I was asked to speak to about 200 plumbers last month on the subject of employee retention. Typically, I look around the industry to see who is successful in that particular way. I know several contractors in HVAC, electrical and plumbing who have had high success. By success, I mean employees who have been with them for 20 or more years. I'd call that success. But I saw about 10 times more contractors who struggled to keep someone for over 5 years. I have always said that employees leave the job for two reasons: 1. The boss is a jerk. 2. The boss is a greedy jerk. Now before you throw this magazine across the room, hear me out and please open your mind. There is a good reason for the huge exodus of skilled labor for "in-home service" contractors. I hate to name names, but the name of the reason is Flat Rate Pricing. Yes, many of us hailed flat rate pricing as the answer to life and the solution to our money problems in the service department, but there are three very good things that flat rate pricing did for us, and three very bad things that flat rate pricing did to us.
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