The Contractor’s Guide to Defining Team Roles and Hiring

Before searching for new staff, it’s essential to know which roles your contracting business actually needs. Hiring systems can then help you attract and retain high-caliber talent for those positions.

Quick snapshot

• Avoid knee-jerk hiring by creating an org chart.
• Attract A-players with thoughtfully-crafted job posts and employee value propositions.
• Keep your team motivated by offering performance-based pay structures.

Why do I need to define roles for my team?

The world and the workforce have changed a lot in the last several years. Contractors are no longer just managing people in an office and on job sites. 

Nowadays, in addition to those two staffing groups, you may also have people working remotely, sprinkled around the world, or you may have AI components to manage.

Each layer of your workforce needs attention and clarity:

• AI agents require specific inputs or their output will be muddled, causing more problems than it solves.
• Virtual assistants (VAs) need clear directions or they’ll waste time guessing what you want.
• Staff need standard operating procedures (SOPs) or there’ll be no consistency to how things get done.

Without clearly defined roles, hiring decisions will be made in the heat of the moment, based on urgent need instead of long-term suitability. These situations often lead to employees leaving, or being asked to leave, when it becomes apparent they’re not the right fit for the role.

Ultimately, employee churn and high turnover eat into your profit margins, impeding the company’s growth potential. 

How do I know which roles my team needs?

An org chart is the most effective way to map out the necessary roles in a contracting company and the hierarchy (basically, who reports to who). 

Org charts create boundaries between roles so people understand where their job ends and others’ begins. It provides clarity around who does what, avoiding situations like:

• Details falling between the cracks during sales to production hand-offs.
• Overlapping efforts creating duplicated work.
• Customers receiving multiple calls from different people about the same thing. 

When building an org chart, it’s important to think in terms of responsibilities associated with each role. From there, you can compare it against who’s currently handling those tasks, if anyone, and see where you may have gaps.

For instance:

• Do you need an additional person to help run the office?
• Is it time to bring on a general manager or expand your leadership team?
• Can a virtual assistant handle any of your admin needs?

Remember, this isn’t about hunting for unicorns. The aim isn’t to find one star employee who can do everything. Instead, it’s a process:

• Split the work out into appropriate roles
• Implement a sure-fire hiring funnel
• Get the right person into the role
• Maintain the role’s structure 

That way, if the person leaves, the wheels of your business can keep turning and it will be a smooth transition for their replacement.

Ready to supercharge your team? Watch or listen to The Accountability System That Scaled Me From $4M to $12.5M.

What does an office manager, production manager or project manager do in a contracting business?

Here’s a quick rundown on the responsibilities typically associated with these key roles at a contracting company:

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"Build your business around roles and not people. If you build your business around people and that person leaves, you're going to take a much bigger hit. The role never leaves, just the person." 

• Adam Sylvester, host of Jobber podcast Masters of Home Service

How can I attract top-tier talent?

Gathering a team full of incredible high-achievers starts by building a company they’ll want to work for in the first place. 

Here are six ways to showcase your corporate culture:

• Put a visually-rich and engaging “Join Our Team” page on your website
• Write job postings that resonate with your values
• Highlight your projects and your people on Instagram
• Budget for events that encourage bonding moments for the team
• Design a logo people feel proud to wear
• Develop a solid Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

This approach is also relevant for hiring subcontractors. Subs want to work with companies that are organized and treat their people well. It means they can trust they’ll get the project info they need and their invoices will be paid on time. In return, you’ll get to choose from the best of the best.

How do I write a job description that describes the role rather than the person?

One of the reasons it’s important to focus on the role, not the person, when creating your org chart is because it makes it easier to write the affiliated job descriptions. This becomes key later on when you need to hire for the role.

If you build a role around a long-time employee who wears multiple hats, you’ll end up with a hodge-podge job description that’s got a bit of admin, maybe some project management and possibly even site work thrown into the mix as well.

Basically, you’ll have a role that’s impossible to hire for. 

Job descriptions are a fundamental component of a good hiring system, a lesson that Brad Gordon, owner of Coast Mountain Roof, learned while doubling both his revenue and net profit with the help of Breakthrough Academy.

What should I include in the job posting?

Once you’ve ironed out the details of the role, then you can then start thinking about the person to fill it. In other words, who is your ideal candidate for the role?

When writing a job posting, start by creating an Ideal Candidate Profile that considers the person from two angles: 

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It’s time to go beyond just what’s required for the role and consider what’s expected of them as an individual, the characteristics that will make them a good fit for your company and its mission.

Here are a few easy ways to help your job posting stand out:

• Speak directly to what they care about, such as camaraderie on the job site.
• Be upfront about any deal breakers. Do they need to have a valid driver’s license?
• Include the salary range, and make sure you’re in the top quadrant of the market rate. 
• Tell them about the perks, like gas cards, home dispatching or a well-stocked break room.
• Be clear about how to apply. Don’t hide the email address or form link.

It’s better to have 15 resumes from the right types of candidates than 150 from the wrong ones. This is genuinely one of those cases where if you build it right, they will come.

Where can I find candidates?

Candidates are generally found in three “pools:”

• Active lookers
• Your network
• Recruiters

If you’re only posting jobs on site boards or platforms, you’re likely only reaching the first group, but many job seekers are passive. They’re interested in making a move, but only if they encounter something interesting.

Just like you have to chase work when you first start a business, you have to chase talent when you’re recruiting.

Broaden your search by looking where others aren’t. Good people are everywhere, so don’t dismiss options just because you’re unfamiliar with how the avenue works. Here are a couple to consider:

• Recruiters – Consider working with a recruiter. They have wide networks and can quickly connect you to quality candidates. 
• Emerging potential – The loss of shop classes in schools and the lack of informal apprenticeships means many students struggle to get trained in the trades, which presents opportunities for contract business owners willing to develop talent. 

Learn about a team accountability system that helped one contractor scale from $4M to over $12M.

How much should I pay for each role?

The question of how much to pay each staff member will depend on the rates within your specific area, but a rough breakdown for the US will look something like this:

• Project managers: ~$100K+ / year
• Production managers: ~$80K+ / year
• Office staff: ~$60K / year

Keep in mind this is just base salary. If you’re hiring high achievers (and you should!), then you’ll also want to incentivize them by offering performance-based compensation.

How does performance-based compensation work?

Performance-based compensation is a bonus or portion of an employee’s pay that’s linked to either specific performance metrics or the company’s overall success. 

It tends to improve employee motivation and retention, and high achievers will look closely at performance incentives when considering a new role.

Here’s how it plays out for various roles:

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💡Note that to provide performance-based incentives, you MUST have accurate job costing and financial tracking practices in place!

Don’t overlook creative benefits that can help win staff to your side and reward them for living your company’s values. Things like:

• Gift cards for free lunches
• Concert tickets
• Tickets to sporting events
• A night at a nearby resort hotel

These gestures may feel trivial, but they can be tremendous culture boosters.