As community counts rise, builders find themselves at the mercy of a “hire power” to find, motivate, and retain top-notch teams to execute growth plans.

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Because of the rush many companies find themselves in to fill the gaping need for bodies, Carpitella describes the hiring focus as more about “does he have the functional issues to take care of my immediate needs?” than it is about identifying a long-term fit for the culture, the company, and the employee. At ICI, the only way to reach a division president level is to be promoted from within. “We take this process very, very seriously,” says Mori Hosseini, president and CEO, of his policy to hire construction management students from college and nurture them along the way. “We do not simply hire our employees for today's needs, we are hiring our future. I tell senior management that I want them to train their own replacements.”

At Shea Homes, a specific process has been implemented to ensure community teams are working together to support each other and the community itself. Shea's approach draws from Stephen Covey's Four Disciplines of Execution, which Martha Baumgarten, communication and customer experience director, adopts to develop a coordinated effort, called a SCOPE meeting. “It ensures that we are one well-aligned team, that we organize ourselves around the team-defined standards, and it identifies what our purposes and goals are with the community,” she says.

At Shea's Southern California division, the SCOPE meeting is one of several mandatory team sessions planned throughout a lifecycle of a community, but according to Baumgarten, it's a critical step in the process of supporting a new team. The team assembles in an initial meeting, typically held one to two weeks prior to associates going on site. Everyone from the escrow officers, loan councilors, sales associates, and options coordinators comes together to establish the processes that will work best as a unified team. “It may sound simplistic,” says Baumgarten, “but everyone comes to a team with a different set of experiences. Just because they worked in their previous community doesn't mean they know the most effective way to work here.”

In every community, there are a variety of ways to use incentives: most superficially, the sales spiffs and contests, where winners claim a free dinner out or even a weekend getaway. But true motivation comes from upper management. “The superficial goal-setting is certainly a part of what we do,” says Pulte's Sim, “but fundamentally, to truly motivate you have to build a team that wants to be a part of something bigger.”

Here we have taken a look at the critical factors to success at a community level and identified the managers in a position to ensure success:

As fast growth becomes part of big builder life, getting talent to sign on to the program is a challenge. Keeping them is another matter altogether.

At ICI, division presidents get calls from headhunters on a daily basis, according to Hosseini. “Our guys are really happy here,” he says. “They are absolutely in charge of their divisions and in turn, they are incentivized and well-compensated.” So well-compensated, in fact, that division presidents have been known to receive as much as $3 million in bonus pay. “Our guys tell headhunters there is no way another company can afford them,” laughs Hosseini.

Messina credits Hosseini with the vision to recognize all the stress their employees. To alleviate the anxieties, boost morale, and help staff members understand a longer-term, big picture perspective, each employee underwent “Change Management” training provided by a consultant. “People feel better knowing that they aren't alone in their anxieties, and [feel better] being able to understand that these changes are designed to make their job more efficient and productive in the long-term,” remarks Messina.

Lacking morale-boosting measures sets big builders up as fertile ground for employee poaching—not only from direct competitors, but more threateningly, from smaller builders. “I believe the small- to medium-size builder is at a great advantage in recruiting from the big builders,” says Carpitella. “They have a more attractive story to tell that's more personal, more supportive, less political, and more engaging. I find it all the time—big builder employees who are fed up with egos and the lack of personalization wanting to go to a smaller builder.”

Sim admits that Pulte has seen that happen. “People that leave us typically go to a smaller company,” he says, and he attributes that to a bad cultural fit during hiring. “In the past, this industry has been about hiring bodies, putting them in a community, and wishing them good luck. We just can't afford to do that today.”

Source: BIG BUILDER Research; Company Sources