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The Business of Land Surveying...continued from previous page

Find the right employees

If you’re a new business or just getting started as a sole proprietor,
chances are you are thinking about when and how to grow your team.
Despite the current labor crunch, most small business owners are not
comfortable hiring just anyone. Most are looking for the right fit.

“At the end of the day, it’s finding somebody that’s that really has the
drive and the interest, and that wants to pursue it, says Will. “I’ve got
the insurance ready, I’ve got the paycheck, I’ve got everything in the
background is ready. It’s just finding that diamond in the rough.”

Sometimes the right fit means the right experience, other times it means
finding someone you know you can rely on.

“You want to clone yourself,” he says, but “they don’t have to be perfect.
Just somebody that can meet your criteria as the edges lead them in the
right direction.”

Nolan knew that he was ready to hire once he felt like he had perfected
being a business of one, and then got tired of working all-nighters and every weekend.

But you still have to learn to let go and delegate in order to make it over the hurdle with a first hire or new hire.

“When you’re the one doing everything and you’re going to start passing that onto somebody, it’s nerve-wracking. Because I’m hiring
a guy with zero experience in survey, but I can trust him. I know who he is. I know his background. Trust is going to go a long the way
more than hiring a guy I don’t know that wants a truck, wants a phone, wants everything handed to them right away, but he might leave
tomorrow,” Nolan explained of the individual he’s in the process of onboarding now.

While no one can see the future, you want to hire with the future in mind. Can you see an employee sticking with you over the next years
to come?

“When you’re going to take on people, you have to put a lot of thought into how you’re going to retain them. Where are they in life? Do
they have young families? Do they really want to be in this business?” Michael says.

Michael says that he would rather overpay a new hire than have to replace them in six months simply because of a slight paycheck gap.

Your best bet is to treat your employees as an extension of your family.

“I think that in general, survey companies treat their field staff like shit,” Michael admitted. “Most people want to have a family. They
want to have a good life. They want to be able to have their weekends to do whatever they want. To meet their needs, you need to be
able to allow people to do that. I don’t like to say ‘oh, if you’re in survey, you work a lot of overtime. He can make a lot of money.’”

If you’re not sure where to start looking for employees, Bill Swope, the Geospatial & Survey Business Development Manager at Halff
Associates, Inc., has some advice.

He recommends working with associations and community groups to present surveying opportunities to interested groups.
“I’m lucky enough with the company that I’m at that they give me a lot
of autonomy with what I do. And they feel that if I go out and help with
things in the community that will bring business our way to in the end,”
he says.
That’s why he does lots of work with the ISD in Texas—to plant the
seeds for future partnerships and hiring opportunities with Halff
Associates.

“They don’t understand that the careers in surveying and geospatial
are even there. They don’t have job code classifications for this. So a
lot of it is working with them to understand what’s actually there, and
what those opportunities are for their students once they get out of
high school.”

32 The Nevada Traverse Vol.49, No.1, 2022