Ep.5 Education as a Technician

In this podcast I dive into a touchy topic of technician training. I share my thoughts on companies and technicians responsibilities to get better trained HVAC technicians. 

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Transcript

 At the end of the day, what actually separates technicians? You know, does it come down to just strictly experience? Does it come down to actual education? You know, what really makes you different? And how do you stand out in today's industry and how do you actually make yourself worth more to where you make what you wanna make?

At the end of the day, there are two things that really separates text. The first is gonna be. There's a lot to say about experience and that's kind of a given and, and for you young guys, it's probably one you're tired of hearing. . Well, you just don't have the experience. You don't have this, you don't have that.

You know it's gonna take time. And there's a lot of truth to that. It's not the whole story, and I'll get to that in a second. There's more to it than just experience. But experience can do a lot for you and, and what experience can do is it can help you really learn how to navigate some very complex situations that you may not otherwise be as familiar with.

Because on the other hand, you know, you. Education. So education is something that legitimately separates technicians apart and can divide you and make you look dramatically different than the other guy who's standing beside you that you're competing against. And in most cases, you really should be competing with, not necessarily against, but regardless, you're trying to make yourself more appealing to your employer so that you have the ability.

To rise in the ranks and ultimately, ultimately make more money. You want to be a higher level technician. There is some dramatic difference there because als, honestly, I've worked with a lot of guys who have a ton of experience. They've got a lot of years in this industry, but they had very little education, and so because of their lack of education, they had a really hard time on understanding proper principles and doing some very in-depth and critical troubleshoots and trying to communicate to that person.

Who doesn't know what it is you're actually saying or you're trying to relay can be very difficult. But on the flip side of that, and I've seen this with my own apprentices, you know, they, they gain a lot of information really fast and they develop and they have. This whole database in their mind of how things are supposed to work on paper.

And maybe they've even gone as far as, they've done certain things once or twice, but they have, haven't actually lived through several scenarios and they haven't actually turned that knowledge into hands-on experience. And they, they start to struggle and they, they really have to work through some what should be, you know, relatively not that big a deal situ.

Become much more dramatic and it's strictly a matter of the hands-on as they lack the extent of hands-on that the person with experience has. And so there really is a balance of in the middle and just because you learn a lot of information and maybe you can pass a a test really well. Don't equate that to actual ex experience.

And, and don't get confused in thinking that just because you understand maybe something about a piece of equipment better than the guy who's worked on it for 20 years, don't think that he's not gonna turn around and you end up making a little bit of a fool of yourself because while he may not be able to explain, The way that you can, or he may not know what to call everything the way that you do, but his ability to get in there, get the system functioning online and troubleshoot it in a fraction of your time is quite impressive without that extra education and that, that is the difference.

And what you're really seeking and what you should be looking for is that in the middle ground, that place of applying all that knowledge and experie. Into one. You know, the education and the physical hands on itself. Now, the other side of this is companies should be investing you, managers, or company owners out there.

You really, really need to think about how you can incentivize your team and make it worth their while to go out and pursue more education and pursue better ways of doing things so that they can then bring that.  and make something more of it and really engage themselves into improving their career.

Because if we don't try to find a way to create some incentive, we're only gonna prolong our ability to better serve our customers. And while, sure, there may have been a generation where this line of thought may have seemed ridiculous to them, but ultimately that generation is not our generation now.

And so us. Leaders of this industry in this day and age, we've gotta find ways of helping the generations that are here now become where we need them so that they can be better and we can better serve. One of the ways that we can do that is seeking out the education we think that our guys need, or when we have customer requests coming in, or be proactive in trying to e.

Our technicians to get out there and get into this training and helping coordinate and organize and give that time to them so that they can go to the distributor or supplier, factory, whatever it is, and get that education. That way they can then bring that back and maybe even share that with their coworkers and it compounds itself from there.

You know, that's something I've had some good success with. Trying to help guys cross train and now send one group of guys to this factory, one group of guys to that factory. Let them both get certified separately, but then have a internal, um, dynamic in the team where they all wanna work together. And so then when they're working side by side, that, that have different certifications, they can then share that knowledge as much as possible.

And I've even had 'em come back and exchange notes and books and do all the. So that they were all on the same page, and while they may not have that physical certification, they got a lot of the valuable information, and then I can then send them later to that other education so that they can cross train and just, it's a cycle.

It's a process. We can really engage ourselves. In making that happen, and while it may be an investment upfront, it's an investment that can really pay for itself in the long run in much bigger ways because that can open up some good opportunities and that can educate your technicians to the point where they have the ability to talk to the customer in a proper language.

