Help wanted: Tackling workforce development

You have skilled positions at your operation that you need to fill — service technicians, drivers, counter and warehouse personnel, and/or tent installers. You rely on your normal recruiting methods, including posting the positions on your website, on Indeed.com and other recruiting sites, but you still can’t find the right people to fill those jobs. It’s not only frustrating, but it is getting to the point where it’s impacting your ability to serve your customers.

Small rental operations are dealing with this regularly, including during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“It’s difficult for us to find and attract employees,” says Doug Haas, president of his family’s operation, Crown Rental in Burnsville, Minn. “We’re a small operation that is competing with larger rental operations as well as other industries.”

Large rental operations aren’t immune to this issue either.

“We recognized the situation about six to eight years ago when we started to have some of our technicians retire. We’ve been in business 42 years, so as people were retiring, it was difficult to find a pipeline of young talent. The rental industry is not well known to the people who are producing technicians,” says Larry Cox, vice president of culture at Phoenix-based Sunstate Equipment Rental. Click here to access Sunstate’s career page.

While his company has taken measures to address this situation, “it’s still an issue because we continue to have people who are retiring, plus we are growing. As we expand, finding technicians and drivers is a problem,” Cox says.

This problem is a true equalizer that confronts rental operations — no matter what size or rental market served — every day. It has become so prevalent that the industry views it as a crisis that must be addressed.

Learn how rental stores and the American Rental Association (ARA) are working to overcome the hiring challenge and find tips for hiring during a crisis inside the September issue of Rental Management magazine.

If you are in the equipment rental industry, you can get a free subscription to Rental Management by clicking here.