Sample Position Descriptions Maintenance and Service Department

by: admin - Filed under: Hiring

Service Helper
No refrigeration or electrical knowledge and without experience.
Helps with brushing tubes, changing or installing units, compressor replacements and delivers parts.

Precision Tune-Up Specialist
EPA Certified Type 2. Basic knowledge of refrigeration and electrical with less than one year experience.  Equipment preventative maintenance.

Technician
Entry Technician plus: Solid knowledge of refrigeration and electrical with at least one year experience. Must be able to perform maintenance and all phases of trouble shooting on split systems.
 
Certified Technician
Technician plus: Must be certified through NATE. Must be EPA certified -Universal. Must have expertise with refrigerant and electrical systems and must fully understand airflow.  Must be able to perform maintenance and trouble shooting on rooftop units and split systems up to 30 tons. Must understand refrigerant piping systems. (Double risers, traps, etc.)

Senior Technician
Certified Technician plus: Must be able to overhaul and replace large reciprocating, screw and scroll compressors. Must have complete knowledge of DX systems 30 ton and above. Able to understand and be able to work on reciprocating chillers, frequency drives, flow valves, all components of chilled water systems and boiler systems including expansion tanks.

Master Technician
Senior Technician plus: Must be able to perform annual inspections of centrifugal chillers, vane axial fans and boilers. Must have knowledge of vibration analysis. Must be able to work on any HVAC equipment successfully including absorbers.

Commitment to Training

by: admin - Filed under: Hiring, Training

HVAC Companies most likely will not find the people they need to continue and build a highly profitable Service business.  They will have to find great people and then train them.  They will have to continue to train and reward them, to keep them.  Great ranchers and cattlemen are not made as a result of their skills in breeding cattle but become great cattlemen because of their skills growing hay and feed.  HVAC Companies must excel at feeding their AC business, not by growing hay but by growing people. 

If you currently have issues with retaining your great people, your training program is one of the issues.

First you need to demonstrate your commitment to training by building a training facility.  Build one at least twice as big as you need.  You will be training people for sales skills so you will need a comfortable classroom including an overhead projector, whiteboard, video player and computer network.  You will be training PTS technical skills so you will need operating furnaces, air handlers, condensing units and all the accessories.

If you are currently in the HVAC business, you are probably competent technically and have a good handle on your costs and accounting.  If not, you need to get or hire those skills ASAP.  The skills that you have now will not get you to the next level, and might even prevent you from growing.  If you can’t become a great people person or if you really enjoy the technical aspects of you business and don’t want to change, you should hire or recruit a partner with the skills you don’t have.  Use a professional when recruiting at this level for your company. 

Remember HVAC Companies should hire slow and fire fast.  Take your time and get the right people that have the skills you currently need with  growth potential.

“Opportunity Manager” for HVAC Companies

by: docCool - Filed under: Hiring, Marketing, Service Agreements

Significant resistance to change exists within all HVAC Companies.  For this reason implementing change requires an unwavering commitment from the top.  In order to overcome resistance from service techs, dispatchers and others, when installing the “Maintenance Department”, the owner must appoint someone to manage the maintenance department and that person must understand success is not optional.  The owner is not a good choice for this position since he gets distracted with other day to day business.  We don’t want anything in the way of adding new customers and generating a steady flow of replacement leads.

The maintenance department is really the lead department.  The manager should be the “Opportunities Manager”, lead coordinator, sales manager, sales trainer, cheerleader and air conditioner maintenance scheduler.

Most of our high quality, high margin replacement leads will come from air conditioner maintenance agreement customers.  The maintenance department manager (Opportunity Manager) must be aware of how old the equipment is at each customer’s location and dispatch the PTS with the highest lead generation percentage to perform the tune-up.  In contrast, the PTS with the best tune-up to maintenance agreement conversion should perform most single tune-ups.

