First electrician, how?
Discussion
We're a small electrical company (2) and we're looking to recruit our first electrician. It's a big step for us and in the past we've used contractors who have been ok but do limit us in many ways.
We advertised in the usual places and pitched the salary about right and had quite a varied and not very positive experience. Either guys were older and clearly just looking for a basic job or they weren't older! One seemed really good, we had a good interview and then never heard from him again.
The job will be pivotal for us but we also can't pay £££.
A friend with a larger company says he just hires young guys and sends them on day release but no idea what they do on the other 4 days for them. That's not an option for us and so I am wondering how to proceed.
We're not electricians ourselves so its not as if we can mentor a young electrician on jobs.
Any help greatly appreciated....
We advertised in the usual places and pitched the salary about right and had quite a varied and not very positive experience. Either guys were older and clearly just looking for a basic job or they weren't older! One seemed really good, we had a good interview and then never heard from him again.
The job will be pivotal for us but we also can't pay £££.
A friend with a larger company says he just hires young guys and sends them on day release but no idea what they do on the other 4 days for them. That's not an option for us and so I am wondering how to proceed.
We're not electricians ourselves so its not as if we can mentor a young electrician on jobs.
Any help greatly appreciated....
Undirection said:
Had a meeting about it today and we're going to up the budget and see what we get.
Separately our other issue/thing that I am concerned about (as with any employee) is filling his time.We're really busy but filling their time non stop initially could be difficult.
As I said, can you offer stuff that isn't too spendy for you but adds more value for him?Separately our other issue/thing that I am concerned about (as with any employee) is filling his time.We're really busy but filling their time non stop initially could be difficult.
Also, what's your charge-out rate vs what you're going to pay him? How many hours a day do you need to keep him busy to break even?
I'd expect your friends company had a bunch of experienced sparks that the day release juniors work under. The experienced and qualified sparks will then sign off the work done by the juniors, a very cost effective way of running an electrical contract function.
Your problem is chicken and egg is situation of not having enough work to fully employ an experienced spark but needing said qualified spark? Your really only left with two options. 1 suck it up and pay 2. develop a better relationship with the contractors you use.
However before choosing which option you need to ask your if the amount your spending on contractors is significantly more than the amount a staff member doing the role will cost? If it's not significantly more if there isn't another very strong reason why contractors are bad then look to renegotiate with your contractor(s).
By having the function in house managing workload both peaks and troughs becomes your problem to solve and resource. You'll have to have a plan to cover illness, holidays unplanned/unexpected work, hard with only a single person capable of doing the role. Certainly what you don't and shouldn't do is plan the persons workload to be 100% of potential capacity all time.
Of course once you've developed the inhouse function then growing it, potentially by using juniors becomes viable and cost effective strategy.
Your problem is chicken and egg is situation of not having enough work to fully employ an experienced spark but needing said qualified spark? Your really only left with two options. 1 suck it up and pay 2. develop a better relationship with the contractors you use.
However before choosing which option you need to ask your if the amount your spending on contractors is significantly more than the amount a staff member doing the role will cost? If it's not significantly more if there isn't another very strong reason why contractors are bad then look to renegotiate with your contractor(s).
By having the function in house managing workload both peaks and troughs becomes your problem to solve and resource. You'll have to have a plan to cover illness, holidays unplanned/unexpected work, hard with only a single person capable of doing the role. Certainly what you don't and shouldn't do is plan the persons workload to be 100% of potential capacity all time.
Of course once you've developed the inhouse function then growing it, potentially by using juniors becomes viable and cost effective strategy.
Thanks for the responses. I upped the budget by 3-5k and that brought a flurry of new applications, maybe the budget was a little too low.
The guy we really liked came back and apologised, saying he'd been stacked but was keen to meet up so that was good. In the meantime I'll have a few conversations with the new applicants.
Our contractors are good guys but we're always limited by them in a number of ways, for example training on new products, doing little rectification jobs, etc. I understand why of course but that doesn't help us.
