Episode Description:
Are you struggling to find skilled technicians to keep your HVAC workforce strong?
You’re not alone. The labor shortage is real, but the good news is that there are proven ways to keep your pipeline full and your team growing.
In this episode of the Smart Buildings Academy Podcast, we dive into the workforce challenges in the HVAC industry and explore strategies to help you recruit, train, and retain top talent.
If your business has ever faced the frustration of turning down jobs, struggling with inexperienced hires, or losing great employees, this episode is for you. We’re not just talking about the problem. We’re showing you the mindset shift and recruitment strategies that successful companies are using to keep their workforce strong.
Here’s what you’ll gain from tuning in:
✅ The real reason HVAC companies struggle to find and keep skilled workers and what you can do differently
✅ How to build a steady pipeline of new technicians who are eager to learn and stay with your company
✅ The surprising advantage of hiring inexperienced workers (and how to train them right)
✅ Why HVAC recruiting isn’t just about job postings. It’s about relationships and visibility
✅ The culture shifts that will make your company a magnet for top talent
The HVAC labor shortage isn’t going away, but companies that adapt will thrive. Don’t let your business fall behind - take control of your recruiting strategy.
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
- Control Sequence Fundamentals HVAC Course
Podcast Video
Transcript
0:00
This is the smart buildings Academy podcast with Joe Hulsey, episode number 482, welcome to the smart buildings Academy podcast. And this episode, I'll be discussing bringing on new hires, talking about some common misconceptions between the employers and new techs that they bring on. We'll look at where and how to find future workers and what you could do as a company to ensure you continue to have the workforce that you need. All the information covered in this episode can be found on our website, at podcast, dot smart buildings, academy.com, forward slash 482, so the first thing that I want to talk about is aligning the expectation of employers with those of the new employees. So in my career as an instructor and trainer, I've dealt with a lot of students, contractors and, more importantly, different personalities. So I spent about 10 years in the college system running an HVAC program. Now when I took over, they essentially handed me the keys. Said there's a textbook on the desk, there's a computer full of some files, and there's a lab full of equipment. Good luck to you. And also, if you're not aware of this, even in the college system, if you don't have students, you don't have a job. So I quickly realized that a large part of my role there as an instructor was actually to recruit students for the program, meaning recruit students for our industry and help those students to find jobs. But what I saw was a big disconnect between the contractors or employers hiring these recent students or graduates and what the students were expecting. So when you go out to recruit, you know, you talk about the industry, you talk about the opportunities, the competitive pay, the room for growth and so on. And then students go out to find a job. And believe it or not, oftentimes they have trouble finding anyone who will even hire them right out of school with no experience. So I seen the same pattern repeat itself. They would get a job wherever they could, which was usually with no offense, but some, some chuck in a truck kind of guy, and he would take them and tell them to forget all this school stuff that they learned that that how they do it in the real world. He would pay them pretty pitifully, have them doing, you know, all the grunt work, some of the worst stuff out there. And before you know it, they were fed up. They had decided they messed up, and so they quit. And I would get a call from them sometimes saying, Hey, I think that I really messed up by deciding to go into HVAC. I should have done something else. And as we talk, I try to convince them maybe you didn't mess up by going into HVAC, maybe you just went to work for the wrong company. Now, again, I saw this happen most of the time with the smaller companies. And the reason is pretty simple. A lot of the larger companies and the OEMs often require something like two to five years experience, or sometimes even seven years experience. Well, the problem is, when you have people starting out and then they quit within the first year, nobody's getting that experience right? So to me, it's going to be much more beneficial if you as a company are willing to take on someone young with no experience and take on the role of training them as a mentor. Now let's look at where we are in our current shortage of HVAC technicians and how it's going to impact your business. So my first question is, is your business being impacted by a shortage of skilled technicians? Most likely, I would assume the answer is yes, but I have ran across some who are doing things right, and they tell me, No, we're not having an issue with finding skilled workers. We always have one in the pipeline, and that's something that I'm going to be harping on repeatedly, is having new employees in the pipeline, ready to take over. So what are the consequences of not having enough employees? Most of you have felt this. You have to turn down jobs. There are fewer jobs to bid on. You may have to postpone some of your work or push customers back, which could be loss of contract, or could result in loss of contract. Oftentimes, building owners may not even be able to staff an individual with the skills necessary to make mechanical repairs within their building, meaning they have to contract it out, which is significantly more expensive. So it's a problem because our equipment isn't getting any younger. So what happens is, when companies can't find skilled help, they just find any help, right? Any help they can get. And This typically results in poor performance, and that leads to callbacks and mistakes, sometimes some major mistakes, which lead to upset customers, then the employees themselves are stressed out and unhappy and once again, ready to leave because they're thrown in over their heads. And you also risk building a bad reputation for your company by sending incompetent people out. It just makes you look bad. Another problem that I see a lot is with these. Franchise companies. And this becomes a a it's a very trendy business pattern, business model you see right now, where companies no longer want service text. They won't service sales people. So when they send someone out to repair, they don't really want that person to know how to repair that piece of equipment. They want them to be a