The lead coordinator (Opportunity Manager) personally takes every call to schedule sales presentations but the opportunity manager does not make sales presentations.  The information is recorded on the lead card and the comfort consultant with the highest closing rate gets the lead.  If we have more than one comfort consultant and he wants the best leads he must work to develop the highest closing rate.  A back up lead coordinator must be trained to take calls when the Opportunity Manager is not available.

The Opportunity Manager is also the sales trainer and conducts sales training for service techs in converting service calls to maintenance agreements.  Like all other vital Key Performance Indicators (KPI), the Opportunities Manager is responsible for tracking all sales related data including service tech conversion rates for service agreements and leads.

The sales manager duties required of the Opportunities Manager, will also require skill in personality profiles, in order to hire and train the best PTS and Comfort Consultants. 

The Opportunities Manager should debrief every comfort consultant after every presentation and every PTS after each tune-up as part of the continuing sales education process.

The Opportunities Manager reports to the owner on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.  The following records and reports are required.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

  • Replacement leads to sales closing rate for each comfort consultant %
    • From Service Agreement customers 85%
    • From non SA customers  25%
    • Maintenance agreement to lead % by PTS 10%
    • Service call lead conversion by service tech 10%
    • Service call maintenance agreement conversion by tech  25%
    • PTS maintenance tune-up conversion to leads by PTS.  10%
    • Single tune-up to maintenance agreement conversion by PTS 60% to 70%
    • Service Agreement renewal 80% to 90%
    • Maintenance Dept. P&L to budget.
    • Comfort Consultant commissions. $
    • Service tech commissions $
    • PTS Commissions.$
    • Direct mail, door hanger and other advertising programs to generate tune-ups. 3%
    • 1200 service agreements to support $1,000,000. In retail sales.

Owners of HVAC Companies that are serious about growing their business and profits won’t try to wear this hat and take the chance of being too busy, to be successful.

Hiring the Precision Tune-Up Specialist (PTS)

by: admin - Filed under: Hiring

The Precision Tune-up specialist will generate significant HVAC Business for HVAC Companies.  This PTS must have a natural outgoing personality and be equipped with great people skills. 

The Precision Tune-up specialist is hired based on people skills and trained to perform the technical portion of air conditioner maintenance.  If you can find an AC trade school graduate, you will save money on training.  Be aware that people with technical aptitude are more comfortable with things than with people.  Good people skills and technical aptitude in the same person are rare.  As a result, you must hire for people skills and train for technical skills.

  • For short term needs, obtain prospects by running the PTS employment ad (included in the “HVAC books” appendix) on Craigslist and other employment want add lists.
  • When you meet a personable candidate in a retail store or fast food restaurant, give them a card and ask them to call, when they are off work.
  • Always be recruiting.
  • Prior to interviews, become familiar with the PTS Position Description.  (included in the “HVAC books” appendix)
  • Plan for future growth and make arrangements with local trade schools to screen all of their students at the beginning of each semester.  Encourage these people oriented students to stay with the AC program.  Sponsor students with great people skills in exchange for a PTS position upon graduation.

Don’t make the mistake of using the maintenance department and our PTS as a career path or stepping stone to train service repair technicians.    The service tech must possess highly technical skills.  Base compensation and bonus for a great PTS will be comparable to earnings of a repair tech.

  • Become familiar with personality profiles and their use.  Take a course and provide training for everyone in the company.  This training works miracles for employee relations and is essential for sales training.  Quickly recognizing basic personality profiles is an essential tool.  (see appendix for profiling vendors and trainers)
  • If you can’t recognize basic personalities, give prospects a written profile as part of the recruiting and hiring process.  You will soon master this valuable skill.

Remember, our maintenance department should generate up to $800.00 in additional annual revenue for each service agreement customer. The payoff is worth the effort. 

