Episode 150
Why Your New Hires Suck (And It’s Probably Your Fault)
When your team isn’t clear on what success looks like, it usually means expectations weren’t defined early on. Whether it’s a new hire just starting out or a long-time employee unsure about how to move up, we’ve seen how unclear expectations can lead to frustration—for everyone. In this episode, we’re talking about how to create clear, realistic pathways for growth, accountability, and performance, without overcomplicating the process.
We’re kicking off Q2 with a real talk about what owners and managers need to think about when hiring and promoting talent—especially when summer hires and Gen Z workers start entering the mix. Whether you’re running a crew, a shop, or a service company, you can’t afford to wing it when it comes to accountability.
In this episode, we break down a system that have helped our clients build: four tiers of general labor, each with its own clear set of expectations and pay scale. We talk about why it’s OK for people to stay at level one, how to structure promotions so they actually mean something, and what to do when someone stops pulling their weight.
We also get into the mindset shift needed for employees and business owners alike: how to use clarity as a tool, why results should drive pay (not favoritism), and how to make sure your team understands the path forward—if they want to take it. Spoiler: not everyone will. And that’s fine.
If you’ve been stuck between trying to raise the ceiling vs. raising the floor in your business, this episode is for you. It’s all about building something sustainable—and that starts with setting expectations that actually work.
Highlights
- The difference between task-based vs. results-based expectations
- Why Gen Z employees need clarity—and how to give it to them
- The tier system one company uses to guide hiring, raises, and accountability
- How to make room for workers who don’t want to “move up”
- Why it’s okay to demote employees (and how to do it the right way)
- What it really means if your team isn’t referring people to work with you
If this episode gave you something to think about, do us a favor—subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts. And hey, share it with another owner or manager who could use some no-BS hiring advice.
General Labor Position Agreements
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Transcript
Welcome back to this episode of blue collar BS. I am Brad with my great co host. There you go. Awesome, sir. This episode here should be recording early April. So end of April, I should say beginning of May, which means that we have completed the first month of q2. We've gone through q1, we have gone through the first month of q2. And many of our
Steve Doyle (:Steve.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Ooh.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:listeners, clients, etc. are probably scratching their head going, what the fuck are we going to do for the rest of the year?
Steve Doyle (:Could be. be.
Brad Herda (:Could be, could be, or they're gonna be scratching our going, holy shit, we're way too busy. How do we find the people? Where do we pick up the opportunity? Where, how do we find them? How do we do things? So I thought today would be a great opportunity to go through maybe some expectation settings and how to think about expectations different from a results perspective versus a task perspective.
Steve Doyle (:Right?
Steve Doyle (:or
Steve Doyle (:Okay, Good, good.
Brad Herda (:And I have had great success with my clients in this phase. I've had HVAC units had four or five techs that are Gen Z and then they become very successful because the leaders following and showing and providing a path forward. So that was my thoughts. What are your thoughts there, Mr. Doyle?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, I like that idea. Now, the whole thing, as we're coming out, it's, you know, roughly somewhere around the end of April, beginning of May, right? We also have maybe some high school grads that are entering the workforce, you know, as they are graduating going, hey, let's, either I'm, I'm, I'm ready to, to enter the workforce or I'm quote unquote in a summer job. A lot of times in.
those of us that are in the construction industry, we see these bumps where these younger adults are coming into the workforce, but yet we're not real clear with those expectations. So I think this is timely.
Brad Herda (:Right. So we did this with one of my clients who hired younger staff members, but always struggled with what do I pay them? What do I do? All of the things. And where we ended up going was kind of setting out four different tiers of his general labor. Right. So he had four tiers of general labor. Those four tiers had wage scales that overlapped because because maybe somebody didn't want to take that next level of commitment to go to the next level.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Steve Doyle (:OK. Yep.
Brad Herda (:They were happy where they're at. And that's where I think many organizations get stuck with. Well, you could do better, but they don't want to do better. And do you need them to do better?
