The Skilled Trade Shortage, with Comfort Systems’ Terry Reed

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SHRM thanks Gap International for sponsoring this episode of People and Strategy. As a trusted partner to global leaders for nearly half a century, Gap International works with organizations to deliver superior performance. Gap drives transformational change by focusing on mindset shifts and performance breakthroughs. Learn more about our longstanding partner at gapinternational.com. 

Mo Fathelbab:

Welcome to today's episode of People and Strategy. I'm your host, Mo Fathelbab, president of International Facilitators Organization. People and Strategy is a podcast from the SHRM Executive Network, the premier network of executives in the field of human resources. Each week we bring you in-depth conversations with the country's top HR and thought leaders. For today's conversation, we're recording live from the Visionary Summit in Austin, Texas. I'm excited to be joined by Terry Reed, senior vice president talent and leadership development at Comfort Systems. Welcome, Terry.

Terry Reed:

Thank you, Mo.

Mo Fathelbab:

How are you today?

Terry Reed:

Good. Good. Busy, but good.

Mo Fathelbab:

Wonderful. Terry, tell us about your career journey and how you got into the field of hr.

Terry Reed:

Grew up in Southern United States in Alabama and got a degree in engineering, but went into the Army out of college. I was an Army officer, I stayed in about eight years, decided I used my engineering degree. I worked in manufacturing and I found myself consistently complaining about HR and continued to move up on the operations side. The CEO of the companies said, "You keep complaining about this, why don't you do it?" I was very lucky and my first HR job was a CHRO job, and so I transitioned into HR and this is a third company I've led HR for. I think I was an average engineer at best, but I think this is maybe what I was meant to do.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah, and I take it you've stopped complaining, because you're still in HR?

Terry Reed:

Yeah. Well, I still complain about myself, but no, it's a great profession. I can't imagine doing anything else.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. Can you tell us about the skilled trade shortage?

Terry Reed:

Yeah, so most of the HR leaders in my space, we talk about this quite a bit. There is a substantial shortage in and skilled trades, plumbers, electricians, pipe fitters, those types of things. It's having an impact on companies like ours in terms of being, we have to be very selective in what work we take, and it's something that we consistently are trying to figure out what can we do different? Unfortunately, there is no easy button. There is no one solution. It is going to take a number of things that come together with solutions.

Mo Fathelbab:

Do you think the shortage is affecting the growth of your business?

Terry Reed:

Absolutely. It's a affecting the growth of not only our business, but the industry, the broader construction industry. As I said, so there are... Our operating companies, there are jobs that they could potentially bid on and get, but they have to balance that against the availability of talent, so yes.

Mo Fathelbab:

I've heard some companies actually creating trade schools and doing their own in-house trainings to upscale people in areas where they can't find labor.

Terry Reed:

Absolutely. It's a simple math, when you look at the current job openings, you look at projections, a lot of the great work that SHRM has done, looking at data, going forward. You look at trade schools enrollments, look at all these things. You will not close the gap, in my opinion, without creating some level of in-house training programs. Then the other factor is when you think about the average mechanical aptitude of kids coming out of high school versus 20, 30, 40 years ago, there's a gap. You're starting from a foundation where you may have to upscale in some areas that you may not have to maybe 20 years ago. You have to have some level of in-house training to close those gaps.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. Other than the shortage, what's the biggest challenge in the trade industry right now?

Terry Reed:

Well, there's a number of them. I think first there is a perception issue that maybe we're your grandparents construction industry. We are a lot more advanced from a technology standpoint, for example, than people may imagine. The reality is that we have a diversity challenge. We have the most diverse workforce and talent base that we've ever had. Yet our industry as a whole, we're not. We're going through that transition. But during that transition, there are individuals who may feel they're not wanted in this industry. The other challenge is with the massive number of baby boomers that are retiring every day, we generally have more people leaving the industry than coming in. The challenges are mounting. I guess the final one is I think as an industry we probably can do a much better job of marketing and selling ourselves, both in terms of the opportunities, but also the amount of money people can make, and there's just a number of opportunities for us to market and attract more people.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. Speaking of diversity and attracting more people, how can we attract more women?

Terry Reed:

Great question. If you look at the data and somewhere 50, a little over 50% of the US workforce, I think, is women, skilled trades, it's depending on what metrics you look at, 2, 3, 4, 5%. We have a huge opportunity to attract more women. It first starts with marketing. We have to make sure that women know they're welcome and we have opportunities, things like that. There are things we can do at every level of the process starting with, and there are organizations that are working to get middle school girls interested in this industry. We have to fund those programs and corporations like ours need to help in that.

