Get Recruits to Stay the Course

Did you know there could be as many as 1.9 million job openings for skilled craft professionals by 2025?¹ 

Many of those openings will be in construction, mining, utilities, and other parts of the Dirt World. That means you’ve got some hiring to do! 

But with recruits coming from all over the industry—or even outside of it—how do you get them to stay the course once they come to work for you? 

The short answer is, training. 

Although lots of great training programs exist, today we’re going to talk about the one we know best. Let’s dig into how you can use BuildWitt Training to set recruits up for success in the short-term and retain them long-term. 

Get new hires up to speed on safety

Construction workers reported 165,300 injuries and 1,008 deaths on the job in 2020.² The insurance folks over at The Hartford went through all their construction claims, and do you know what they found? Nearly half of all construction accidents happened when employees had less than one year of experience on the job.³

Notice they didn’t say “less than one year of experience, period.” They said “less than one year of experience on the job.” That suggests all your recruits are at higher risk—even if they worked in the industry before they came to you.

Other studies have confirmed this, too. Among miners who work long hours, those with less than two years of experience in their current role are most likely to have accidents.⁴

BuildWitt Training helps combat this problem with multiple safety learning plans. Your new hires can learn key skills like how to put together their hard hat, what PPE to wear, fire safety, jobsite communication, and more. 

And thanks to our partners at ClickSafety—the industry’s online safety training experts for over 20 years—they can get their required OSHA, MSHA, and HAZWOPER training, too.

Use pre-made learning plans to train effectively

Trying to think of an orientation and onboarding curriculum can be daunting. What lessons does everyone need? What do you do when somebody needs something different? Is it even possible to onboard an operator and a laborer at the same time?

Yes! 

With BuildWitt Training, you can assign lessons to the entire onboarding group or to individuals. So let’s say you’re onboarding 10 new hires. You can assign learning plans on safety, leadership, and industry knowledge to everyone. Then, you can assign role-specific training to individual recruits as needed.

See all available and upcoming learning plans in the course catalog.

Take the pressure of training off leaders

Deloitte reports that even with rapidly advancing technology, the need for people hasn’t changed much since the early 2000s.⁵ But it’s tough to onboard and train new hires when your crew is already running lean and profit margins hover around 4%.⁶ 

You just can’t afford for field supervisors to take hours out of their day to train recruits. 

With BuildWitt Training, they don’t have to. They can have recruits watch video lessons instead of teaching everything themselves. And with the Group Leads and Supervisors features, leaders manage content for the recruits on their crew or in their onboarding group.

Train experienced recruits, too 

People often think about recruits as rookies with little to no experience. But that’s not always the case. You may be recruiting people who have years—even decades—of experience. 

That means they already know what they’re doing, right? Well, not necessarily.

We hate to bear bad news, but the training situation in the Dirt World is pretty abysmal. Most workers get training once a year or less . . . or never. That means your experienced new hires may have the same amount of training as your newbies: none. 

BuildWitt Training gives you a variety of video lessons that are designed to be engaging for workers in all roles at all experience levels. There’s something for everyone—from your least experienced laborer to your new-but-seasoned project manager. 

Create company-specific training

You can upload your own training videos and documents into BuildWitt Training. That lets you share your company-specific training with the whole team, whether you want to cover:

• Culture
• Benefits
• Core values
• HR policies and procedures
• Expectations for success after 30, 60, or 90 days
• Specific types of work your team does, supplies they deal with, or equipment they use that’s not covered in regular BuildWitt Training lessons

Bonus: uploads are unlimited and free. This way, you have the freedom to give your team all the custom, company-specific training they need.

Invest in your people

Dirt World workers want fair pay, respect, and training. In fact, one in five people say they’d quit their job if they didn’t have opportunities to learn.⁷ And training is one of the top three things construction workers want in a workplace.⁸

Studies show that if you invest in people from the get-go, they will be more likely to buy into the company culture and see a future for themselves with your team.⁹ That’s because they believe you will continue to invest in them as they grow with your company. 

To help you do that, BuildWitt Training goes above and beyond the standard safety and skill training that most programs offer. Our software also helps you develop your employees as whole people. 

With learning plans on communication, personal finance, and mental health, your employees will learn skills they take off the jobsite and into their personal lives to be their very best. 

Attract and retain more people in the Dirt World

You need a systematic way to onboard people to your company and the industry. You can use BuildWitt Training to do that. It’ll help you:

• Get new hires up to speed on safety 
• Use pre-made learning plans to train effectively
• Take the pressure of training off leaders
• Train experienced recruits, too 
• Create company-specific training
• Invest in your people

Ready to learn more about how you can use BuildWitt Training to invest in your new hires—and your long-time employees, too? Check out our customer use cases. You’ll get to see how companies with teams like yours are using BuildWitt Training to level up their people and get them to stay the course.

See Use Cases