A shortage of skilled labour is the single-biggest cloud hanging over all the good news surrounding sunny Alberta's continued strength in new-home construction and renovation. At least, that's what two small-business owners say whose construction-related companies were nominated for small-business-of-the-year awards in the province's two largest cities.

Like the Canadian Home Builders' Association - Alberta (CHBA-A), which launched its own job-search website in early 2005, these two company leaders see value in finding in-house solutions to their current labour woes.

"There's just nobody out there. You've basically got to steal (staff) from somebody else," admits Dereck Makowski, president of The Furnace Company.

Makowski's Edmonton-based small business was nominated in the small-business-of-the-year awards sponsored by the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. Those top winners will be announced at a special luncheon Oct. 28.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Kevin Halliday of Spindle Stairs & Railings offers on-the-job training at his Calgary plant.

Specializing in high-end furnace replacements for the renovation market, The Furnace Company employs 13 staff, not including Makowski. By early October, halfway through a peak season that runs Aug. 15 to Dec. 15, the company was booking furnace replacements into early November.

These days, four of Makowski's 13 staff are apprentices. The hours are long and the work is hard, but the rewards of a strong market are equally real. One of Makowski's top employees is a 22-year-old who apprenticed with the firm. These days, he makes $60,000 a year as a full-time employee.

Like Makowski, Kevin Halliday of Calgary-based Spindle, Stairs & Railings shies away from the sub-trade concept, preferring to hire staff he can train to meet his company's needs.

Halliday, who made his first sale in 1999 in a Calgary parking lot and now employs about 50 people in a 25,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing plant in the Foothills Industrial Area, is a finalist in the Calgary Chamber of Commerce's RBC small-business-of-the-year category, which will name its award winners on Oct. 20.

Halliday says companies such as his have to find innovative ways to address their own labour woes as part of their larger business plans.

To differentiate his firm in the labour market, for example, Halliday offers on-the-job training in everything from milling to sales. His training includes extra help for workers who want to set up their own limited companies and eventually strike out on their own.

It's Halliday's way of accepting that some staff will want to work as subcontractors, or start their own contracting firms. His company handles direct sales and installation in the new-home and renovation industries and serves the DIY (do-it-yourself) market and other contractors.

Experience tells him his approach to training builds long-term loyalty in all aspects of the trade. "Guess where they're going to buy their product?" when in business for themselves, asks Halliday.

Business success in a competitive industry "is all about your people," he adds. "I hire people that are better and smarter than me, and they always make me look good."

That same philosophy is why Spindle Stairs & Railings invested in manufacturing equipment and the people who could run it, years before Halliday was actually able to fire up his own manufacturing plant. Looking into his own company's future, Halliday says he's already eyeing U.S. sales - and developing the employees who will make that cross'-border expansion work.

This long-term approach to sourcing and developing employees in a highly'-competitive market makes sense to Grant Ainsley, CEO of CHBA-A. Ongoing labour shortages prompted the CHBA-A to launch its own job-posting website (www.albertabuilderconnect.com) this past January. To date, about 300 trade and professional jobs have been posted on the Alberta Builder Connect site. An association survey says the site has recorded more than a half-million viewers, including 45,000 unique visitors.

"There's no question (labour) would not be an issue if we were building half as many houses in Alberta," notes Ainsley.

He says Alberta's new-home construction industry expects to finish the year with 38,000 new homes across the province. "That's one of our best years on record," says Ainsley, whose organization, formerly known as the Alberta Home Builders' Association, adopted its new moniker at its recent AGM.

The Edmonton market is especially strong. There, new home construction is up 27 per cent, including a 16-per-cent increase in the number of single family homes and a 45-per-cent increase in multi-family home construction.

"Really, the shining star in the market is Edmonton," which is neck-and-neck with Calgary, says Ainsley. By the end of August, Calgary posted 8,703 new single and multi-family homes, with Edmonton listing 8,628.

The website is the industry's response to the reality of a shallow labour pool. "We just felt that we wanted to do something for our members before somebody else stepped in," notes Ainsley, whose industry directly or indirectly employs 105,000 Albertans and contributes $10.2 billion a year to the Alberta economy, not including money spent on renovations.

He expects the website's early success to continue as more and more construction-based businesses use the Internet instead of traditional print advertisements. "Skilled people don't grow on trees, you have to find them somewhere."

Halliday nods in agreement. He says companies in Alberta's construction industry need to be more creative when trying to find - and keep - staff. That includes job opportunities with the salaries, benefits and holidays demanded by a younger set of employees, as well as a willingness to pay attention to the long-term plans of individual employees.

A competitive job market means keeping staff isn't merely a matter of money, agrees Makowski, who's currently looking for at least one more employee. Until that happens, he'll spend more time than he wants in one of his seven trucks.

Then again, that's probably not such a bad place to be, says the guy whose company hit its fifth-year goals in Year 2 of its business plan. "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

(Joy Gregory can be reached at joy@businessedge.ca)