Using technology to connect crews to jobs

By Emma Peterson. 

How Labor Central’s app can help contractors get jobs started faster by connecting them to qualified installation crews.  

Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with John Van Beek from Labor Central, Stuart Tapley from SRS Distribution and Tyler Grams from Mark Kaufman Roofing in a Read, Listen, Watch webinar titled "Looking for Labor in all the Right Places" to talk about finding labor to fulfill the need in the industry.  

As an account executive at SRS Distribution, Stuart has worked to help bridge the labor gap in the industry. He shares, “I really enjoy helping contractors focus on the business, generating leads, lending and obviously now the third L, which is labor, which is where John focuses.” John has been in the industry since the ‘90s and is currently putting his years of roofing expertise to work at his position with Labor Central as their CRO.  

After a contractor seals and signs a deal, the homeowner wants to know when work will start. But the question is more complicated than the homeowner might expect, given that around 92% of all residential roofing contractors use install crews to complete the job. John knew that finding a way to connect hiring contractors with installers was the missing link in the process and jumped straight into trying to solve it.  

One thing John noticed as he entered Labor Central two years ago was companies like SRS and the gap between their uses of technology. He saw how SRS used technology, sharing, “With all the technology they have, from ordering and aerial measurement reports to generating material lists and ordering materials,” it was clear that there was a gap in the ways the two companies used technology. 

The solution? SRS and Labor Central’s collaboration to create a one-stop app for contractors to find crews and crews to find jobs. Stuart observes that, especially in his state of Florida, “Labor's an issue. In the state of Florida, we've had some legislation change here recently that has definitely impacted the way we go to market and the way we look at how we approach labor at the contractor side.” Tyler chimed in with his firsthand experience, noting that his company has the luck of having consistent subcontractors, sharing, “We see repair crews and specialty crews as being very hard to find. The specialty work that we don't typically work in primarily because we cannot find the labor to do the job, so that prevents us from being able to get into those different specialty jobs.”  

The Labor Central platform is designed for both specialty and more common jobs. “There are very few contractors, Tyler is one of the few for instance, where they have all W-2 employees,” John shares. “97% of all contractors, apart from that, really have a labor scheduling issue.”  With the app, you can post a project and immediately receive responses from qualified crews. 

Read the transcript, Listen to the podcast or Watch the video to learn more about finding subcontractors with the Labor Central app.