How to keep your crew from getting poached

You can't stop another outfit from calling your hands. Recruiting a working electrician is legal, and a noncompete won't hold a J-man in a growing list of states. What stops poaching is what makes the call easy to turn down: a rate near the market, the next job lined up, a foreman worth staying for, and money that pays out for staying.

Below: how the poach happens on an electrical job, what doesn't stop it, and a play for the day one of your guys gets a call. It's one piece of our guide on how to keep good electricians from leaving.

01How do electricians get poached off a job?

Most poaching is a phone call with a bigger number, made to a hand who already wonders how long your job will last.

The calls come from four places:

• Agencies and recruiters. A staffing agency fills a job, then calls its own hands, or yours, when a client pays more. One national electrical contractor told us their best agency hands "keep getting called to other jobs for more money," and "it puts us in a bind. We have to replace these guys."
• The richer job next door. A crew working beside a bigger contractor sees the per diem, the 6-10s and the badge. Data centers are the big one right now. In the 2026 AGC and NCCER survey, 58% of firms that did data center work said it increased competition for skilled workers, and 49% saw more wage pressure.
• The GC or the owner. On long jobs, a GC's superintendent or a plant's maintenance manager watches your best J-man for months, then offers him a steady spot.
• Your own guys. A foreman who leaves calls the two hands he trusts. When one goes, plan on a second call.

The data center pull is concentrated. ABC's October 2026 backlog survey found 39% of contractors with over $100 million in revenue have data center work, against about 1 in 10 under $100 million. If you're a mid-size shop, the big outfits on those jobs are the ones calling your crew. Our post on hiring when data centers pull every hand covers that fight on its own.

02Is it legal for another contractor to hire your electricians?

Yes, in general. An electrician is free to take a better job, and another contractor is free to offer him one.

What isn't legal is the fix some owners reach for: a handshake deal with the shop down the road not to hire each other's people. The Department of Justice and the FTC warned in their 2016 hiring guidance that "naked" no-poaching agreements between employers can bring criminal charges, and that it doesn't matter whether the deal is "written or unwritten, spoken or unspoken." Whatever the current federal wording, don't make that deal.

Taking your customer list, bid numbers or drawings is a different matter from taking a job. If someone walks out with those, that's a call to your lawyer, not a recruiting problem.

03What doesn't stop poaching

A piece of paper or a threat rarely keeps a J-man who has three calls a week.

• Noncompetes. The FTC's national ban never took effect, and the FTC now says its rule "is not in effect and it is not enforceable." So state law decides, and Minnesota and North Dakota, among others, void most employee noncompetes. We cover the state-by-state picture in do non-competes work for electricians.
• Bad-mouthing the other outfit. He'll find out what they pay. If you were wrong, you lose him and your word.
• Counteroffers after he's already said yes. By then he's mentally gone. A counter can buy a week, rarely a year. Read what to do when a competitor offers your journeyman $2 more before you match.
• Hoping it doesn't happen. Gallup found 51% of people who quit said no manager talked with them about their job or future in the three months before they left.

04What actually stops it

You stop poaching by closing the gap the caller is selling into, before the call comes.

Pay near the market, and know what the caller will say

A poacher's first line is a number. If yours is $6 under, nothing else on this list will hold him. The 2026 AGC and NCCER survey found more than 8 in 10 firms raised base pay for hourly craft at least as much as the year before, so last year's rate is already behind.

Check your rate against BLS data and live ads for your area. Our guide on how much to pay a journeyman electrician walks through it. Then raise the hands you'd hate to lose before someone else does.

Tell them about the next job

Hands leave when they think they're about to get short-termed. If you have backlog, say so: what's next, when it starts, and who's going. A man with a known next job has less reason to take a call. More on that in how to keep a crew until the job is done.

One national electrical contractor told us a job "doesn't pay enough to hold these guys down to where they can stay long term until the job's over." When the rate is fixed by the bid, the next job and a finish bonus are the tools you have left.

Give them a foreman worth staying for

A lot of hands who quit are really quitting a foreman. Gallup found 52% of people who quit said their manager or company could have done something to keep them. On a crew, that's usually the foreman: material on site, a plan for the day, no yelling, and somebody who backs his guys with the PM.

Train your foremen to do a five-minute stay talk once a month. Ask three things: is the rate right, is the work right, and is anybody calling you. The last one is how you hear about a poach before it lands.

Pay for staying, in writing

Money that pays out later gives a hand a reason to finish. Two that work:

1. A finish bonus. Say you bank $2 an hour into a bonus paid on the last day of a six-month job. At 50 hours a week for 26 weeks, that's 1,300 hours, or $2,600 he walks away from if he leaves early.
2. A referral bonus with a wait. One IEC contractor pays $300 for a green-helper referral after the new hire passes six months, and more for some positions. Your crew brings in people they'll want to keep working with, and they wait six months to get paid.

Put the terms in writing, pay exactly when you said, and check bonus and overtime rules with your payroll provider. Compare the cost against what it costs when a journeyman quits. The bonus is usually the smaller number.

Stop renting hands you can't keep

An agency hand belongs to the agency. If it gets a better-paying client, it can move him. If you run agency labor, read the contract before the first man shows: how they move people, what notice you get, and what it costs to hire him yourself. Our post on why agency electricians leave mid-job covers the contract side. Hands on your own payroll are yours to keep or lose on your own merits.

05When one of your guys gets a call

Treat the first word of a call as a heads-up, not a resignation.

1. Ask him the whole number. Rate, hours, per diem with its unit, and how long the job runs. A $4 bump on a three-month job with no next phase isn't the same as $4 on a two-year job.
2. Do the math with him. Say you pay $42 on 5-8s and the other job pays $46 on 6-10s with $100 a day per diem, six days a week. That's a bigger check, but it's 60 hours a week away from home, and it ends when the phase ends.
3. Answer the next day, not the next week. If you can move, move fast. If you can't, say so and part on good terms. Hands come back.
4. Fix it for the rest of the crew. If one J-man is $5 under, the others are too. Fix the rate before the next call goes to the next guy.

If you're already short a hand or two, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days. You interview them, you decide, and the ones you hire go on your payroll.

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