DW Companies, an excavation contractor based in Cambridge, Minnesota, has grown from five to 30 employees in just five years.
But what’s even more impressive is the company’s ever-growing job-candidate waiting list, with at least 10 new applications coming in each week.
While many construction companies struggle to attract talent, DW is excelling. So, what’s its secret?
There are many factors, but key – and replicable – pillars to their success include brand establishment, team building, professional development and community involvement.
Driving these initiatives are two former teachers: Kayti Bjorklund-Strandlund, the co-owner and human resources director of DW Companies, and Ry Bostrom, the company’s marketing director.
Together, the pair have also formed The Repurposed Educator, a service line of DW Companies with a mission of helping construction firms become places where people want to work and stay.
The professional development content created by Kayti and Ry, available through The Repurposed Educator, is tailored to the construction industry. Online courses, downloadable guides and live coaching services are available. They also train construction companies and dealers on how to engage the next generation.
Maximizing Community Involvement
While workforce development can feel overwhelming, getting involved at the school board level is the best first step in shaping your local education system and talent pipeline. Kayti and Ry have noticed that the machine-operating trade is not as well represented on school boards, especially compared to other trades like carpentry, electrical work or plumbing.
“There are kids that have interest; they just don’t even know you exist,” says Ry. “You have to start with showing you exist. Colleges and tech schools spend a lot of energy, time, resources and money trying to attract kids to their campuses – you need to do the same.”
Locally, the duo has seen positive changes from their efforts, with their town’s high school passing a levy to bring trade education back into the curriculum. The school has also replaced “College Fridays” with “Career Fridays,” where students are encouraged to wear sweatshirts from the company they plan to work for or the college they will attend.
“There’s definitely a mindset shift. It’s not college readiness, it’s career readiness,” says Kayti.
Kayti and Ry have found classroom talks to be more effective than career expos when it comes to engaging students. For those who are participating in career fairs or expos, Ry suggests incorporating attention-grabbing elements at your booth, such as games, simulator stations, video walls, jobsite models with kinetic sand and diecast equipment, or desirable giveaways like hats or hoodies, not pens and keychains. Students should earn the prize by answering trivia or asking insightful questions.
Most important, they stress the need to bring company spokespeople who genuinely enjoy talking to kids. “We bring some drama; we bring some fun, and we bring some joking. You have to have the right people in place to engage the kids. If it’s somebody that doesn’t enjoy talking to kids, it’s kind of a waste of time,” says Kayti. “You have to take the initiative; you have to plan and you have to be creative.”
Moreover, don’t hesitate to challenge the status quo of what the school district is offering for engagement opportunities, the pair says.
After participating in a lackluster career panel where each trade only got five minutes to speak, Kayti and Ry went back to the principal and career coordinator with suggestions for an enhanced experience for both the students and businesses.
“The reason most schools are struggling to get businesses to participate is because there’s no return on their time,” says Ry.
“We helped them revise their experience to be a career day instead of a career morning, where students pick their top few choices and then attend classroom sessions with you. That classroom session was so much better. We had 30 minutes with kids who were truly interested in the industry instead of speaking to the masses,” adds Kayti.
Their school involvement, combined with an active social media presence, has driven a large majority of their applicants.
“Consistently sharing the values and culture of our company has been a magnet,” says Ry.
DW CompaniesOnboarding for Success
DW Companies says its application and interview process is rigorous – and for good reason. It helps weed out candidates whose values or expectations don’t align with the company.
“We’ve had a few people who have exited themselves from the interview process or probationary period because they knew the culture and expectations were much higher than they wanted to be in,” says Kayti.
“And that’s a good thing, because we don’t get high every day, and we don’t go to the bar every night. If that’s what you’re looking for, there are lots of other places for you. We don’t want that. We’re thoroughbreds here, not donkeys.”
The application includes a personality assessment, short- answer questions and other qualifying criteria. The personality assessment helps Kayti and Ry match the new employees to mentors.
