Topic
Crew and Hiring
Hiring your first employee, subcontractor versus employee, keeping good tradespeople, and running a crew that does not need you on every job.
16 articles · browse the full archive
Custom CRMBest Time Tracking Apps for Construction: 8 Ranked
8 construction time clock apps ranked on published prices, geofence behavior and what r/Contractor owners chose, plus the personal phone rules lists skip.
18 min
Custom CRMHow to Get Employees to Turn In Receipts: 7 Rules
Getting employees to turn in receipts is a policy problem. After 60 days the IRS can treat an unreceipted charge as wages, and docking pay is often illegal.
21 min
Custom CRMJob Notes Your Whole Crew Can Find: 5 Rules
Most crews record job notes fine. They just cannot find them again. 5 rules that fix retrieval, built from what techs say goes wrong on the second visit.
16 min
Custom CRMHow to Onboard a New Office Admin in 30 Days
Hand the job over in four waves, not all at once. A 30-day onboarding plan for a trades office admin, plus the two controls to set on day one.
16 min
Custom CRMStop My Crew Wasting Time: 6 Leaks, Ranked
Crews rank hunting for tools and materials as the top time waster, and the owner second. Run a 5 day audit to find your real leaks before you buy an app.
17 min
Lead GenerationHow to Take a Vacation as a Contractor: Day 7 Trap
Google lets you set special hours for 6 days in a row. Day 7 forces a choice that costs you local ranking. Here is how to leave for a week without losing jobs.
15 min
Custom CRMHow to Track Crew Hours on Job Sites: 7 Rules
Crew hours do three jobs: pay, prove and cost. Seven rules for tracking hours across job sites, plus the FLSA travel-time trap GPS creates for you.
16 min
GrowthHire a Subcontractor or an Employee? 4 Gates
The IRS bills 10.68% of wages when a sub turns out to be an employee, and the comp audit lands first. Four gates decide which one you actually need.
17 min
GrowthCrew Member Quits Mid Job: A 72-Hour Playbook
Walking someone out when they give notice can move your final-pay deadline from next payday to four hours. Here is the 72-hour playbook for the live job.
17 min
Custom CRMBest Software for a Two Man Crew: The Seat Cliff
No major vendor sells a two-user plan. Housecall Pro includes 1 user, then jumps to 5. The real seat math for a 2 person crew, and what to buy instead.
16 min
GrowthHow Much to Pay Your First Employee: $31/hr Math
Work backwards: billing rate x utilization x (1 - margin), divided by burden. A helper billed at $95 at 75% utilization lands near $31 an hour in Canada.
16 min
Custom CRMHow to Schedule Multiple Crews Across Jobs
Research says only 54 percent of work planned for a week actually gets done. Multi-crew scheduling is a commitment problem, not a calendar problem.
18 min
Custom CRMTrack Subcontractor Insurance Certificates: 7 Steps
A sub with a valid COI can still cost you $5,000 at audit. The 7-step system, the ISO rule that reclassifies insured subs, and the Ontario layer.
16 min
GrowthHow to Find and Keep Good Tradespeople in 2026
An electrician of twelve years put it plainly: every job he had worked, union and non-union, residential to industrial, had one thing in common. Short staffed.
11 min
GrowthHow to Work Alone Efficiently as a Contractor
The solo contractor's constraint is not skill or hours. One person has to be the office, the estimator and the tradesperson, and only one of those earns money.
11 min
GrowthWhen to Hire Your First Employee as a Contractor
A low-voltage contractor ran it: a $5,500 take-home tech costs about $9,000 a month. Two of them plus overhead meant $300,000 in revenue before he paid himself.
11 min
Frequently asked questions
- What do Pavado's Crew and Hiring guides cover?
- Hiring your first employee, subcontractor versus employee, keeping good tradespeople, and running a crew that does not need you on every job.
- What is the best starting point in the Crew and Hiring collection?
- Choose the guide that matches your business, platform and question. This collection includes Best Time Tracking Apps for Construction: 8 Ranked; How to Get Employees to Turn In Receipts: 7 Rules; Job Notes Your Whole Crew Can Find: 5 Rules. Check each article's examples and sources before applying it to your situation.