Episode Description:
Episode 466 addresses one of the most pressing challenges in the building automation industry today: the growing shortage of skilled building operators. In this episode, you’ll gain insights into how to effectively attract, train, and retain talent in an increasingly competitive market. While contractors are pulling operators away, there are key strategies facilities can use to combat this trend and keep their teams strong.
Key takeaways you’ll get:
- Why finding skilled operators is getting harder and how to tap into overlooked talent pools.
- Proven methods for developing operators through hands-on training and systematic onboarding processes.
- The unique benefits facilities can leverage to retain operators, beyond just salary.
- How creating a culture of continuous learning and growth can boost employee loyalty.
- The long-term value of development plans and creative employee recognition programs.
If you’re looking to keep your facility running smoothly by building a loyal and skilled team, this episode is for you! Tune in to learn more about the steps you can take to future-proof your operations.
Click here to download or listen to this episode now.
Resources mentioned in this episode
- Free Technical Skill Assessments
- Smart Buildings Academy Workforce Development Program
- Smart Buildings Academy Courses
- Building Automation Training Guides
Podcast Video
Transcript
Phil Zito 0:00
This is the smart buildings Academy podcast with Phil Zito. Episode 466, Hey folks, Phil Zito, here and welcome to episode 466, of the smart buildings Academy podcast. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about how to find, develop and retain your building operators. I was actually doing a keynote for a podcast or for a webinar. I guess I don't know what you call an online keynote for an organization called FM now. And one of the last questions I got as we're closing out the webinar was, hey, what do I do to retain my operators. They're being taken away by contractors. How can I keep them? And I actually think this is an easy problem to solve from a retaining perspective, the harder part is, how do you find and develop these people in the first place? So in this episode, we are going to be talking about, how do you find, how do you develop, and then, how do you retain your building operators in your facility? Today's episode is sponsored by our technical skill assessment, if you're trying to figure out what your people know and do not know, so that you can create customized development plans for them, whether that's internal training or maybe some smart buildings academy training, I encourage you to sign up for our free skill assessment. Go to smart buildings academy.com forward slash skills. Once again, that is smart buildings. Academy.com forward slash skills. And as always, everything mentioned in today's episode will be linked at podcast smart buildings, academy.com forward slash 466, once again, that is podcast dot smart buildings, academy.com forward slash 466, and if you're watching this on YouTube, please like and subscribe. Helps the algorithm helps us to go and get more reach with more people. If you're watching this on LinkedIn, please consider sharing it, and if you are listening to this on some sort of podcast service, I encourage you to please leave us a five star review. If you think we have earned it, we bring this information to you every week freely, and that just helps spread the word about the smart buildings Academy podcast. All right, so let's dig in. Contractors are offering higher pay. They're pulling operators away from facility management. That is a fact. I would argue that I also see facility management that are offering some very attractive benefits, and they're pulling technicians away from contractors. That is just the world we live in. We have too few technicians, too few operators, and not enough people entering the industry. Today, we're going to explore how facilities can leverage their own unique advantages to attract and develop talent. And like I started off, the hardest part is to actually go and find and develop the talent once you've done that. The retaining part, as I hope you'll see at the end of this episode, is actually not that hard to do. So why does this matter? Why do you care? Well, building operators and engineers are essential to running a facility well, but a lot of organizations are losing their folks, I would argue, mainly due to retirements, people exiting the workforce and not going and building up a bench of talent. And we're also seeing that as people are losing the experienced technicians, or, sorry, the experienced operators and building engineers. So you lose the people at the same time you've got legacy systems, because, for whatever reason, you haven't upgraded the building automation in your facilities, and so the talent that you had that knew how to run these legacy systems, they're no longer there, so you don't know how to operate your facility. So now you have to go through an expensive retrofit, and right? So you you've got this issue of you're losing people, but then you're also struggling to find new people. And then there is the concern of that the contractors are going to offer more to your operators and your operators are going to leave. I would argue that facility management folks can offer some really cool benefits, things like job security, things like predictable work schedules, potentially superior benefits pensions, but a lot of folks are not aware of these advantages, and the managers of these operators and engineers don't effectively