How to recruit and keep a traveling electrical crew

To recruit traveling electricians, post where travelers look and put the whole check in the first line: rate, hours, per diem with its unit and days, hotel or cash, travel pay, and how long the job runs. To keep them, pay per diem on time, give them a decent room, plan trips home, and tell them early if there's a next job.

Travelers do the math before they call. A post that hides any piece of it gets skipped. Recruiting is one step in staffing a job in a state where you have no crew, and it comes after the company license and the cards are sorted.

01Where travelers look

Open-shop travelers watch a handful of travel job boards and their own phone contacts, and union travelers go through the hall.

• Travel job boards. RoadDog Jobs, RoadTechs and Energy Job Shop are built for hands who go where the work is. Prices and who reads each are in our comparison of traveling electrician job boards.
• Your own travelers. The hand who did your last out-of-town job knows five more who'd go. Ask before you post.
• Hands in states whose cards the job state accepts. In a licensing state, recruit where the reciprocity list points, and only hands who've held that card a year. The board lists are in our reciprocity guide.
• Union travelers. A union shop calls the local where the job is. When a local can't fill a call from its own list, it often takes travelers from other locals. Ask the business office how it's running before you count on it.
• Locals around the job. Once the core crew is set, fill around them with hands who sleep at home. In a state with no journeyman card, use the checks for hiring where there's no state license.

One national electrical contractor told us they paid for a travel job board and tried hiring out of neighboring states, and the hands still weren't there because data centers were pulling everyone. A board gets the ad in front of travelers. The offer decides whether they call.

02What the offer has to say

A traveler wants seven numbers before he'll pick up, and every one of them needs a unit.

The numbers in the left column are examples, not market rates. Price your own from the job state's market. What to pay per diem, and how daily vs weekly and 7-day vs workdays change it, is in what per diem to offer traveling electricians.

03Why 7-day per diem beats a higher rate on paper

Travelers compare the weekly total, so a lower rate with 7-day per diem can beat a higher rate with workday-only per diem.

Here's a worked example. Two offers for the same journeyman:

Offer B has the higher rate on the ad. Offer A pays $850 more a week. Write the offer so the traveler can see that without a calculator.

04Housing that keeps hands

Most traveler complaints are about the room, so decide early whether you're booking hotels or paying cash and letting them find their own.

Hotel provided is easier on a short job. Cash per diem suits travelers who bring a camper or split a rental. If you book, give each journeyman his own room, keep the drive under 45 minutes, and pick a place with a kitchen or a fridge. A two-to-a-room hotel 70 minutes from the gate will cost you hands by week three.

Use the GSA per diem rate as the yardstick. For fiscal 2027 (October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027), GSA's standard rate is $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidentals, and many cities are set higher. If your cash per diem won't cover a room near the job at the going rate, travelers will figure that out in one night.

05Per diem timing

Pay per diem on a set day, and front the first week, because a traveler pays for the hotel before he sees his first check.

IRS Publication 463 treats an advance as made within a reasonable time if it's paid within 30 days of the expense, which covers fronting the first week. The same publication sets the limit that matters on a long job: a job in one place realistically expected to last more than one year is indefinite, and living-expense payments become taxable income. Talk to your accountant about how your per diem plan is set up.

Pay it with the weekly check after that, and never short it without warning. A late or cut per diem check is how you lose a crew on a Friday.

06Travel days and trips home

Decide travel pay before you post, because federal rules already count some travel as work time.

The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 22 says overnight travel away from home is work time when it "cuts across the employee's workday," including the same hours on nonworking days. Time spent as a passenger outside regular working hours isn't counted. Paying the travel day in and out, and saying so in the ad, answers the question before a traveler asks it.

On a job of 3 months or more, plan trips home. Two common setups: a long weekend every few weeks with the crew rotating so the job keeps moving, or a set number of paid trips home over the job. Pick one, write it in the offer, and keep it.

07Keeping them to the last day

Travelers leave for more money or for a job that runs longer, so beat the second reason with information and the first with timing.

• Tell them about the next job early. The worst fear on a travel job is getting short-termed. A hand who knows there's a next job leaves less.
• Keep the hours you advertised. Cutting 6-10s to 5-8s in week five is a raise for the job down the road.
• Pay a completion bonus. Say $1.50 for every hour worked, paid when the job's done. It costs nothing if he leaves early and gives him a number to lose if he does.
• Give them a foreman who runs it. Material on site, prints ready, no standing around.

One national electrical contractor told us their job "doesn't pay enough to hold these guys down" until it's over, and that good hands kept getting called to other jobs for more money. When the rate can't compete, the bonus, the hours and the next job are what you have left. More on that is in how to keep a crew until the job is done.

If you need travelers on a job now, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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