Along with some very good confidence in what this information is. They don't have this third, secondhand third hand. I read this online here type of scenario. At that point, no. They've got this straight from the factory. They've got the book right here. They've got everything laid out. They can tell the customer, this is the factory recommendation for these reasons.

Here you go. This is what you should. Please sign here. Another piece of that is really providing tech support. We should be providing as much support and tech support and really just continuing the process of encouragement when a technician isn't being supported and he doesn't feel like he has anywhere to turn and we aren't there as management and as leadership to really help him direct and guide on what he should do.

That plays a part and that plays. Their willingness to continue to grow themselves because they get to a point of why, why should they try? You don't care. You're not gonna do anything to benefit them if they do, and while despite how interesting of a statement that might sound will benefit them, you know, I'm, I'm the employer, da, da, da.

That that is kind of the culture that we have and unless you have some really good ideas on how to just completely revolutionize the. In today's world, you kind of have to find a way to, to exist inside of it if you want to be more successful. The more you can make your technicians successful, the more you as a company can be successful.

Now, I'm gonna flip this around technicians. This is your career. You are the driver's seat of this entire thing. Sure. Somebody might tell you what calls to run and this and that. At the end of the day, with the nature of the industry that we have today and the the amount of opportunities that are on the table, You are in the driver's seat.

That being said, you shouldn't be that upset when you're not getting the education that you feel like you need to because there are more than enough resources out there, and there's lots of companies that can help provide you some of that education you're looking for if you're willing to. Work with them and try to create a relationship around them.

Even if that doesn't mean you're working for them, doesn't mean you can't work with them. You shouldn't rely on your employer to have to hold your hand in to get the training and education that you need. I have technicians who go out and they seek out their own stuff and they come back and say, Hey, by the way, I took these classes, da, da, da, da.

Those go in the books. And let me tell you, those guys perform really well within our team. And those are the guys that we really look at as that is, that is what an an A leader embodies. That is somebody that if they continue on that path and they continue pursuing that personal education and not having to be handheld that entire process, he's really gonna continue to find great success.

And that is one of the. To your ability to get more going in your career and creating your own success that you want to see in your life. That also means that you're gonna have to invest that time and you're gonna have to be willing to sacrifice that time. And nobody gets anywhere in this industry or just in life by just having everything fall into 'em.

I'm not saying that there aren't the freak cases out there, but the vast majority of people that you see, including myself, this stuff didn't just fall in my lap. I've had to sacrifice more than I probably carry to admit in my life, to achieve the things and be where I stand. But I've positioned myself in a way to where I can very effectively take care of my family, and now more than that, I can also help others by this podcast right here doing this kind of thing, having this.

Required years of work and just a bunch of learning and just all this stuff, right? But the point of it is I had a goal and a mission and I wanted to fulfill that, and I had a dream in my heart that I wanted to see happen. This is that flourishion of that happening, and it was me that had to put that time in and make that investment.

Nobody could do that for me. Nobody else could step in and hold my hand. There was nothing else. It was either I made it happen in that way or I didn't. Vast majority of the education I've had in my career. Was because I went out there and sought that out. That's why I tell you one of the best things you could do for yourself is go look.

Ioms and instruction manuals and installs and whatever else, and just read what it says and really pay attention to the verbiage and the wordage and whatever thing is in there. And when you see things you don't know or you don't understand, search that thing out. Make it make sense before you just K.

Keep going. Because a lot of the times those key terms that you may not grasp up front, turn into really, I. Uh, factors in whatever it is that manual's trying to explain to you. Stop trying to skip over and put less effort in, less effort's. Not gonna get you there. You've gotta be willing to up your effort to do even more.

So how do you go about this? How do you self-educate? Because it's easy for me to sit here and tell you, well self-educate, but it's a question I get a lot. Like, how, how is it possible I find this, how do I get the inform. And you may not understand where that information exists, and that's okay. The first place I think you should start is start documenting the things you struggle with on a daily basis.

Really, like if you're doing an electrical, troubleshoot or refrigeration, troubleshoot. Whatever it is. Maybe it's super heater, subcool got something wonky and it just, it, something about this doesn't make sense. Document that down and write that down and, and start to look for those patterns in those things that you see yourself really struggling with.

You know, you go to this call and say, okay, well I had, I had a really hard time understanding why my sub cooling was doing that on this one. And then I look back on my log and I realize in the last week I've had six or seven or 10 calls. The sub cooling numbers just, I couldn't make sense of it. Like I couldn't justify why I read those numbers.

