Ricardo González

OK, OK, I know that Latinos should learn English. I know this and believe this as much as anyone, so let's just get this point out of the way. Perhaps someday I'll write an article in Spanish about the subject so you can hand it to your Hispanic employees, but for right now I want to invite you to open your mind to consider why and how you should learn Spanish

Things continue to stay red-hot on the immigration front. On May 26 of this year, the U.S. Senate passed landmark immigration legislation. Senate Bill 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, was approved by a 62-to-36 vote.

If you recruit and hire correctly, as we have discussed in the last two articles in this series, retaining your Latino workers will be a slam-dunk or, as our soccer loving people would say - gooooooal! No hay problema, as we say.

I used to say everything begins with hiring, but I was wrong - everything begins with recruiting. A long-term, happy, safe and productive employee is just as valuable as - or perhaps even more valuable than - a client to your overall success in business.

For most construction companies, it is not too difficult to find people with bodies who are able to nail shingles. The difficulty is finding the right people - people who are as committed to excellence as you are.

The power of the brand! A strong brand draws people. A strong brand allows people to trust you much more quickly than a weak or nonexistent brand. Unfortunately, most roofing companies have very weak brands.

[Editor's note: In this column, Ricardo Gonzalez]

There are seven days on the annual calendar that you can truly leverage to make a strong cultural impact on your people. Believe me, they will be very, very grateful if you take this to heart.

The Hispanic workforce is unique to our contemporary business environment. As a group of people, this workforce is considered to be critical to the success of the construction industry. That being said, members of the Hispanic workforce have special training needs that their Anglo counterparts do not have.