We have to educate high school guidance counselors and parents in those types of things. On the opportunity, you mentioned earlier, training. We have to make sure we have good training programs, both external to the company, but internal to the company. The other thing, and this is at times difficult for people, but we have to make sure that as organizations, our cultures and our policies are more inclusive and create an environment where people, women, want to come and work for us. I sometimes say to some of our leaders, "Create a culture where you would want your daughter to come and work." If you are comfortable letting your 18, 19, twenty-year-old daughter work on one of your job sites, then you're probably doing the right thing. We have some organizations that will answer that question definitely. That's what we have to do. We've got to be honest with ourselves when we're not there, and then close the gap.

Mo Fathelbab:

What does that culture look like?

Terry Reed:

It's ultimately a culture where it really doesn't matter if you're male or female. Now, that's simple, but there are some things from a policy standpoint, is your maternity policy supportive? It's a little bit more challenging versus an office environment when you have time schedules and jobs. In most cases for our companies, we are part of a broader network of contractors on a job site. We don't have the luxury sometime of changing times because there's a sequence. We have to get creative in making sure we can meet the needs of our employees, yet not jeopardize that schedule. You have to look at policies, you have to look at just the old locker room talk of boys network and all that. The reality is you have to do that.

Here's the amazing thing about that is when you do those things, there are a lot of men that feel better about working on that job site. All of those things, you can't ignore it. You got to be transparent and you got to be, as an organization, especially if you have an environment that there are no females, you have to be very strategic in where you start. I think are, if you think about Jackie Robinson, there are teams that it was probably better that he didn't start on those teams and look where we are today. As an organization you have to say, "What's the best place for us to start," and then we grow from there.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah. Give us a sense of Comfort Systems. How big is the organization? How many employees? What do you all do?

Terry Reed:

Yes. Comfort Systems, we're publicly traded based in Houston, Texas, have about 17,000 employees. On any given day, we may have another two to 4,000 temps and contractors. We have our subsidiaries, we call them operating companies. We have about 46 operating companies in about 150 or 60 cities throughout the U.S. We're in the broader construction industry, but more specifically, we're considered what's called MEP, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing. Typically, we are subcontracted work from major construction companies to help build buildings. We build data centers. Then another huge part of our business, we are a commercial HVAC, and so we don't do a lot of residential HVAC, but mainly commercials, service the air conditioners on schools, hospitals, stadiums, things like that.

Mo Fathelbab:

All right, ready for some rapid fire questions?

Terry Reed:

Sure.

Mo Fathelbab:

All right, here we go. What's the one thing you do in the morning to start your day off right?

Terry Reed:

I pray.

Mo Fathelbab:

If you could work anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be?

Terry Reed:

Singapore.

Mo Fathelbab:

Singapore. Why Singapore?

Terry Reed:

I had the pleasure of visiting Singapore a couple of times and first, it's the cleanest.

Mo Fathelbab:

It is the cleanest space I've seen, yes.

Terry Reed:

I've ever seen. People just seem happy. I got up one morning to go for a run and I see these folks out cleaning the city, they're wiping down street poles and those types of things, and I was just fascinated by that.

Mo Fathelbab:

You don't see that anywhere else.

Terry Reed:

No, no. So yeah, Singapore, a close second would be Italy.

Mo Fathelbab:

Lovely, lovely. If there's one skill that you look for when hiring, what would that be?

Terry Reed:

Probably lifelong learner. It's hard to assess in an interview, but I think that especially with the rate of change in technologies, the life expectancy of skills is much shorter. You have to be a lifelong learner.

Mo Fathelbab:

Yeah, I love that. What's one piece of advice that you were given that has shaped your life personally or professionally?

Terry Reed:

The most important job you'll ever have is the one you're in now. I think sometimes, especially I think young people coming into the workforce, they are consistently looking too far ahead. If you do the absolute best job in the job you're in, people will notice and it'll create an opportunity and then you do the best at that job and it'll create opportunity. The reality is you don't know where those opportunities will go. Sitting in an engineering class in college way long time ago, I never would've imagined being in this role. It just would not have crossed my mind. You do the absolute best job in the job you're in, and everything else will take care of itself.

Mo Fathelbab:

Great advice. Wonderful. Thank you, Terry. That's where we'll end it for this episode of People and Strategy. A huge thanks to Terry Reed, senior vice president talent and leadership development at Comfort Systems. You can follow People and Strategy podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, podcast reviews have a real impact on a podcast's visibility. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a review to help others find the show. Finally, you could find all our episodes at SHRM.org/podcasts. Thank you for listening and have a great day.

SPONSOR MESSAGE:

SHRM thanks Gap International for sponsoring this episode of People and Strategy. Learn more about our longstanding partner at GapInternational.com.