E.F. Moon Construction builds its business and team through heavy construction awareness

Posted: January 20, 2025

Reading time: 4 minute(s)

Operating heavy equipment owned by E.F. Moon Construction is just one of the skills employees like Brennan Schidlowsky will get to learn during his career path at the company.

When you hear the term construction, building trades like carpentry, plumbing, and electrical are probably what come to mind most often.

That’s a problematic misconception for heavy construction companies like Portage la Prairie-based E.F. Moon Construction Ltd., which provides high quality heavy construction services including excavation, sewer and water installations, demolition, drilling, and more.

In order to recruit employees, bringing heavy construction to the top of people’s minds is crucial for E.F. Moon, and it’s a big part of Jackie Puchailo’s role as the HR Manager at the company. The fact that she was hired by E.F. Moon two years ago to build an HR department speaks to the organization’s emphasis on recruitment, and how difficult that’s become in recent years.

E.F. Moon is using a few strategies to bring their company and the heavy construction industry to the forefront. They’ve been developing their social media presence by doing employee profiles, and they also visit Red River College Polytechnic to speak to students in the Civil Engineer Technologist program.

Creating awareness for the heavy construction industry can’t be done by E.F. Moon alone. Puchailo knows that as well as anyone thanks to her past experience in working with the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association where she helped create workforce development initiatives that brought several companies together.

Keeping the industry top-of-mind for prospective workers is only one challenge though. Most people don’t realize the career paths that can be available in heavy construction.

“As a kid, we all had dump trucks in sandboxes, but as parents we tend to push our kids to be a lawyer or doctor, or even to get into trades like plumbing,” said Puchailo. “So, the parents aren’t understanding that there is a career path within heavy construction either.”

Luckily for Puchailo, she has three prime examples of meaningful career growth right in her own organization that she can share when recruiting. E.F. Moon’s three new owners – General Manager Todd Turner, Field Manager Reid Perkins, and Estimator/Project Manager Ephraim Capillar – have all been with the company for more than 10 years, and in some cases more than 20 years. Perkins’ story in particular is one she shares a lot.

“Reid started as a field labourer when he was 18 years old,” she explained. “He worked himself up to an operator, a foreman, and then field manager. I like to explain to people that this can be their career growth at E.F. Moon.”

Stories like that continue to unfold at E.F. Moon too. Last year, the company hired two young women as labourers. They started off on basic equipment like packers and rock trucks. One is now very skilled at operating the skid steer, and the other is training on the grader.

That kind of progression is only possible with a strong company culture, something E.F. Moon thrives at.

In the case of Brennan Schidlowsky, a general labourer who has worked with E.F. Moon the past two summers, that culture is what brought him back for a second summer of work. No matter how long an employee has been with E.F. Moon or how experienced they are, nobody is above helping out new employees.

“The people I’ve been working with drew me back. When I started in the position, I didn’t know a whole lot,” said Schidlowsky. “The people that had been there for many years welcomed me in and showed me how to do things. They all made it really easy for me to come back and learn as much as I can, and they’ve been helpful in teaching me new things.”

In Schidlowsky’s opinion, that strong culture stems from good communication throughout the company.

“They keep in touch with their employees. Most everyone here is on a first name basis and they know their employees pretty well. Over the year, they did a good job of keeping in touch with me and asking me when I would be coming back.”

There’s still an uphill climb with regard to recruiting and spreading awareness about the careers in heavy construction, but Puchailo is already noticing a difference thanks to their efforts.

“Like every workforce, we still have challenges finding employees,” she noted. “But the employees we do find are a better fit for heavy construction and they tend to be longer-term employees

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E.F. Moon Construction builds its business and team through heavy construction awareness

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