INVEST AND FOR THE RIGHT REASON
Most companies will admit that they are either in the situation where they don’t do training at all, or just not enough of it. Frank Harrison, former owner of General Air Conditioning & Plumbing located in Palm Springs, CA once was asked by another HVAC company owner “What if you invest in the development of that employee and they leave and go to a competitor? Frank replied, “The bigger issue to me would be that if I don’t help them grow and they stay?” You really have to want to help the person develop, and in return they will be grateful for the trust and investment and add positivity to your culture.
OWNERS ARE AWOL
Another scenario where we see challenges arise is when owners make the investment but then don’t attend the training themselves and/or don’t have the management participate. Owners and managers need to show an employee how important this training is, that you took time out of your day to take it as well. Also, it is critical to the success of any HVAC training that you dedicate one person in management to continue integrating and reinforcing their development in all upcoming meetings. You need someone to be the cheerleader to keep what you have learned going.
TOO MUCH TO HANDLE
On the opposite end of the spectrum of not offering any or enough training, is putting too much on an employee’s schedule. Too many training programs can overwhelm them. Find a program, stick to it and measure the results. If you aren’t getting what you set out to achieve, then change your trainer or program.
Multi-day training sessions can be very helpful and move the needle of improvement quickly, because you get several days to really make an impact with a lot of materials quickly, but it can take a lot out of your company if you do not plan it out carefully. Plan the days strategically so your team can do some HVAC training exercises together, but still maintain as normal of business operation as possible.
OUT OF TOWN SESSIONS CAN BE A PROBLEM
If you choose a new training session or program that takes your team out of the office, realize you have the potential for a whole lot of things to go wrong. The main issue is that unless you or someone from your management team goes with them to the HVAC training, you will not know what they are being trained on fully and will have a hard time continuing to support it. Therefore, making the investment to have onsite trainers is very worth it for continuity.
CONTENT IS FOR THE WRONG PEOPLE
There are a lot of training programs out there that offer very similar things. Make sure the program you are selecting is the right information you want your employees to bring back into your business. An example would be an HVAC/CSR training program that has no training for objections, just conceptual high level. A brand new CSR needs to know the basics to handle the objections because you don’t know what you don’t know.
If you are interested in learning more about Duffy Marketing Services training programs, or any of our other marketing services with emphasis on the HVAC, plumbing & electric business, please call or email our office.