communicate. Like, for example, if you're a facility operator and you work for K through 12, there's a high likelihood that. There's a big period of time in the summer that you don't have to work that can be very attractive to some individuals. Versus on the contractor side, you're gonna be doing 6080s hours a week working on a roof. And some folks like the stress. Some folks like that intense work, but that is the reality for most contracted technicians in the summer. Like I said in this episode, we're going to break down, where do you find qualified operators, how do you develop them using proven onboarding processes? I'm going to talk through how we onboard people. I like to think of our organization as one of the best in class organizations when it comes to developing net new talent, we have a proven track record of doing that, and then we're going to go through how to retain these folks. So how do you find people? It is the biggest question. It's a question we as an organization are trying to solve ourselves, because we know if we can find people with technical aptitude, we have a high likelihood that companies will want to hire them and use our proven Training Services to develop them. So what I see when I go to facilities most often there is a building operator already on your team or already in your greater organization. If you are part of any corporate organization, you most likely know that IT staff, a lot of data and technical staff, are getting reduction in force. That means they're getting let go, right? They're getting reduced but before these IT folks get let go, why not go and see are they a tinkerer? Do they like to work on their cars? We already know they're technically adept. We already know they know how to work with computer systems. Maybe they like being hands on. Maybe they did mechanical work at a younger age. Maybe they used to work on cars with their their dad. Who knows, but you should have a way of going and tapping into your greater organization and figuring out, hey, who might have mechanical aptitude? I encourage you, if you've got people in your organization, put them through our technical skill assessment, it's free figure out kind of how technically adept they are. They might surprise you. We've seen a lot of folks be surprised by some of their staff that they didn't think would be technically adept, and they actually were. So that's one way. Another way is if you're in higher ed, or if you're in K through 12, look on the intern path. Maybe there's a way to work with and we're working with a nonprofit right now, a couple nonprofits, to put together some programs that are going to be in the K through 12 and the reskilling spaces to go and develop talent that can be utilized by both owner operators as well as contractors. But look at the resources you have. I was in church the other day, and one if this was about evangelism, but they're talking about, how can you go and basically do God's work? And one of the things they said was, look at the resources around you. That is true for the rest of us in just the normal day to day life. Look at the resources that you have available to you. Maybe you have folks in your university. Maybe you have folks in your school tap into those resources, cross train your existing staff. This works a lot with like K through 12 higher ed, but I'm talking bigger districts, health care,
Phil Zito 8:41
those kind of spaces, because you'll tend to have mechanics, you'll tend to have plumbers, you'll tend to have electricians. Go and cross train these people. And I'll talk more about this when we actually get into, um, part two, which will be developing your operators. But part one, do cross training. Go and build up this experience. One, it makes you not dependent on an individual person. Two, it builds loyalty, because you're pouring into your people, and it helps build out that skill set. Look at external sources. So you notice it started with internal sources. You should really start there, internal job fairs, external sources, technical colleges and trade schools. If you are a college, you should partner with yourself, but technical colleges and trade schools do not hesitate to go to a local school and actually advertise for your facilities. I find the contractors going there, but I don't tend to see the facility managers going there. And I always wondered, why, why don't the local hospitals, facilities lead, go to the local trade schools, or form a relationship, take the professor or the department head for the facilities training? Thing out to lunch, form a relationship and start getting these people. Maybe provide internships, maybe make your facility a living lab where these people can come and learn and work at your facility. You get some free or low cost labor. They get a real experience from where they can work on their their craft and apply it in a real world scenario. Veterans, myself, being a veteran, we're really good. We often get put out in the middle of nowhere with tech manuals and no support and told to figure things out. That is the exact skill you want in your facility. You want someone who can figure things out. Doesn't need to be told is a self starter. There's this misunderstanding with former military people that we need to be told what to do, that we can't think for ourselves, that we can't self direct. And actually, if you dig into some of the commentary by the actual enemies that we faced in certain conflicts. One of the things they would talk about is that even if the American officer was injured you, the soldiers would still react, and they would still take