We've done the sums and we should be fine to cover the cost of an employed electrician, I just don't want to find out he's got nothing to do for a couple of days but that's the trick so this, keeping him busy. We don't have a choice really but it should reduce the stress on contractor availability and allow us more time to boost marketing and improve conversion rates on commercials.
As we're not from an electrical background there's lots that's new.unknown but we've got this far in 3 years or so.
The guy we really liked came back and apologised, saying he'd been stacked but was keen to meet up so that was good. In the meantime I'll have a few conversations with the new applicants.
Our contractors are good guys but we're always limited by them in a number of ways, for example training on new products, doing little rectification jobs, etc. I understand why of course but that doesn't help us.
We've done the sums and we should be fine to cover the cost of an employed electrician, I just don't want to find out he's got nothing to do for a couple of days but that's the trick so this, keeping him busy. We don't have a choice really but it should reduce the stress on contractor availability and allow us more time to boost marketing and improve conversion rates on commercials.
As we're not from an electrical background there's lots that's new.unknown but we've got this far in 3 years or so.
Just an update on the challenges on this:
Job at lower end of salary scale (28-32)
Job at higher end (32-35)
Frustrating but I think I should have left the adverts up for longer to get a bigger pool of candidates.
Job at lower end of salary scale (28-32)
- One very keen but wanted to relocate from Leeds and I wasn't sure if I wanted the responsibility of him doing that in case he didn't work out
- Spoke to one who just sounded like a basic sparky, not someone i imagined would fit in well with our customers
- Arranged call with one at 3pm. We called and he was in his van and didn't know who we were
- Same again with another, left him a message when we called him but he didn't call back
Job at higher end (32-35)
- One had the right experience and sounded very good on the phone. We arranged an interview and sent an email to confirm but no response. Called his phone and a guy said he'd left the company.
- Another had the right experience and sounded very good on the phone too. We arranged an interview and sent an email to confirm but no response. I emailed him again and he changed his mind despite us/him seeming like a good fit.
Frustrating but I think I should have left the adverts up for longer to get a bigger pool of candidates.
What type of electrical work will they be doing? Commercial? House bashing? Call outs?
I find electricians I know who are employed, want a straight forward, 'easy' life. They don't want to have to think too much. They want to start at 8, get a job sheet with all the details and get on with it, finish at 4. They want all the tools and the van supplied, holidays etc all taken care of. They don't want stress.
I find electricians I know who are employed, want a straight forward, 'easy' life. They don't want to have to think too much. They want to start at 8, get a job sheet with all the details and get on with it, finish at 4. They want all the tools and the van supplied, holidays etc all taken care of. They don't want stress.
megaphone said:
What type of electrical work will they be doing? Commercial? House bashing? Call outs?
I find electricians I know who are employed, want a straight forward, 'easy' life. They don't want to have to think too much. They want to start at 8, get a job sheet with all the details and get on with it, finish at 4. They want all the tools and the van supplied, holidays etc all taken care of. They don't want stress.
If I went back working for someone this is how it would have to be, unless I got £800 a week I would be paid from the neck down.I find electricians I know who are employed, want a straight forward, 'easy' life. They don't want to have to think too much. They want to start at 8, get a job sheet with all the details and get on with it, finish at 4. They want all the tools and the van supplied, holidays etc all taken care of. They don't want stress.
Most sparks I use as subbies that have gone cards in with a firm would expect 40k a year for a 45hr week.
I find it better to use more costly subbies that can be left too it than guys I can make £100 a day on, purely as I end up snagging the work otherwise and my time is too scarce to do this and then question why I bother if I have to follow them around post job.
I'm based in Surrey so realise area will reflect the pay rates too
I find it better to use more costly subbies that can be left too it than guys I can make £100 a day on, purely as I end up snagging the work otherwise and my time is too scarce to do this and then question why I bother if I have to follow them around post job.
I'm based in Surrey so realise area will reflect the pay rates too
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