Finding, hiring and retaining skilled-trades talent tops the minds of plenty of employers in drilling, from environmental to water to geotech. For Drilling In-Site, episode 39, hosts Jeremy Verdusco and Brock Yordy explore some of these issues with Jessica Alexander, director of talent acquisition for Cascade Environmental. Alexander, a veteran human resources professional, writes the All Crewed Up column for The Driller.

“We do kind of have the revolving door mentality,” Alexander says of the drilling industry — environmental in particular. “What I notice a lot is employees that will leave the organization to work for a competitor, or even a company in another industry, because they get — let’s just say — $1 more an hour. It’s frustrating, because what happens is, I think a lot of times, as organizations we fail to communicate total rewards to our employees. It’s not about just that bottom-line pay rate.”

Of course, hiring and keeping talent involves more than communicating well and rewarding good employees. In this episode covers topics like:

• Retention tips for drilling crews
• “Stay” interviews with top employees and senior drillers
• Finding skilled-trades talent in an employees’ market
• Building a compensation package for skilled-trades workers
• Recruiting skilled-trades workers versus office workers
• Making the case for drilling jobs to young people

Check out today’s episode to hear more. Watch the video here or listen to the audio version of our conversation at www.thedriller.com/insite-podcast. You can also find our show on Apple Podcasts. Search for Drilling In-Site, then hit Subscribe.