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:And being able to understand what better means is vitally important. You know, so we broke it down into, you know, strategic things where they can feel like they're part of the organization and thinking about the bigger picture. Very small, simple things for that. That high school student that might be coming in as a level one. Just just research some tools, research some things. What are some cool things that maybe we could use?
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:that you feel could benefit us on the job site. Maybe another way to improve our customer experience.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:All right, you're a young, typically young person. How would you think that that client may want to be treated versus, you know, maybe the business owner knocking on the door, all gruff, cigarette in hand, dropping butts in front of the door and having that conversation. That sends a very different message than if you have cleaned up, washed up, put the booties on. Hey, Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, I'd like to come in and have a chat with you about your project.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:You know, and somebody else can see that, but you're so tied up in doing all of your business that you forget.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yeah, I give an example. I have a boiler in my house and over time, so the first person to work on it was the owner. Why? Because he had no one else to work on boilers in the house. So from a soldering to from soldering pipes to actually understanding how a boiler works, he was the only one. And then
Several months later, I actually upgraded my boiler and upgraded my system and he brought back, he brought out his apprentice to actually show all the, all the show him all the things of how do we actually set up residential boilers. The thing was, is they were actually going through a job description and actually creating, Hey, these are expectations of what I expect you to do while you're with a client. Now I knew this coming in and I said, yeah, absolutely.
I want you to actually show them how to actually treat your customers. And it truly went from the person wasn't going to wear booties and he's like, no, we always wear booties in the house from an expectation standpoint. And so I let them, I let them come in and let them do their thing. One of the other things was is they also quickly understood that I actually knew how to sweat pipes.
And so, and I would actually pull apart some of the stuff that they did and I actually cleaned it and showed them, actually, hey, this is how your diaphragm works on this, on this component. And you can actually clean it and not replace it. So I actually do understand a little bit more than the average homeowner, how to actually do these things. And so even the apprentice was like, so if you called me with a problem, you, I can actually walk you through how to fix this. So I don't have to come out here.
and waste like a Saturday if you do something stupid like, I don't know, maybe puncture your own line because it was hidden behind some drywall.
Brad Herda (:or they could invest in Live Switch and you guys could communicate via telephone with video.
Steve Doyle (:we ended up doing that because I was that stupid one that actually, you know, punctured a line in my house because I forgot that the line was there. But going back to the expectations for the employee, the owner was very clear and transparent with how he was trying to help his younger employee actually be the apprentice in with residential boilers. So it was really, it was really
because otherwise this person would not have had the opportunity to move up the way that he did to be specialized with boilers.
Brad Herda (:All right. The other thing owners often forget, often forget and overlook strategically. Your employees are your greatest resources for referrals. Whether you're hiring or not, your employee should be making an introduction to somebody at least once a quarter, once every two quarters, something. You should have an expectation that your employees are introducing you or your hiring managers or somebody.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:to somebody they know that would want to be part of this team. And it might not be the right time or the right thing, but those introductions go a long way over the course of time.
Steve Doyle (:Absolutely.
Steve Doyle (:Absolutely. the thing to point out here is if you're not getting your employees to make recommendations for people to work there, that speaks volumes to the culture that you have. Because if you're not getting employees to recommend something, something to recommend somebody coming in, something's wrong.
Brad Herda (:That means they don't want their friends there.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Right. So, Brad, you said you've got four tiers, kind of at that thing. Help our audience, why would you break it down into four tiers for, I think you said general labor, right? Why would there be four tiers with general labor?
Brad Herda (:You know,
Brad Herda (:Yep. Because there's a different level of expectation along the way, so like as tactical as an example. So maybe you've got somebody that is young and likes to play games all night and they show up late, which we hear all the time. They can't show up on time. OK, cool. If you want to be a general labor, great. You got two days a week to be 15 minutes late.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:take all the pressure off of off of you as the owner to be worried about it and put all the burden on them knowing that they will never get to that next level without without being there 100 % on time we flip the switch and put the burden on the employee versus the burden on the employer
Steve Doyle (:Alright.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:But you have to outline what that all looks like and what that pay raise looks like along the way. Right. So that's one that's one of the items maybe that's there. They may be slower. Right. You may think it's going to take an hour and a half to frame one standard exterior wall for an addition. know, a 12 foot by eight foot wall. It's going to take an hour and a half to frame it.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Whoa, that's a long time. As example, yeah.
