Finding, attracting and retaining good employees
You can have the perfect location and the best equipment, but the right people are a company's most important asset
BY Wayne Walley
Wayne Walley is editor of Rental Management, the official magazine of the American Rental Association, 1900 19th St., Moline, IL 61265; (800) 334-2177 or (309) 764-2475, ext. 253; fax (309) 764-2747; e-mail wayne.walley@ararental.org
Those who own or manage rental businesses almost always say the No. 1 concern is finding good potential employees and convincing them to join the rental industry. Once someone good is hired, the next concern is how to retain them.
This quandary impacts everyone in the rental business, from the independent single-location business to the national chains.
"One of the fundamental things you need for a rental business is people. You need people to repair equipment. You need people to deliver equipment. The biggest portion of labor in the rental industry often is related to mechanical and delivery. This is a very important portion of labor because it is a touch point with the customer," says Michael Kneeland, executive vice president, operations, United Rentals, Greenwich, Conn.
United Rentals has more than 14,000 employees working at an estimated 760 branches in North America. In several ways, the company has strived to perfect its job-search techniques using everything from job fairs to online job boards.
"We do fill our jobs, but we are always looking for the best of the best," says Craig Pintoff, United Rentals’ vice president of human resources.
"Rental is a customer-service industry. We hire a lot of service technicians every year and what we do is utilize many tools. We promote from within, taking people in the yards and moving them into technician roles. We recruit from vocational schools and the military. A lot of employees surprisingly come from online job boards. Recruiting in the 21st century has changed for all of our roles," he says.
Competition for qualified applicants, however, is fierce. Manufacturers, distributors, construction companies, auto shops, airlines and more are all looking for people to fill similar positions.
"We’re always recruiting," says Doug Fleury, marketing manager for Rebel Rents in Temecula, Calif.
"We’ve done job fairs and Web postings. We have our Web site for people to apply for a position. We also do referrals in our company. If an employee recommends someone and that person comes to work for us, we give a reward for that," Fleury says.
"The challenges that our industry has in recruiting are not something that can be solved overnight. We are finding challenges in finding qualified people," adds Kenny May, director of recruitment and retention at Sunbelt Rentals in Charlotte, N.C.
"This is especially true for field operators including drivers, mechanics and sales professionals. I think that the rental industry has not been a career choice for many candidates that we are now trying to recruit. Many of our employees indicate that they fell into the industry. It wasn’t a conscious career choice. We have to build awareness so that candidates understand the career opportunities they have in this growing industry," May says.
Many rental businesses have turned to the military, vocational schools, high schools, colleges and universities as specific recruiting grounds for employees, but the results are mixed because those seeking positions do not understand what the equipment rental business is.
"When we recruit at schools or at a job fair, students and candidates often ask, ‘What do you do?’ We have to do a better job of marketing career opportunities at all levels. We can all individually raise awareness of opportunities for the companies we work for, but a concerted effort through the industry will have a greater impact. The industry needs a concerted effort," May says.
In response to this need, the American Rental Association is spearheading the industry’s first comprehensive ongoing recruitment effort starting this month.
The association has developed special recruiting brochures to help rental businesses better describe and promote equipment rental career opportunities. One brochure targets service technicians while another offers an overview of jobs in the general equipment rental industry and another focuses on career opportunities in the party and event rental field. Rental businesses can order copies of the brochures by calling ARA Member Services at (800) 334-2177.
The ARA is launching a new online rental career center, www.RentalCareers.com, as a Web site for rental businesses to post job openings and for those seeking employment to post résumés.
An ARA-facilitated working group of members also addressed the issue of standardized position descriptions for technicians. The now-complete descriptions outline different levels for service technicians and are expected to be a tool to help rental operators recruit new technicians to the industry.
Despite difficulties in finding qualified applicants, several people say one of the keys to retaining good employees is being more selective and hiring the right person in the first place.
