Training your crew
How to Train New Construction Hires Without Tying Up Your Best Lead
Don't make your best lead the only way a new hire learns. Write down the few things every new hire must know about how your company works, have your lead show each one once on a short phone video, and let new hires learn those basics before they reach his crew. Then use your lead's time for what only he can do: checking their work in the field.
Most contractors train new hires the same way they were trained: pair them with a good lead and hope it sticks. It works, up to a point. But it pulls your best person off production, it teaches whatever comes up that week instead of what matters most, and when the new hire leaves, all of that time leaves with him.
Here's a simple way to keep what works about learning from your best people, without tying them up every time someone new starts.
Start with what every new hire must know
Before you train anyone, write a short list of what a new crew member needs to know in their first two weeks. Not everything. Just the things that cause problems when they're missed. For most crews, that list includes:
- How your company starts the day: site walk, plans, tools, and material staged before the first cut
- Your safety rules, and the ones people most often skip
- Two or three core tasks done your company's way, like wall layout or pour-day checks
- The most common mistakes on those tasks, and what they cost you
- How to talk to a homeowner, an inspector, or a GC's superintendent
- Cleanup and closeout expectations at the end of the day
If your list runs past ten items, you're writing a manual. Cut it back. You can always add more later.
Write down how your company does it, not how the textbook does
New hires usually know the basics of the trade. What they don't know is how your company does the work. Your nailing schedule. Your layout sequence. The check your lead makes before he calls a wall done.
For each item on your list, answer three questions in plain words:
- How do we do it here?
- What do new guys usually get wrong?
- How do you know it's done right?
Your lead can answer these in a few minutes, or a supervisor can ask him and write the answers down. One page per task is plenty.
Let your lead show it once
Words only go so far. For each task, have a supervisor film your lead doing it on a normal workday, with a phone. Keep each video under five minutes, and keep it to one task. Your lead doesn't need to be on camera; his hands and his voice explaining what he's doing are often better.
The point is that he shows it once, and every new hire after that sees the same thing. He isn't repeating himself for the tenth time this year, and the new hire isn't getting a rushed version because it's a busy day.
Keep each lesson to one task
It's tempting to put everything into one long training session. Don't. A new hire who watches an hour of video on framing, concrete, and site safety won't remember much of any of it.
One lesson should cover one task for one trade, about 20 to 30 minutes on a phone, done in one sitting. If you have more to cover, make more lessons and group them into a course for new hires.
Train before the first shift, not during it
When the basics are on a phone, a new hire can go through them before they ever reach the jobsite, or in their first morning. They show up already knowing how your company starts the day and what your lead expects. Your lead's first conversation with them can start from there instead of from zero.
If your crew doesn't have company email addresses, that's fine. Printed QR codes or a simple PIN are enough for someone to open training on their own phone.
Make it work for Spanish-speaking hires
If part of your crew understands Spanish better than English, the most important training shouldn't be in their second language. Give each person the version they understand best, and have a bilingual supervisor or lead check the trade terms, since jobsite slang varies from region to region.
Use your lead's time for what only he can do
None of this replaces your lead. It changes how his time gets used. Instead of explaining the basics over and over, he can:
- Watch the new hire do the task and correct what's off
- Sign off when the new hire can do it right in the field
- Spend his teaching time on judgment calls a video can't cover
That's the part of learning from your best people that's worth protecting, and it goes further when he isn't starting from scratch every time.
Check who has actually learned it
Shadowing leaves no record. A week later, it's hard to say who got the full rundown and who didn't. Keep a simple record of who has finished each lesson, who passed a short quiz on it, and who your lead has signed off in the field. It helps you decide who's ready for more responsibility, and it's useful when a GC or insurer asks about training.
When a new hire leaves
Turnover in the trades is a fact of life. When training lives only in your lead's head, every departure means starting over. When the basics are captured once, the next new hire starts with the same lessons on day one, and your lead picks up from there.