action. They were proactive. So the belief that, you know military folks, veterans especially, are very rigid, and that we're not flexible, isn't, I would say, is very far from the truth. And if you're not tapping into that resource, it is a highly trained resource. The biggest challenge you're going to find is veterans, myself included. We did not know how to articulate how our skills related to the building space. But for example, I worked on missile systems. Those had electromechanical systems. They had hydraulic systems. I did instrumentation and controls. I had an instrumentation calibration kit. I had to work on sprinkler systems, a dry and a wet sprinkler system. So I had to work on a lot of an electronics, etc. But I didn't know how to articulate that to facilities or to building automation. So often, if you just ask people, and you can think a little bit outside the box. You can identify people. Additionally, you know, industry events, conferences, definitely go there. Try to pick up folks. There targeted job ads, you know, I will tell you, on Reddit, on Facebook, there are some very active groups of people who are looking for work in the building automation space. So simply joining those groups, becoming active in those groups. I know a lot of folks, even including myself. I don't naturally go to social media to engage for work. I do it because I have to, which is kind of funny, because you all probably see my LinkedIn and my podcasts, but it's it's not natural for me. I'm actually more reclusive, but going and doing that will really give you access to a pool of people that you may not have seen otherwise. Okay, so let's say you've got this person, you've hired this person, and you need to develop this person. I'm going to talk through how we do things because, like I said, we've got a proven track record of doing it. So the first thing we do is, when we work with an organization, we assess the person, whether that's a pre hire assessment or a post hire assessment. We perform our skill assessment. That skill assessment pinpoints what gaps exist, and then from those gaps we work with the client to create a customized onboarding process that may be using our training services, that may be using their own internal training services. Essentially, what I want you to do is think of the tasks that get done, so the 20% of tasks, yes, I'm using the Pareto Principle again, the 20% of tasks that get done 80% of the time at your facility, most likely they're responding to troubleshooting calls because a space is hot, a space is cold, a piece of equipment's down. And then think through what are the common tasks that need to be done to maintain that? Oh, someone calls, they say it's cold. Maybe a sub point needs to be changed. Maybe a piece of equipment didn't trigger. Maybe a valve is stuck, maybe a damper stuck. Think through these things based on those actions, create definable processes. Observe your best person doing this and document that process. This could be simply chicken scratch on a piece of paper, but get it documented somehow. And then, whenever you onboard someone, you train them to the process. And as you observe the process being done, the process gets improved. And now you have trained process, or documented processes and documented procedures. A process is kind of what is done. A procedure is how to do it. And so once you have all these documented processes and procedures for your common reactive maintenance tasks and proactive maintenance tasks, then you want to train to those procedures. Now there's two types of training you're going to need, actually, I'll say there's three types of training you're going to need, Core Knowledge training. So people have to understand, I can't count how many people I've seen go to OEM training courses, and they're like, I'm gonna learn building automate. No, you're not gonna learn building automation. You're going to learn how to do a specific thing with that OEMs piece of equipment. So you go to a Niagara certification, you're not learning building automation. You're learning how to work with Niagara it assumes you understand it. It assumes you understand IO, building automation, fundamentals, HVAC, etc. So you got to build up that core set of knowledge, the three pillars that I like to say, and you could argue there's four pillars, but the three pillars are HVAC, electrical and it and then the fourth pillar seems kind of obvious, building automation, but the HVAC, the IT and the electrical support building automation. So building automation should sit on top of those three pillars. I've done many, many episodes of what you need to know in each one of those functional areas, so we're not going to do that here. Once you've gone and defined, okay, does this person have skill gaps in those key pillars? If so, train them, either utilize our training courses or utilize some sort of internal training you've got. Okay, so one core knowledge, two, building automation knowledge. So now we're talking about actually using the product. So this is going to be different than on the job training and actual application knowledge. This is them actually understanding how to use the product. How do I log in? Where do I click? This should be the easiest training of the three trainings to accomplish, because most facilities, they have maybe two to three building automation systems, and once you learn where to click, it never really changes. Sure, there's software updates occasionally, but they tend to not move things around. And if you've documented processes and procedures, like I said, then those should