{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"#493 Hiring, Firing, and Hard Conversations (ft. Squirrel Solutions)","description":"Most remodelers call an HR person when something is already on fire. Somebody quit, somebody needs to be fired, or a role has been empty for three months and the owner is covering it at 9pm. In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser sits down with Bryan Williams, owner of Squirrel Solutions, a fractional HR and operations firm working with remodelers and custom builders across the country. Bryan's whole premise is that the hire is almost never the actual problem. When an owner calls him about a designer or a project manager, his first move is to figure out whether it's a hiring gap \u2014 not enough hours in the day \u2014 or a role design gap, where the work is unclear and another body just adds confusion. He walks through the time study he uses to tell them apart, and the client in New York who set out to hire a project manager and ended up hiring an estimator instead. From there the conversation turns to the stuff owners already know they should do and keep putting off. Job descriptions dated 2016. KPIs nobody checks. The performance conversation that should have happened three years ago and is now costing real money. Bryan lays out the people audit he runs before pushing any change through a company, why he identifies his cheerleaders before he announces a decision, and the "I do, we do, you do" onboarding framework he uses instead of trial by fire \u2014 including how to run it when you only close three custom homes a year and don't have enough at-bats to train on. Logan pushes back throughout on what's realistic for a 20-person shop versus what sounds good on paper. The section on niceness versus kindness is worth the listen on its own. If you've been avoiding a hard conversation with a long-tenured employee because you're worried they'll quit, this episode gives you the case for having it this week instead of three years from now. Resources Mentioned in the Video: Squirrel Solutions https:\/\/solvethesquirrel.com\/ 00:00 Where the name Squirrel Solutions comes from 05:36 The hiring gap vs. the role design gap 06:58 HR as preventative care instead of an ER visit 11:01 Job descriptions from 2016 and new hires who fail on arrival 18:58 Putting a number on every seat: 29:00 The people audit 34:39 "Allow an adult to be an adult" 45:41 I do, we do, you do: onboarding without trial by fire 55:14 Performance reviews and rocks ","author_name":"Contractor Growth Network","author_url":"http:\/\/contractormarketingtips.libsyn.com\/website","html":"