“A lot of these Gen Z’ers are just not being trained and not given the opportunities that other generations have had,” says Ry. “You really need to start from the bare bones, and mentorship is so important in that training, as well as giving them experiential learning opportunities.”
The assessment also helps them decide where an employee might fit best on a crew.
“Just because there’s an opening on one crew, it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t’ shift people around because that person brings a different skill set or experience that might be more helpful than the position we were looking to hire for,” says Kayti. “We’re always thinking about best fit and overall team approach.”
Once hired, employees get a color-coded sticker on their hardhats to indicate their primary personality type, their motivators and their triggers.
Red = “Doers”
Yellow = “Seers”
Orange = “Connectors”
Green = “Feelers”
“They might not remember every little thing about a teammate's color, but at a minimum, they should see that color and think, 'It’s not the same as mine.' They probably perceive a situation differently or have different ideas about it. Take a breath and ask some questions before we blow our top.”
DW Companies offers new employees the opportunity to rotate between the residential and commercial side of the business to see which they prefer. “We have a lot of conversations during that time to understand how it’s going, what they like doing and what type of work they’re connecting with the most,” says Kayti. “We really try to be intentional those first three months to find them a good fit.”
DW CompaniesGiving Employees a Career Path
DW Companies is committed to hiring employees for the long haul. “We don’t want to hire for the short term,” says Ry. “We hire people seeking careers. If we feel like people are starting to think that it’s just a job, we ask how can we coach up or how can we coach out, if we need to.”
Instead of biannual reviews, career conversations are regularly held with each employee. The conversations include direct feedback from teammates based on three key qualities: communication, honesty and teamwork.
Employees are rated on a 0-to-10 scale based on how well they exemplify those qualities, along with examples of how or why not. Team leads look to identify patterns in the feedback and talk through the responses with the employee.
“The conversations are always super productive, and it always ends with setting a goal for improvement,” says Kayti.
The conversations are also an opportunity for managers to ask growth-focused questions, including:
What do you want to get better at?
Where do you see your most potential for growth?
Where do you see yourself in the company?
DW CompaniesBuilding Better Leaders
Kayti and Ry recognize that most people are not born with leadership skills; rather, they need to be trained. All team leads at DW Companies undergo leadership training, and all employees participate in conflict-resolution training. This training helps teams communicate better by giving employees the tools to give and receive feedback during difficult situations.
“It’s very intense training. Everybody’s up, everybody’s moving and everybody’s talking to each other. They’re forced in and out of groups. It’s meant to be uncomfortable because so is conflict,” says Ry. “They have to learn how to deal with this in a controlled environment so they can apply it out in the field.”
The conflict-resolution training is repeated two to three times each year to ensure the lessons stick. “I think that’s where most organizations make a big mistake is not keeping the training alive. They say that was great, get a printout and go back to doing their day-to-day, and it’s gone,” says Ry.
DW Companies also empowers employees to stand up for the company’s values and speak up if they see something that isn’t in line. In one instance, a 24-year-old team lead was getting pushed around on a jobsite by another subcontractor’s superintendent. Company management stood by the employee, contacted the general contractor and had the jobsite shutdown until all parties agreed to operate professionally.
“If we don’t stop and take a stand at this industry’s culture and bad wrap, things will never change,” said Kayti. “I think that’s pretty empowering to say, 'I’m not going to continue to participate in that. I’m not going to yell back at this guy who is disrespecting me and just make this situation even worse.'”
The pair equate the industry’s resistance to cultural change to its slow adoption of technology, with Kayti adding, “We’re going to see that shift with culture and soft-skills training, where if you’re not doing it, it’s going to be hard to survive, and it’s going to be hard to be competitive.
“That’s one of the things we tell people up front: choose a company that is treating you well and that has a good culture. Because there are so many opportunities out there right now, you have a choice.”
machineryasia 
DW Companies
DW Companies
DW Companies