little overwhelmed and suggest new equipment. So it's a lot easier sometimes to sell new equipment than it is to figure out how to fix the old equipment. Now the problem is, what's that doing to our workforce? How is that helping us create and grow any new technicians out there? Well, it's not all we're getting are pretty much residential sales tax. So let's look at some of the factors that are contributing to our workforce shortage. All right, where did this shortage come from? So the answer to the first question is pretty simple, there are a lot more people leaving our industry than there are coming in. It's no secret that we have an aging workforce. But what's a little more frightening is the fact that we actually have an aging population. So if you look at the numbers, Gen Z, which is the latest generation that's entering the workforce, has about 5 million fewer people in it than the millennial generation, Gen alpha, which is the generation after Gen Z is expected to be even smaller. So now, when we look at that, we realize it's not just an HVAC workforce that's getting smaller. It's our entire recruitment pool that's getting smaller. There are fewer people to even recruit from, to try to even bring into our industry. So my next question to you is all right, so is this a new problem? And the answer is no. So this has actually been going on since the Industrial Revolution, if you think about it, up until then trade and skills training, that was pretty simple. You pretty much learn from your parents. If your parents were farmers, then you ended up being farmers. There were some people who were lucky enough to become actual apprentices to master tradesmen, and those people studied under that master for several years, under their guidance, under their leadership. This was generally a one on one, mentor apprentice relationship, and is arguably, probably the best possible way for someone to learn a skill. However, we had the Industrial Revolution, the technology boom, and all of a sudden, we need a lot more skill than we have people, and we don't have the time to train them all. So even as far back as 1917 the government issued the Smith Hughes Act, which was the first time they set aside government money to try to cover the cost of training people. This was because all these industries formed these coalitions and basically stormed the capital saying, look, we've got to have skilled people. Okay, we can't do it ourselves. We need some help. Now, the thing is, all this tends to come in ways. In other words, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So when we have a shortage of skilled labor, it gets people's attention, and we start funneling a lot of attention and a lot of money into that, and then hopefully we fill that need, and then eventually we have probably a surplus of skilled laborers. And then the attention goes elsewhere, and it starts to ebb and flow continually. However, we have not really seen that drop lately. We see continually a drop in skilled workforce. And I can tell you, I remember back in 2019 99 2000 when I was entering the workforce. Even back then, everyone complained that there's no skilled workers anymore. There's no one that wants to work.
8:50
So there are additional reasons for that as well. We all know that traditionally, the K through 12 school systems, they pushed for four year degrees via the university route, and in fact, oftentimes high schools are graded on how many students graduate and enroll in four year universities. So some of their scorecards on high schools are based off of how well the students test, on standardized testing, student attendance, the graduation rate, and what students do after high school. So as I said, traditionally, it was always ranked higher if a student would do a four year degree or go to a college. However, now with such a push for out of desperation, for the need for skills and technical careers, schools, oftentimes can now get credit for students graduating and enrolling in college or getting a job in a high demand high wage industry. In fact, I just recently was contacted by a high school. Local high school said they had a student who was interested in Job shadowing for HVAC. Well, it turned. Out that part of his graduation requirements is that he has to have complete this career readiness plan. So this includes talking about his industry, researching a career that he would like to do, and then job shadowing with someone who's in that industry. So I thought that was pretty cool to get to sit down with him and talk about our industry and what we do often hear people say, this is a generational issue, that you know this, this generation just doesn't want to work, or they're different, or they're stuck in their phones. So is this a generational issue? Well, maybe, maybe not. I refuse to believe that kids are born any different today than they were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, or 150 years ago. I remember, reminds me of a story when I was picking my nephew up from school, and I asked him, he was probably, I don't know, it could have been eighth, ninth, 10th grade something. I asked him how a school day was, and he said, Oh, man, it was great. He said we got a sixth and seventh period to go around campus picking up garbage. And I laughed and said, Oh, really, you're excited about that. And that just goes to show that there are still people out there who do not want to be bogged down in a classroom, who don't want to sit behind a desk all day and don't want to work in a production line all day. They enjoy being out. They enjoy doing things and getting things done. Now that doesn't mean he wants to pick up garbage the rest of his life, but it does tell me that he would rather be out doing something he finds fulfilling and rewarding and more physical than sitting down bogged inside of a box with electric lights all day. In my HVAC program, I actually had students of all ages. I had a lot that came straight out of high school. I also had several in their 20s 30s. Had many in their 40s, sometimes 50s and 60s, and there were a few times I even had some in their 70s and 80s. I honestly don't know why anyone in their 70s and 80s would want to pick up HVAC at that point, I would like to just lay out on a beach somewhere until I die, but that's just me. Now. I never saw a generational problem. I saw some generational differences, for sure, but not really problems. I did see experience issues. I saw those who were straight out of high school often did well on academic and theory side, but they would struggle putting that, that thought process into actionable work out in the lab. Whereas those who have backgrounds of doing hands on work, you know, they were familiar DIY around their house or whatever, they tended to catch on a little quicker with