Okay, well you might ought to do some research and some more digging into understanding the principles behind sub cooling and all the variables that play into it. Cuz it's not just as simple as it's the liquid line temp and saturation, temp subtracted from each other. Like, okay, that's how you get sub cooling.

But so what? You got a number? What do you do? You know, that is a way of identifying how you can take next steps for yourself, because there's so much to learn, there's so much to do in this industry. You've gotta really start to narrow down what is actually a good next step for me, and how can I go about.

Applying and finding and seeking out that next step, it's actually gonna make a difference because all those sub cooling calls that took you an extra hour to figure out or to come up with a solution for, you cut that hour, uh, or that extra hour down significantly. Now all of a sudden you're able to run more calls and you're having less callbacks.

And that's the other side of this is the callbacks. Callbacks are a super effective. Where you can determine where you're struggling or not based off of who's complaining that you didn't do something right, and that's okay. Callbacks are gonna happen. I don't care how long you've been in the industry, I don't care how educated you are, I don't care what anybody ever tells you or may put you down about.

You will always have callbacks. It will always be something you will have to navigate. The best thing you could do is learn how to navigate and and learn from those callbacks and what went wrong, even if you're not the technician that went back and did it. If you're working somewhere where you don't think you have any callbacks, cuz your boss never says nothing about it, then you're probably wrong, first of all.

And they probably have somebody else going back behind you and you just don't know about it and the other technician may not even know that you were there your first time. . So you really should ask, you know, go to dispatch or go to your supervisor, go to somebody who you can ask and be like, You know, I was just, I haven't heard about, have I had callbacks?

What have they been, what's been going on? Your management or somebody should be able to give you that kind of feedback so that it can help better guide you in what you can or can't do, and, and da, da da da, da. Right. Do you see the pattern between the list of items you make and the callbacks you have and the things that you realize you struggle with?

There should be some very common skill sets that you can. To develop and grow in that. One of the things that I really encourage you to do, especially at an early stage, instead of trying to figure it out later when you've already got so many concepts in your head.  is psychometrics. Don't downplay the value of psychometrics and how it plays into the refrigeration cycle.

The two of these things go so much hand in hand. It is ridiculous. But yet we have a very common place in the industry where we barely pay attention to psychometrics, and I think that's, that's a fault of us as an industry that we should really start to pay attention to is. Psychometric principles and how that works with refrigeration principles.

And the two of them are married to each other in such an intimate way. But if you haven't done enough research in that topic, you'd never know that. So I'm not saying that you should start that now, I'm just saying that you, you might find that there's things like psychometrics that are the core roots of why you keep having these high humidity callbacks, or when you get on a high humidity call, you just can't quite make sense of it.

Again, that's a psychometrics principle that you can work through and you can fix via the refrigeration cycle. At this day and age, Google's a wonderful tool and it can do a lot for you and it can help you get to the terms that you need to understand, or even if you find a component you're not really familiar with, one of the best ways you can do that, and this is what I used to do.

If like, say I found an actuator I wasn't familiar with, I didn't know how this thing worked, I could take the model number off that actuator's, uh, data tag and I could go research it and, and see, you know, first go to like Google photos or something and find a photo of that. You still don't know what they're called, the thing.

And then you eventually see enough, you see something look similar, you can click on it, and maybe that leads you to an actual term or a definition. Then once you get that definition, you can then continue the process of Googling through what this thing is. Different types of valves is one way you could really do this.

These valves have, you know, some kind of, uh, numbering stamped on them vast majority of the time. Even if the sticker, if it ever had one, is. That's fine. Don't pay attention to the sticker. Look at the stamps. You know, uh, valves are a question I have to answer even with my guys all the time because they're not familiar with all the different types and styles and so forth.

And so if you go in, you can examine, uh, somewhere on that body. There's gonna be some kind of stamped numbers. Start searching those numbers. And if you get this whole long spill of 10 digits and you search that and nothing pull. Then, then stop. Only search the first couple of digits or one by one, start deleting a digit and then hit enter again until you get something that shows up that makes sense, that looks similar to what it is you're working on.

The same principle applies to, to, uh, model numbers on equipment. A lot of equipment model numbers may be 20 digits long, and if you search all those digits, you're probably gonna come up with. And you're gonna have a hard time trying to figure it out, or you're trying to search it through the serial number, that's gonna get you nowhere too.

So take the first few digits. A lot of times model numbers, for example, the first, either three or four digits are the most critical to that piece of machine. If you were to search like a YC iv, it's a, uh, and then you put maybe manual behind it, or you put iom. Something along those lines. Those are the two most common I use, either manual or iom, or if I'm trying to get real specific, I might say service manual, for example, if I know that one exist.

then that can help guide that Google search into pinpointing exactly what you're looking for versus you're trying to put in either way too little, maybe only the first couple of digits, or you're trying to put in way too many Google search just has too much information at that point and you're confusing it.

