One of the long held prevailing wisdoms of the building automation industry is that it takes 5 years to create a competent field technician. Smart Buildings Academy was founded on the belief that talented field ready technicians can be developed in a much shorter timeframe. We believe that raw talent, combined with exceptional leadership, and world class training will produce results. But is that really the case?
To answer that question, we must first define what makes a good technician. In an era of everything, right now is it truly possible to produce a capable professional in months not years? And if the answer is yes, then how?
It begins with understanding what truly produces results. All too often job descriptions are produced by committee a veritable wish list of desires where everyone throws a few “needs” into the job posting and hopefully a miracle working technician appears for what seems like an arbitrary wage.
The reality is that to define a “good technician” one has to identify the core knowledge and skills that will enable the technician to deliver a measurable impact to the business. Knowledge like BAS, HVAC, building system fundamentals. Skills like installation, validation, configuration, and troubleshooting.
Assuming we all agree on the core knowledge and skills required to be a good technician, the next step is to identify what knowledge and skill needs to be bestowed upon these “newbies” to drive productivity and business results. For this we turn to root cause analysis and pareto principle. These tools help us identify what knowledge and skills are required to address 80% of the requirements in the field. Pinpointing the knowledge and skill that is required to execute the exact actions that drive revenue is the surest way to deliver value to the business from new technician hires.
At this point, everything we’ve discussed is theoretical. How do you turn it into action for your business or P&L today?
Step 1: Abandon the belief that an individual needs to know everything. Hire attitude, aptitude, and culture fit… teach them the industry.
Step 2: List out the key actions and skills that will generate immediate business results (Revenue AND margin)
Step 3: Put them in training that will deliver individuals who possess the identified skills in the shortest amount of time possible.
If this seems overwhelming, we encourage you to reach out to us. We regularly support our clients by evaluating and improving their business and talent processes to produce measurable business outcomes now and into the future.