“Hire slow and fire fast.”  Take the time to hire the right person

HVAC Companies, What Does it Cost When you Hire the Wrong Person?

by: admin - Filed under: Hiring

Posted on August 31, 2010, 10:20 AM, by admin and received No Comments ». | Edit
If you have been involved in HVAC Companies, you probably noticed that one service tech sells more than all the rest put together? Your best technical service tech may not ever sell anything. You have probably noticed that some people can sell systems at 60% margin and some can’t give one away. Most owners of HVAC Companies are similar in their personality for very good reasons and usually don’t make good employees.

Early in my career when we noticed this, we decided to try and find out why. We discovered a personality profile and began giving it to service techs, salespeople and Precision Tune-Up Specialists (PTS). After testing hundreds of employees with known performance we soon discovered the high performance sellers all had similar profiles. This is essential when building your air conditioner maintenance department.

Using a DISC Profile is not a guarantee of a high performance employee but it is one of the tools worth every penny invested. The profile training should be provided for all of your employees. Learn to administer the profile yourself if you can possibly spare the time. Train all your managers to administer the profile. The instructor learns the most.

DISC is the 4 quadrant behavioral model based on the efforts of William Marston PhD that will analyze the actions of people in their surrounding or within a precise situation.

Traits of behavior may be grouped in to 4 main “personality styles” and many people have a tendency to display particular traits common to that distinct style. All people possess all 4, yet what varies from one particular to another is the degree of each.

In a common group, there are different levels of compatibility, not simply toward jobs but social relationships as well. However, when they are discovered, energy may be invested on refining the outcomes.

Each of these types offers its distinctive value to the group, ideal environment, common characteristics, what the particular person is motivated by, along with value to group.

DISC is additionally used in an variety of areas, as well as by many businesses, HR pros, organizations, consultants, instructors and trainers…

The assessments categorize four elements of behavior by screening a person’s choices in term associations. DISC is the acronym for:

Dominance – related to control, power as well as assertiveness
Influence – related to sociable situations and communication
Steadiness – related to patience, tolerance, and thoughtfulness
Conscientiousness – related to structure as well as organization
These particular 4 dimensions may be grouped in a grid using “D” and “I” utilizing the top row and also representing extroverted elements of the personality, and “C” and “S” listed below symbolizing introverted elements. “D” and “C” next share the left column and signify task-focused elements, and “I” and “S” share the right column and signify social elements.

Dominance: Individuals who score high in the strength of the “D” styles element are very proactive in working with problems and difficulties, while low “D” results are individuals which want to do far more investigation before committing to a choice. High “D” individuals are described as demanding, forceful, single minded, strong willed, driving, persistent, ambitious, aggressive, as well as pioneering. Low D ratings identify individuals who are traditional, low keyed, supportive, calculating, undemanding, careful, moderate, flexible, modest and peaceful.

Influence: Individuals with high “I” ratings influence other people by means of talking and action and have a tendency to be emotional. These people are described as persuading, magnetic, political, passionate, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, having faith in, and positive. Individuals with low “I” ratings influence more through data and facts, as well as not with emotions. These people are described as reflective, informative, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

Steadiness: Individuals with higher “S” types scores want a stable pace, security, as well as do not like unexpected change. High “S” people are calm, peaceful, patient, controlling, predictable, planned, steady, consistent, and have a tendency to be unemotional . Low “S” intensity ratings are those that like change and variety. Individuals with low “S” ratings are referred to as stressed, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even even impulsive.

Conscientious: Individuals with high “C” styles conform to rules, restrictions, and structure. These people like to perform quality work and do it correct the first time. High “C” individuals tend to be careful, cautious, rigorous, neat, organized, diplomatic, precise, and tactful. Individuals with low “C” results challenge the rules as well as want independence and tend to be referred to as self-willed, obstinate, opinionated, unsystematic, irrelavent, and aren’t bothered by using details.

Selecting high performance HVAC ductwork installers, air conditioner maintenance techs (PTS), HVAC service techs and salespeople for HVAC companies is the difference between the great HVAC companies and the average companies.