Brad Herda (:I understand, but let's just I'm just using a number. Just using that a number, but that kid that new person might do it in. He's going to need 15 % more time to do it and then level two might need to be on time. Level three might be the expectation is 90 % of it and level four. The guy that can bang it out. He might be 85 % of that time is needed. Right to show that performance level and what are their?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
and
Brad Herda (:What are their cut rates? Are they scrapping stuff all the time because they're moving too fast? Are we ordering all new 20 footers because we didn't look at things correctly?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:you
Right. Right.
Brad Herda (:Right. yeah. Are we we loading the trailer in a reasonable fashion? Right. So the more that can show is what brings the value to the organization and the more of those things you can do shows the value. And it makes it very clear for everybody on the team. How do I get more money now? Here's the catch. The way I try to get my clients to adhere to this is.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Hehe.
Brad Herda (:The employee needs to demonstrate that next level of performance consistently for three to six months before you move them, depending upon your organization. Some are three, some are six, but at least three months of, hey, this is where I want to be. Cool. If they demonstrate three months of where they used to be, they go back to where they used to be. At least here in the state of Wisconsin, we can take dollars away.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Right.
Steve Doyle (:Ooh. Yep.
Brad Herda (:we can remove those dollars, can demote them from that perspective so that there's not complacency.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. Correct.
Brad Herda (:And it's all based on, you know, what you might have for tools and systems in play. If you have, if you're using a service Titan system, you have data, you have things, you have opportunity, you have the ability to, put those things in place to set expectations, to know who your good employee is and who your bad employees are from a performance perspective. Just because you like Josh and don't like Steve.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Doesn't mean Josh gets the raise and Steve gets fucked even though Steve's the one doing all the work and doing it correctly the first time.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:We might just have to do a different training with him or get him to, you know, take the stick out of his ass or whatever has got going on.
Steve Doyle (:Whatever. So that's an interesting concept because I will say most employers don't feel that they can actually, once they brought somebody to a level, don't feel like, hey, you're telling me I can actually put them back at a level? Yeah, you can. And you should.
And there shouldn't be any recourse for, or recourse isn't the right word, but you shouldn't feel bad because somebody can't just continuously display a higher level of performance. It's just, this is where they're at.
Brad Herda (:called stealing.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, when somebody is actually doing that to you.
Brad Herda (:Alright, so just being able to, but when you set the expectation from the get-go, when you build out the infrastructure for that, and you're able to be clear about it, it allows you as the owner to know what's going on. It allows you, the middle managers to know what's going on, the site superintendent, whoever that is, to know what the expectations are. And then it allows all the employees to know what the expectations are.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:And you got to be comfortable with where the floor is. the reason for me personally, why I enjoy this is because we then start working to raise the floor instead of trying to raise the ceiling. Because if we can raise the floor, we gain so much more than trying to raise the ceiling, organizationally and profitability-wise.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yep. So if you're an employee listening, if we have an employee listening, what are some of your suggestions that you have for them as they're hearing about this?
Brad Herda (:Well, one, going to have the, I'll have the, we will have the four levels of this general labor piece to it that you can see, you can download to get that for you. So you can see what that looks like. It's based on things from E-Myth, the book E-Myth. So you can grab that book to try to get more clarity on it, or you can just have the conversation with us and drop us a note and say, hey,
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:How does this make sense? Does this look good? Does this not look good? It's not a problem. That's what we're here for is to allow organizations to be better, to attract and retain not only young talent, but all talent.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Now, I can already sense hesitation because I mean, I've worked with companies where HR they're like, I don't know if we can do this. What do you say to the those HR people that are kind of listening? Okay, this is you're kind of on the edge. huh. And yep. Nope. Nope.
Brad Herda (:Are we, we're on the edge. Are we over? Are we over? Okay, so what's the problem?
