Lately, the NWFA seems to be a target for finger-pointing as positive changes come through that the "haters" of this industry do not like. Specifically, I am talking about the series of negative comments that came through following the announcement of the NWFA Installation Guidelines being available in Spanish. Strikes me as a little odd that anyone wants to discourage the release of information that could potentially improve this industry and prevent more failed floors. I'm not trying to swing this into a political discussion, but I want to take a more serious tone about the industry and the direction I see it going. That's right, I'm making some assumptions, but blogging occasionally has a subjective tone, and being scared to speak out isn't in my nature.
Lately, the NWFA seems to be a target for finger-pointing as positive changes come through that the "haters" of this industry do not like. Specifically, I am talking about the series of negative comments that came through following the announcement of the NWFA Installation Guidelines being available in Spanish. Strikes me as a little odd that anyone wants to discourage the release of information that could potentially improve this industry and prevent more failed floors. I'm not trying to swing this into a political discussion, but I want to take a more serious tone about the industry and the direction I see it going. That's right, I'm making some assumptions, but blogging occasionally has a subjective tone, and being scared to speak out isn't in my nature.
I'm writing this post at 1 a.m. because I'm frequently awake trying to figure out how to deal with my biggest current problem: a lack of skilled help for my business. The last post I wrote about was regarding the difficulty of finding and keeping good employees these days. I'm still dealing with that problem, and based on the resumes I am getting, it's going to be a long haul to find what my business needs. I'm going to go on a real limb here and say that as long as the politicians keep bartering at giving unemployment benefit extensions to yield tax cut extensions, the employable work force is going to suffer for just as long. I've had several people I wanted to hire tell me that unless they could get 40 hours of work right off the bat or be paid in cash that they didn't want to work for fear of messing up their unemployment benefits.
If our current work force is so coddled and entitled that they are willing to stay unemployed while eating bites of Taco Bell between all the "ROFLMAO" and "LOL" texts on iPhones that I'm paying for in my business taxes, then I'm glad to purge them from the system by hiring someone new. I really don't care in what language the manual was written as long as people know proper installation technique.
This brings me to a crossroads at my post… If I am struggling so much to find employees with a great attitude and skill set, then why not educate a new batch of students regardless of the language? As long as they can communicate with me, do good work and be legally employable, then it will help my business significantly. How you get to the end result of a math problem doesn't matter as long as the method is reproducible and yields a correct answer.
I'm only encouraged by what I've seen at the Expo and where the hardwood flooring business is heading. Customers are getting sick of all the crappy products and false promises that were so prominent in the greenwashing, money-printing epidemic that existed before the economy failed. Buyers who want value are coming back in droves, and they are looking for the best contractors and products that will last for more than three years. Because there is a surge of work coming back to the contractors who maintain high quality and standards, then there must be support to educate the workforce regardless of how we do it. If we do not support education, then the industry is going to become one of indentured servitude because we will never be able to justify raising our prices without raising our level of service and quality.
