An aging skilled workforce is retiring, and there’s a shortage of younger people taking their place. It’s a hot topic among remodeling companies, who are still searching for the right answers to solving their labor shortage.
In this episode, Mischa Fisher, Victoria, and Mark discuss what you can do to bridge the skills gap, and how to change deep-seated perceptions around joining the home-services industry.
Mischa Fisher is the chief economist at ANGI Homeservices, representing the HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List brands. Prior to this role, Mischa was chief economist for Illinois, where he served as the economic policy advisor to the governor; he is also a former legislative director for the United States Congress in Washington, DC, and is currently an instructor in applied quantitative analysis at Northwestern University.
Mischa says the labor shortage starts with s a simple fact of demographics, where an aging workforce is getting ready to retire, and the Millennials and younger Generation Z aren’t in the pipeline to replace them. Compounding that, there’s already a shortage of skilled labor. An internal HomeAdvisor poll showed 65 percent of their members could not fill a position, says Mischa, and it’s getting worse. Mischa shares his insights into what’s causing the labor shortage, and how we can all go about fixing it, plus bonus advice from his dad, including:
Why talking about it is a great start
Raising awareness inside and outside the industry
Best practices to fill your open positions
How to appeal to Millennials and Gen Z with a rewarding workplace
The importance of building a real team
Recognizing generational differences and how to work with them
How to create a clear pathway to learning
Recruiting older, experienced people
Using the student loan crisis to your advantage in recruiting
Appealing to the entrepreneurial spirit
Working with industry, government, and educational leaders
Educating parents about the advantages of learning a skilled trade