When Chris and I first launched CRA, I’ll admit we didn’t put a whole lot of thought into how we were going to structure the employment of our new team.
After all, the industry standard was to employ team members as sole traders and casuals, even if they worked for us full time.
But as we began to get our feet under ourselves, we realised that just because something is common, doesn’t mean it’s right!
At CRA, one of our core values is integrity, and that’s something we want to live out in all aspects of our business. We began to see that we needed to re-employ our team on a full-time basis, and we’ve never looked back.
Studies show that job uncertainty can badly impact your mental health. It’s easy to feel anxious when you don’t know for sure that you’ll have a way to pay the bills next week.
By employing our tradies as full time employees, they can sleep well at night with all the protections that come with that.
Plus, they can take much-needed holidays each year without sacrificing income to do so!
Employing our team full time means we’re in it for the long haul, and that means we can happily invest in their future.
In fact, we’re currently supporting several of our plasters to become dual-certified in carpentry too!
We also love organising workshops and experiences that teach life skills like teamwork, meditation and more.
When you only employ casuals and sole traders, turnover can be high, making it difficult to establish the culture and values you believe in.
We’re lucky that we still have employees who have been with us from the earliest days of CRA! There are many factors that contribute to lowering turnover, and full-time employment is one of them.
With low turnover, we can continually cultivate our values of Integrity, Communication and Professionalism with our team. This then attracts other top tradies who believe in the same values as we do, for the benefit of our customers.
Happy tradies do good work, it’s a fact!
A simple change to the paperwork of how we employ our team means that our clients enjoy plasterers who are passionate about their work, are constantly growing their skills and embody positive working values.
All in all, it’s a win-win for everyone and a choice we stand by very happily!
