Seasonal layoffs: getting your best crew back in the spring

The last lot of the year gets rolled on a cold Thursday in November. On Friday the crew washes down the paver, parks the rollers, and stands around the yard waiting to hear what happens now. Everybody knows the answer. What they want to know is whether you want them back.

Seasonal layoffs are part of running a paving company in most of the country. When the plant closes, the work stops, and very few companies can carry a full crew through the winter. The layoff itself isn't what costs you. What costs you is April, when your best screed operator is running a paver for the company that called first.

How to handle a seasonal layoff so your best people come back

Decide before the last week who you'll keep through winter, who you want back first, and who you won't call. Tell each person plainly, in person, with the last day and the date you're aiming to start again. Put the return plan in a short letter. Stay in touch over the winter. Then call your first-round people in February with a start date and next season's pay, before anybody else does.

Sort the crew before the last week

Do this while the season is fresh, not in March when everyone blurs together. Three lists:

Keep through winter, if you can. The people who are hardest to replace: a foreman who runs a lot without you, a screed operator who holds grade, the mechanic who knows the paver. If there's work for them in the shop, on equipment rebuilds or on snow, keep them.

Call back first. Good, reliable people you can't carry through winter but want in April.

Don't call. The ones who missed Mondays, broke equipment or didn't listen. Write down why now. In March, when you're a laborer short, you'll be tempted to forget.

For each person on the first two lists, write down what they're good at and what they'd need to move up. That note is what you use in February when you set pay.

What keeping someone costs, next to losing them

Carrying someone through the winter looks expensive until you price the alternative.

Say your screed operator makes $32 an hour and you can give them 30 hours a week of shop work for 16 weeks. That's $15,360 in wages, plus your payroll taxes and workers' comp on top.

Now price a green operator on the screed. Running a quarter inch heavy on a 2-inch lift is 12.5 percent more mix than you estimated. On a day you estimated at 400 tons, that's 50 extra tons. At $75 a ton, it's $3,750 in one day. Four days like that in May come to $15,000, about what the winter wages cost, and you have a rougher mat to show for it.

Your numbers will be different. Run them anyway, with your mix price and your own tons per day. The point isn't that everyone should be kept on. It's that the two or three people who protect your yield and your schedule are worth a real number, and it's usually bigger than it looks from the payroll report.

Winter work that earns its keep:

• Equipment rebuilds. Screed plates, conveyor chains, the roller's water system. The winterizing checklist is a list of exactly this work.
• Yard and shop. Trailer repairs, painting, organizing the forms and the small tools.
• Snow, if you plow. A plow route is paid work for your truck drivers in January.
• Training. A laborer who wants to learn the roller can learn it in the yard in March.

The layoff conversation

Do it in person, one at a time or crew by crew, before the last day. A group text on the last Friday tells your best people exactly how much you value them.

Say four things:

1. The last day, and when the final paycheck will be paid. Final paycheck timing is set by state law and varies, so check with your state's labor department or your payroll provider before you promise a date.
2. That you want them back, if you do. Say it directly. "You're one of the first people I'm calling in the spring."
3. When you're aiming to start. "We usually start when the plant opens, the first week of April." Don't promise a date you can't keep. Say what it depends on.
4. Who to call if they have questions over the winter, and how you'll reach them. Get a current phone number, not the one from their hire paperwork three years ago.

Then put it in a short letter: last day, your plan to call them back, the expected start, a phone number. It's one page, and it's the thing they show a spouse, a landlord or a competitor who calls.

On unemployment: laid-off seasonal workers generally file with their state's unemployment agency, and eligibility rules vary. Don't tell anyone whether they'll qualify. In most states the claims former employees draw also factor into your unemployment tax rate over time, so ask your accountant how that works in yours. It's part of the real cost of a seasonal crew, and it belongs in your labor burden.

Over the winter

You don't need a program. You need to not disappear.

• A call or a text around the holidays, from you, not the office.
• If you have a year-end bonus, pay it before the layoff, while they're still there to hear why.
• Invite the callback list to anything you do in the winter: a safety refresher, a morning at the yard going over new equipment, a meal.
• If you hear someone's being recruited, call them. Hearing about next season from you beats hearing a number from someone else.

Some contractors pay a return bonus: a set amount paid after the first 30 days back. It gives your people a reason to wait for your call, and it only costs you if they come back and stay.

Call in February, with numbers

Competitors start calling in late winter. Beat them to it.

Call your first list in February. Have three things ready:

• A start date, even a tentative one tied to the plant opening.
• Next season's pay. Decide raises in the winter, from what you saw last season, and tell people on the phone. "You're coming back at $34" is the sentence that keeps a good operator from taking the other call.
• What's changing. A new foreman, a new paver, more commercial work, a second crew. People come back to a company that sounds like it's going somewhere.

Then call the second list. Keep a simple sheet: name, called, answer, start date. By the middle of March you should know which seats you still have to hire for, and that leaves you time to hire.

When they come back, don't hand them a lute and point at the truck on the first morning. Take the first day for the yard, the equipment walk-around and the safety talk. Check with your payroll provider on what paperwork a rehire needs in your state.

Questions contractors ask

Should I lay off a crew member or keep them on part-time over the winter?
Keep the few people who are hardest to replace, if you have real work for them. Price what a green replacement would cost you in mix, rework and schedule before you decide it's too expensive.

When should I call my crew back?
February, for your first-round people, with a start date and next season's pay ready. Competitors start calling in late winter.

Can I promise a laid-off worker their job back?
You can tell them you plan to call them back and when you expect to start. Don't promise a date or a guarantee you can't keep, and don't tell anyone whether they'll get unemployment. That's the state agency's call.

Does unemployment affect my taxes as an employer?
In most states, yes. Your unemployment tax rate generally reflects claims against your account over time. Ask your accountant how it works in your state.

Where Pavr fits

Pavr is job management software for paving, sealcoating, striping and concrete contractors. Crew who only clock in don't take a paid seat, so nobody has to come off the list in the fall to save money. Deactivate someone when they're done for the season and reactivate them when they're back. Each person picks English or Spanish on their own phone. Approved hours come out as a payroll CSV with the overtime split at 40 hours a week, so last season's hours are there when you set next season's pay. See what it costs.