have screenshots and show the person what to do. So it shouldn't be terribly difficult to train them up on the software. But then we get to the on the job training and the application training. Application training is actually doing of the task. So this is where you're going to train them on how to execute the procedures. And this is common process of you're going to execute the procedure while they watch, then you are going to have them execute the procedure while you watch, then you are going to have them execute the procedure by themselves, and you're going to do a post evaluation, and then you're going to have them start executing the procedure on their own. That's the standard four step process for on the job training, demonstrate, observe, let them do it and then evaluate, and then send them on their way to do the procedure. This should be part of an on the job checklist for onboarding purposes that you then go and establish with your talent management team as people get brought on. And then ongoing development one of the biggest issues in retention, I find,
Phil Zito 18:25
is, surprisingly, not compensation. There's a level of compensation that people want, and then they'll be comfortable if you follow the concept of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, food, shelter, all those things tend to be at the bottom. If you don't have those, you can't get to the higher levels of needs. So there's going, I realize that's a very butchered explanation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs for those of you like Joe, one of our trainers, who has an education in psychology, but I will say that one of the things that is important is you have to find that kind of baseline level of pay. Obviously, you can't pay an operator $15 an hour and expect them to stay on board when they can go to a contractor and make 25 to $30 an hour. That's not going to happen. But there is a level of compensation that when you hit that you should satisfy their initial needs. Okay, now that you've done that, and by the way, if you didn't know, we're switching into the how to retain building operators portion of this episode. But what I would say is, now we're going to start building really competitive compensation packages, and your talent management and HR team should be able to help you now, while contractors may offer higher salaries, and they pretty much all do, facility management does have its own perks that can be incredibly attractive to. Here's the key point, long term employees. So there are folks I used to be one of them, who were constantly chasing the next challenge. I would go and look at the job board at the company I worked at. I would find the job that no one seemed to be filling. I would look into it, and then I would take that job as a challenge, and I like to think I excelled at it, or at least no one told me I didn't Excel. So we're gonna go with that. I excelled, but I kept doing that to basically move up the ladder, and so I kept changing roles, so I was not a long term employee. I honestly would not be happy sitting and working for 30 years in a certain role. That's just not me. That's why I founded a business. I Good news, folks, I am the minority of people in the population. There are not a whole lot of entrepreneurs that want to go and constantly sneaks seek stimulation by changing roles and changing jobs and creating their own job and all that fun stuff. Majority of people are pretty content with going and working in something that is fulfilling for other reasons, I find my fulfillment through success. I find my fulfillment through accomplishments and through challenges. There's a lot of people who find their fulfillment through other things. With that said, I'm talking to the people who are of that nature who find their fulfillment through things other than constantly achieving the next goal. So what can you build up to retain that long term employee? First off, pension plans, retirement plans, etc. This is a huge draw for building operators, because almost no one in the private sector offers this anymore. Everyone offers like 401, KS, but pension plans, retirement plans, those can be very attractive to long term employees. Health benefits, especially if you're in the healthcare or the larger institutional space, you can really offer, and most of you do offer, some very attractive and comprehensive health packages, including wellness programs, etc. This can be very attractive to people who have families. I will tell you, as an entrepreneur and business owner, we pay a lot for insurance. So yeah, this is a big benefit. Work Life, balances, many operators will leave contractors because of the burnout. Some folks just aren't wired for that. And that's okay. That's not a dig on those people. We need people who thrive on stress, love to travel. I know a lot of contractors who are in the western states, like myself, who are requiring their technicians to travel two three hours to get to a job site. I myself used to have to travel two hours. I remember driving from Wisconsin to Chicago every day. That was miserable, but I did it because even remember why I did if I'm honest, any answer I give you would be a lie. So I can't honestly tell you why I did. I guess I just felt like I had to provide but I use that role as a stepping stone to go to another role. Facilities, however, can provide some predictable schedules. They can provide a different kind of stress. I was going to say less stress, and that's what I have in my notes, but it's a different kind of stress. There's the kind of stress of arguing with the GC, getting