So really think about how you're using that tool because it is an incredible tool that most people never. Another really effective method to take it into your own hands is talk to your distributors or talk to your local, uh, supply houses. Almost all of them offer some kind of education. A lot of the time it's free.

You know, you just have to show up, and it's not that big of a deal for your employer if you bring that to them. You know, it's something I struggle with. You know, I was talking earlier, you know, I was really talking to myself about the employer thing and seeking that education out and trying to get those guys encouraged to.

I'm talking to myself, you know, that's my own problem, is identifying those things and helping my team. , uh, get there. And so I, I do have it to where my guys will bring those things to me on occasion, and it is so helpful. And all I gotta do is say, yes, go do it. And they go. And, and that is a major deal that could really help you take steps forward.

And it builds a level of trust with whoever you're working for and your ability to show how invested you are in making. Better, an extra side tip there. The counter guys can really be a huge benefit to you if you allow them to. And so really try to build some relationships with those guys. Uh, in my experience, I've got guys that I've really connected with and I've built a more personal type relationship with them, and it can really help to go a long way, especially when you're in a bind or if you.

In a situation where the customer is in trouble and you need something to happen quicker than usual, those kind of relationships give them a more incentive to say, Hey, you know what? We can pull this and that and get this taken care of for you. You know, really appreciate your business kind of deal. And that's not shady or anything.

That's just, that's, that's good relationships. And you'll find that relationships in this industry have a big part as as to how easy it is to be more successful. I do wanna throw in the new segment here. Uh, there is reports that. A heat pump. Sales are heavily on the rise. I know that my conversations with customers and across the board, I'm just seeing more and more and more push and heat pump technology has come a really long way in its ability to support under really low ambient conditions outside, and especially like many splits really push this technology a lot further forward.

Now. Traditional splits are really starting to catch up to those standards. Uh, if you're not familiar or if you're not confident or you don't have a, an in-depth knowledge on heat pumps yet, now is a really good time to start developing it. I think all of us have probably worked on 'em to some extent.

They are a very commonplace nowadays, but being common and also being really proficient on working at 'em and understanding all their nuances, that's two different things. So, uh, that's a, that will be another great area that you could study. It is your career. At the end of the day, you have to take control.

And we as employers need to work with you on helping develop that. And that is something that is different than it used to be. And you've gotta understand that if you're still fairly new into this industry, is you're dealing with people who aren't familiar with it. And you can call those guys. I'm not a boomer myself, but you can call them, you know, okay, boomer, whatever derogatory thing you have for those guys, that's fine.

You know what, if you wanna be disrespectful, then be it. End of the day, they come from a very, very different world and they came up in a very different trade. And that doesn't make them wrong, but part of their perspective is it's up to you to control your career, not them as the employer or as the manager.

To some degree. It is almost insulting that there is an expectation that they have to put so much on the table to take care of.  when they came up through some pretty rough times themselves. That's not an excuse, and it doesn't mean that they should have that opinion. You have to find some common ground at the same time, just constantly resisting.

Whatever it is they're trying to help you do at the end of the day isn't gonna get you any further in your career. And that's my big point here. You are in control here. You've gotta make the decisions that are gonna place yourself in the right. To have really strong career moves and your ability to make those decisions and make those moves on your own is gonna be what dictates it.

It's not gonna be the training your employer decides to give. It's not gonna be any of those things on your employer level. They might be able to do some little things that really help you if you're not taking that extra steps and times and everything I've talked about here, your. You're gonna always find yourself lacking what you really want from a company's perspective.

We do a tremendous amount to support our people, provide training, and do all the stuff. And you see some of that here on this channel. You know, it, it, it shows up between the onsite training and different things, and that might seem great to you, but ultimately I don't see success in those guys because of all the things we do for them.

The guys that I really see success. Are the ones who implement all of these practices I'm talking about and really push themselves out there. Everybody else eventually somewhat kind of, sort of catches up and gets there and it's, it's a process for 'em. But the ones that actually develop a strong career that are gonna skyrocket the rest of their life, this is the types of strategies that they implement in their lives and the self disciplines they have.

The question is, do you have those same discipl. Or no. I appreciate you guys. Uh, check out True Tech tools. If you haven't, they've got really good selection to really take care of you. Uh, HVAC time is the promo code that'll get you 8% off. I hope you enjoy your new year. Hope he has some good holidays. Now let's get to it.