"Our managers are realizing there’s more to the retention of employees at the front-end of the hiring process," May says. "The first thing is to hire the right person, at the right time, in the right position. We have built career ladders based on competencies for all of our positions in the field to drive success and to change behavior and mindset with our workforce. There are traits, skills and behaviors we look for not only during the hiring process, but also in building development and training programs. To that end, we have revamped our performance management program in terms of how we evaluate employees and how employees are accountable for their development through the program. Managing our talent is critical."
When asked about retaining good employees, almost everyone says the key is creating a way for people to learn, grow and build a career. Kneeland says United Rentals’ recipe for keeping good employees includes compensating people for their abilities and showing them how to develop their career.
"No one wants to do the same thing for the rest of their life. We also offer portability to move from location to location. We also have spent time and effort on employee engagement. We had ‘Town Hall Meetings’ for 8,000 hourly employees with management talking about issues. We want to find ways to be engaged because the customers also touch drivers, outside mechanics and yard personnel," Kneeland says.
"How you attract people and keep them is to offer them a career," says Daniel Kaplan, founder of Daniel Kaplan Associates in Morristown, N.J. Kaplan, who was the head of Hertz Equipment Rental Corp. from 1982 to 1997, says the situation of finding good employees has improved as the rental industry has become bigger and more professional.
"People want to get ahead and they have to believe there is a career path if you want to keep them. How high or how far someone can go is the glue that can keep good employees. The national rental companies can offer this, but it is more of a challenge for the independent with one store," Kaplan says.
As a consultant, Kaplan would advise rental companies to "hire an educated person and I don’t just mean a person with a college education but someone who can hold an intelligent conversation and close a rental. You need to hire people you can promote."
Charlie Neffle, owner of All Occasions Event Rental in Cincinnati, agrees that creating a career path is important for the rental industry to be able to attract better employees.
"You need an industry where people come in, learn new skills, grow and move through the ranks of management. For us in the party and event side of the business, the certified event rental professional (CERP) program is a great tool," Neffle says.
"Young people today like to see a career path and they like to learn. You have to give them new things to learn and new challenges. We have the partyCAD system. Typically three people here knew the software. Now, we’ve opened it up for all event consultants to learn it," he says.
Another Neffle secret to retaining employees is to provide a nicer work environment. For example, the dishwashing and laundry area at All Occasions Event Rental is air-conditioned.
"We are proud that we have long-term staff members. We have a couple of people who have been here 26 years and some who have been here 20 years," he says.
Fleury says Rebel Rents provides employees with benefits, a 401(k) plan and more. "We have a good work environment. We have rewards and training. It’s all aimed to retain the people we have," he says.
"We are aware that service technicians are hard to retain. The money they can make here, they can make elsewhere. Once someone is in the door, however, we try to make them happy by doing other things. We have defined who we are looking for. Our expectations are higher and we have the same problems recruiting, but we have less turnover and we are getting better employees," he says.
Some of those "other" things include what Fleury calls a "gold star" program. Any employee, he explains, can award a gold star to another employee. The employee who gets the gold star also gets $20 and an entry into a drawing that happens twice a year.
"We pick someone and send them on a special weekend trip with cash. If someone does a good job, no matter if they are on the same level or below, you can give that person a gold star," he says.
As for retaining good employees, United Rentals aims to offer people a career path and training. Pintoff says technicians are eligible for $1,000 per year to be used for outside vocational technical assistance.
In addition, United Rentals is focused on training managers to be better leaders. "People leave because they don’t like managers or they don’t trust the managers. We make sure we have good people leading the shop and leading the branches," Pintoff says. "People also need to learn and feel they are developing. We provide clearly defined career paths with opportunities all the way up to regional vice presidents who started as service technicians. There is a path to take if you are ambitious enough," he says.
"Every mechanic and service technician has to know what it takes to get to the next level. We have e-learning opportunities and live training and we have instituted a mandatory mid-year career performance evaluation to talk about career development," Pintoff says.
As everyone in the rental industry does more to find, attract and retain good employees, the hope is that the effort will result in a greater pool of good employees.
"We’re raising the bar and I think the rental industry in general is doing the same thing. As the industry gets more sophisticated and as you polish your image, you ask for better people and you recruit better people," Fleury says.