told you're wrong, being dependent on electrical or mechanical folks who haven't properly implemented their stuff yet, or being dependent on structural or whoever the other contractor is. And that creating stress because all your projects hit at the same time, especially in August. And I will tell you that that stress doesn't bother some people. For other folks, it bothers them a lot. So there's a different kind of stress with with facilities. Oftentimes you don't have the same budget, oftentimes you're an afterthought. Oftentimes you're working with older equipment, you're not getting the training and support, but some folks thrive under that. So I'll say one of the ways you can really work on retaining your operators is by developing development plans. I mean, one you got to point out, like, Hey, look at all the attractive things we have, right? What's your stress level going to be? How often are you going to be working? Do you get summers off, etc? But then that's all well and good kind of following that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? So we've got the salary, then we've got kind of the health benefits and the retirement and all that. But then above that, we've got self actualization, we've got personal development. Development. And this is where creating personal development plans for your employees and going and said, Where do you want to be? What does that look like? What do you need to do? What do you need to experience to get there, and then building out that plan collaboratively and executing that plan that is a crucial way of retaining your talent and then finally creating a culture of continuous learning. Well, I guess not finally, I actually have one more note, but you should go, in my opinion, facilities. You're a great place to do this. You run into an issue that no one's seen before, turn it into a learning opportunity. Create reg regular lunch and learn sessions. This right, even if it's informal, will go and help you retain people. It will go and build up that feeling of belonging. And then the final thing I would say is look at different ways of recognizing people. Look at longevity bonuses. Go and think through, if someone's been with your organization, maybe you can increase their pay. Maybe there's some form of benefit monetarily, maybe it's a short vacation. Who knows? And then recognition programs. I mean, we all laugh when you go to like a restaurant and you see employee of the month, and you never see the same person on there, and so naturally I think to myself, Okay, this is just everyone gets this eventually, but you do occasionally see those boards where there's that one employee who literally is the employee every month and the Employee of the Year. I'm like, I can respect that, because then I know this is actually met oh my gosh, I can't speak English. Metocracy, Metro talk. I don't know. I'm from the south. I grew up in Texas. They don't teach us to speak, uh, I've Forgive me all you Texans who feel insulted now, but um, meritocracy, that's the right word. So, like I was saying though, you I can look at that and say that's a meritocracy that is one, an organization that's actually recognizing people because of their skills and talent, and people like that, in a world where everyone gets a trophy, everyone's a special snowflake, and they're all winners, and no one's a loser. There's something that just strikes us in our core, and maybe I'm speaking for myself, maybe you all don't feel this way, but strikes us in our core when we're being recognized for actually doing something, everyone knows the difference of when you're being recognized for actually doing something, versus when you're being recognized just because someone has to hit a quote of, okay, I recognize this person now.
Phil Zito 27:49
So what are my closing thoughts? So let's be real facilities management, it may not offer always the highest wages, but it does have some unique benefits. I hope after listening to this episode, you really agree with me on that you are thinking about where can I go. That's maybe a little different to recruit people. Where can I go to find talent that maybe I missed. I hope that you're really considering an onboarding and development process. All of these are things we can help you with as an organization. If you're struggling, feel free to reach out to us. Just go to smart buildings academy.com and click on the Contact Us button and reach out. We can help you. I encourage you to take advantage of our free skill assessment. Use that for your technicians. Use that for yourself. Use that for potential employees that assessment is going to help you know what people know and don't know, and help you develop development plans. You can learn more about that at smartbuildings academy.com forward slash skills. Once again, that smart buildings academy.com, forward slash skills. I hope this episode's been informative to you. I hope you've learned a thing or two. I hope it's been a valuable 30 minutes of your time. If it has, can you do me a favor if you're listening to this on or watching this on YouTube, please hit the like and subscribe button, maybe even leave a comment and ask a question or two. If you're watching this on LinkedIn, please share this with your network. Just hit the share button, add your thoughts on it and click share if you're listening to this on a podcast software, please consider giving us a five star review if you think we've earned it. And with that being said, thank you everyone. I will see you again next week, and I hope you all have a awesome rest of your week. Take care bye.
