It’s difficult to recruit employees for snow removal services. The hours can be long and unpredictable; plus, it’s no surprise employees will be working in the cold.
“It’s hard to recruit in the winter months because it’s seasonal on call,” says Bruce Vander Vennen, president of Jack’s Lawn Service and Snowplowing in Grand Rapids, Mich. “So, employees may only work for a couple hundred hours, but they have to be on call for the entire winter.”
The company’s strategy is to cast as wide a net as possible into the employee pool. “We advertise any way we can: Indeed, Craigslist, job boards in local high schools and colleges to try to get as many people as we can,” Vander Vennen says. “We also ask employees about referrals.”
Another strategy that has worked for the company is to let younger employees put together their own crews, especially if they join the firm with a few friends.
“Typically, young people are all about hanging out with their friends, so we allow them to create their own crew,” Vander Vennen says. “If they have a couple of people they want to work with, we let them work together. There aren’t a whole lot of opportunities for young people that are part time.”
