with their hands? And so, the high schools, I think we have to stop relying on the high schools for everything, right? At some point, if somebody's working at the convenience store, the question is, do they really want to be there or do they not know where they belong? And in fact, I'll give you another one for free. One of the easiest things, think about this for a second, Heidi. There's a 20-year-old mechanically inclined female in the pit of the 10-minute oil change place you used last week. She's good with people because she greeted you at the door.

She's good with computers because she had to figure out the right oil and filter for your car. She's good mechanically because you trusted her with your $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 rig and she showed up this morning to get into the pit of a 10-minute oil change place for 15 bucks an hour, 17 hours a week, no full-time job, no full-time benefits, no opportunity to grow. Why is she there? And if she's that good and she would show up for that, what would she do for you if she knew that all of those skills could fit in an entirely different industry that she's never even thought of or considered.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. Full-time, great benefits, great people, doing what she loves.

Chris Czarnik: I know we're short on time, but remember how she got there. This is a really important point for everyone to understand. She's not in that job because she wants to be there. With all her skills, she sent out 30 resumes. She got five responses.

She got three first interviews, two-second interviews, one job offer to that part-time job in the pit of the 10-minute oil change place and she did her market research. She believes that based on her skills, the market has told her that the best job she can get is the part-time job in the pit of that 10-minute oil change place. She's wrong. The only person who knows she wrong in this formula is you, the business owner who runs a contracting firm for roofing. She doesn't know that it exists and she doesn't know that she fits.

So, think about that for a second. And maybe you want to have a little card with a QR code with your job opportunities on the other side, that card should say, you are awesome. We should talk. And hand those out to people that you interact with who are in way worse jobs than the ones that you have available.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love that. I love what you said, "You're awesome. Let's talk." Because that makes people feel good no matter what, right? What they're supposed to be doing.

Chris Czarnik: What's fascinating is, for example, like my friend Luke McCormack, I think you know Luke.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh yeah.

Chris Czarnik: Listen, I work almost entirely with hourly people. Luke and Talent Roofing America. If you need salary people go talk to Luke. He's really great at that. But I deal almost entirely with hourly people.
Those hourly people really believe that they're in the best job that they can get, and they've never been approached by a recruiter, ever. Think about this. If you've ever been approached by a recruiter, it feels great. Hourly people have never had that experience, and you can create it for them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. Man, I love that. Okay. I do want to talk a little bit about what you're doing helping. You talked about Vistage, and you're out there and you're just talking and really helping CEOs out there, but you also are doing a lot individually with companies and with HR departments on this thing. Can you talk a little bit about that? Just I want everybody out there to hear what you're doing in that realm.

Chris Czarnik: Sure. So, the Winning the War for Talent workshops, I do, I've done with them with a couple hundred companies in the last five years. I literally come in and in one day I build a four-person team with people that already exist and teach them an entirely different way to recruit, retain and develop talent. And then, I give them virtual coaching by Zoom for the next three months as they implement all the strategies. And if you go to chrisczarnik.com, you'll see dozens and dozens of great recommendations from companies that said, "Oh, nobody wants to work and everybody's lazy and we can't find people."

On this transformation when I teach this entirely different way of doing it, they say, "We're fully staffed. We have a line of people waiting at the door to come in." And so, if you've convinced yourself somehow that there's nothing you can do and it's outside of your control and you've caught yourself blaming the world a little bit, it's not the world's fault. You don't have good people, just like it's not the world's fault because you didn't have your next new customer. And so, I teach companies.

And listen, I tell people, "I'm a surgeon. I'm not a chiropractor. I teach you once over that three-month period of time and you'll fix it forever. And not only that, it is a developmental opportunity for the people inside your organization. So, if you never want to worry about talent again and then retaining and developing that talent, I definitely think we can be of help."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. Man, I love that. So, I just want to summarize some of the tips. There's so many things, but talking about getting involved with vocational schools and getting on their advisory committees, writing better ads and applications and also going and finding these tools for success. Overall, can you just give us some nuggets and just let's summarize some of those nuggets and some of your thoughts for the contractors out there and what they should be thinking about for 2025 with this recruitment and retention.

Chris Czarnik: So, the question is, the first step I do with every company I work with is find out the cost of an open position. And so, let's say, I promise you as a contractor, you won't do anything until it reflects on your PNL. I've been in front of 5,000 CEOs. I tell them, with love, with professional love, "I love you all. But if it's not on the PNL, you don't do it."

So, the first thing to do is identify the cost of open positions and then treat this recruiting effort with the same urgency you would, a safety or a quality issue of the same magnitude. So, if every position you have open is $60,000 to the bottom line and you've got five positions open, you have a $300,000 talent issue. And so, the question is, if you had a $300,000 quality issue, how many skills and how many resources would you put towards fixing that? All of them. And so, this is the same urgency and the same problem, but mostly start with this premise.

Nobody knows where they belong. The people you're looking to recruit have no idea that roofing, commercial and residential exists. Their preconceived notions about it are almost all false. Show me one TV show or movie that shows roofing in a positive light, right? Number three, the technical colleges would love to know about all the certification programs and the new advances in roofing and you could go talk to the dean of their residential construction area, but most importantly, my people desperately want your job. So, if they're showing up for a part-time job working third shift at a convenience store, you got to look at that and say they don't want to be there.

The problem is not that they didn't choose roofing. The problem is they didn't know it existed and that didn't know they fit. We have to spend as much time convincing that person, they belong in roofing as we do the next client or customer, that they should buy their roofing from us.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Man, I love it. I love it. Chris, you are amazing. You are amazing. This is so inspirational. I love that.

Chris Czarnik: Heidi, I'm grateful. And again, none of this happens without the roofing industry. And so, I would encourage people who are watching this, if you just have a question, I mean, as you can tell, I like talking about this. If you're a roofing, just give me a call. Just send a message to Chris at chrisczarnik.com or go to our website or whatever.

Maybe there's just one or two simple ideas I can give you to get started. Or for $15, go buy the book, Winning the War for Talent or you'll find it on Audible. You can listen to it. And I got to tell you, I'm here for the industry because the industry was here for me.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. And that's what I'm going to say. Check out the book Winning the War for Talent. I mean, I just think that's it. I've seen it. I've browsed it. I've started to read it.

So, I'm on course with all of this. And Chris, we are also going to work on getting a directory on our site so people can find you through RoofersCoffeeShop, through that directory or get the link to go buy the book, all that kind of stuff. So, watch for that too because that will be coming.

Chris Czarnik: I'm really grateful for your support along the way. Let's fill these jobs because I'm telling you, we provide an unbelievable service. We have an opportunity to create fantastic careers for people. They don't know we exist. It's our job, not theirs. It's our job to let them know that they belong here.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for being on Contractor Outlook newscast. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It's a highlight. Thank you.

Chris Czarnik: Heidi, it's been my pleasure. Thanks very much. Talk soon.

Outro: Thank you. Talk soon. And everybody, thank you so much for listening. Wow. This is the kind of stuff that can change your business. So, please be sure to check out Chris's website, check out his directory on RoofersCoffeeShop and get that book.

I'm telling you, Winning the War for Talent, you got to check it out. Please check out all of our newscasts, which are on RoofersCoffeeShop and all of the coffee shops. You can find them under the RLW sections or on your favorite podcast channel or on YouTube. Be sure to check out all Contractor Outlook newscasts. Thank you so much for being here, and have a great day.