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yeah, there is. This is about running your business, not about having employees run your business or an HR component run your business. This is about you as the owner taking charge and setting your business up for success.
Brad Herda (:And when you go down this path of accountability, will have long-term employees decide to leave.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm, you will.
Brad Herda (:Because they don't like it because they're not willing to do the work like yeah, this is bullshit and You know what you need to be okay with that and They may be a family member and you need to be okay with that Because it's about the business and And yes, the business is the people if the people aren't willing to do things that are right for the business Then the business can't take care of the people
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Hmm?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
and
Steve Doyle (:Right. Absolutely. But you also have to look is are the were these the right people if they take issue with this, if they take issue with accountability, were these the right people to be working in your business? Is this an opportunity for a clean slate for you to run the business on accountability?
Brad Herda (:Well, and find that maybe Sally sucks at AR and AP, but accelerates at daily bookkeeping. OK, well, let's flip rolls and go from there. Or it could be a spectacular administrative assistant once you know what all those things are and figure out where people can go and go, she,
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:because she was doing it from her ARP role for the accounting manager, but the accounting manager doesn't need an administrative assistant because maybe the accounting manager wasn't pulled in all their weight.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Right.
Brad Herda (:Not that we've seen any of those types of things ever happen.
Steve Doyle (:Never. Never. As I'm thinking about this.
Do you believe that everything should be included in one single document, i.e. for the one through four, they're all different documents, but from a transparency standpoint, all of the accountability metrics and all of that, should those all be in one document or multiple documents? Like you have your job description in one, do you have accountability for the role in another one, things like that.
Brad Herda (:I'm a fan of here's the job description just because when you go out and post stuff, it's there. I like to keep them separate instead of breaking, baking them in because what happens is many job descriptions are trying to find unicorns or that I can bring in the various things of all the other thing, all the other roles into that job description and then show them the results across the multiple roles that they're going to hold.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:Because just because they're general labor, right? That's general labor, but they also might be part of the finishing crew or the painting crew. Okay. Here's a general labor. and as they get lot, right. As they, as an organization may grow, Hey, that general labor pool now is broken up into roughing, finishing interior, exterior work. Okay. Now, now I've got
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:roughing level one, two, and three, interior one, two, three, know, right now we have, we've created these other levels of complexity potentially, but that complexity really creates clarity.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Okay, interesting. Now, you know, I differ on this one because I like to have everything in one document. So for general, let's call it general labor one, I like to have full clarity in one document. So I don't have to remember where everything is. And this is just a philosophy difference of, of that because it's six and one half a dozen the other.
Brad Herda (:Correct. Yep. And for me, it's just a matter of working from the results base to it. Because if they're delivering the results, they're meeting a job description.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Brad Herda (:And typically many organizations don't want to put results in their job description because results change. I might have published that job posting out there in January. We're now in April or May. And oh, well, you you're going to do this. Now it's this. Oh, well, now it's false advertising or something like that. And bait and switch. it's like, so it's just not worth it in my mind.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I don't get specific on the the the nuances of the results. I get specific on what they're going to be held accountable for. As far as hey, yes, these are the goals, but in general, these are always going to be the goals. These are what you're going to be held accountable for. This is what success actually looks like in the role, and those are different than hey, this is what the job description is.
Brad Herda (:Correct. Job description and results are different. Yes. Job descriptions tend to focus on tasks. This is what we're focusing on results. Right. And you can either use emith, you could use some of the traction stuff that you could use some of the gold. There's lots of different places to go find bits and pieces, but we will have our versions of
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, so that's why I like.
Yes, they are.
Hmm.
Mm hmm. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:these things out for download for you.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, absolutely. Well, great conversation today, Brad. I appreciate you bringing this up.
Brad Herda (:So, all right.
Brad Herda (:Not a problem, sir. I appreciate it and let's enjoy the beginning of baseball season here as we're into month number two here. All right, sir, take care.
Steve Doyle (:Yes, sir.
Right. Excellent. All right. Yeah, you too.