the hands on activities. But a lot of times, struggled with the more academic side. So I will say that the biggest difference of all had nothing to do with generation. It had to do with personality. So there were a lot of kids, I call them kids, or a lot of young people straight out of high school, and they, you know, they did good. They would go in there, and we would have lab assignments. Maybe they would pop in their air pods, they would get their tools out and they would go to work. Then we had others who would sit around and just cut up all day and not get anything done. By the same token, I had older, different generations of people who, some would go in there and, you know, get to work and do it, and some who were really just there milking it, maybe they were getting a paycheck for being there somehow. So I never really saw a true generational difference in the people. And so there's no way that I look, I could look back and legitimately say that, Oh, this, this age group is going to be bad, but this great age group will be fine. To me, it still all comes down to the individual. So where are we headed in our industry? What's the future looking like? Well, our Bureau of Labor labor statistics is showing a growth rate of 9% annually over the next 10 years, which four is the average, so nine is significantly higher. But what's even more interesting is that they're estimating 42,500 openings per year in the HVAC industry. So we have people who are constantly retiring out we have new technology that's coming out every day. The old days of diagnosing a system, diagnosing a system with a set of gages and a multimeter those are slowly going away. Is the existing workforce that we have even willing to learn the new skills necessary? Or would they rather just hang on to legacy systems until they can finally retire? So my advice to you is it's a good idea to go ahead and be planning. On what kind of tech you're looking for to learn these new technologies. So as I said, our generations, I've never solved problems, but I have seen differences. When you have a generation that's used to dealing with technology, that's used to they've all they've ever known is Wi Fi and CPUs, GPUs and IP addresses and all these things there are a lot easier to adapt as kind of a natural progression. As technologies change, the generation that grow up with that technology are obviously going to be more comfortable with it. Another benefit of taking on a new tech is that a new tech doesn't have preconceived notion about what normal troubleshooting looks like, or how traditional system is installed or operates. So if they're having to learn anyway, why not bring them in and have them learn on some of the emerging technologies that we have out there in HVAC, the foundations are foundations that's not going to change. So as long as they're strong on those you can grow them and mold them into any form that you would like. We understand that we have this shortage, right? The next question is, how do we fix this? The answer is, by understanding the reality of the situation first all. Right, it is arguably an employee's market. It's the simple law of supply and demand. With everyone offering higher wages and benefits, it makes it a lot more competitive. I've had an advisory committee for my HVAC our program that it's made up of contractors, OEM reps, distribution managers, technical reps, etc. And I sent out a survey to all these members to determine what skills they were looking for in an employee. And some of the top reasons were, well, we just want someone that shows up. We want someone that's willing to learn, someone that has good attitude, good mechanical or problem solving skills, and someone with good soft skills, you know someone that's good working with other people? Well, if you just do a quick little Google search, you're going to find that these are the same skills that every employer wants. So you aren't just competing with your industry competitors. You're actually competing with every company out there who's looking for a good employee, anyone from the local grocery store to that large manufacturing plant down the road. So my advice is you have to be adaptable. You have to rethink the way that you find, train and retain employees. You may have to be flexible and less stubborn and the way your company is structured and organized. I mean, even going back to thinking about a 40 hour work week, a lot of people need flexible work hours now, because we have both members of the family are or both parents are working, and we have kids that get sick, you have stuff that comes up constantly, somebody has to be able to take off. So one major transition is to have, you know, a flexible work week. That may be something you have to start considering and seriously looking at. So that's kind of the reality that we're looking at first. Then we need to take actions on that, such as now that we know the situation we're in. We need to be more intentional in our recruiting strategies, we need to have employee training initiatives focus on employee retention and career trajectory paths for our employees.
18:30
So let's see what that looks like. Number one is create awareness. So that's the biggest thing to me, is for people to know that we exist. They need to know that your company exists. They need to know that you're hiring. And I don't mean necessarily just posting on LinkedIn or indeed, or some other job app somewhere. I mean get face to face time with you, because I promise I've seen it firsthand. When you have students who are or new entries, new technicians out there. I've seen them apply and apply to jobs and get no traction. But then when I've brought people into my classroom, OEMs, no matter who they are, big big companies, big corporations, they speak to students firsthand, one on one, those students, eyes light up, they get engaged in conversation, and things start happening. And I think that's kind of a natural progression, sort of goes back to that it's not what you know, it's who you know, mentality, and it really works, even in today's day and age, it still works. So what are some of the ways to get involved? We'll be involved in high school career days, for instance, find out who is over your local workforce development initiatives. Partner up with them, participate in some of their events. Again, use social media to highlight success stories within your company. Have your employees brag about how much they love working with your company online. Have them share job posts whenever you have job openings, those sorts of things will really. Generate a lot of face to face buzz and create awareness for your company that people may not have known. That's one of the biggest things that I've seen. When I've talked about our industry, people really just don't know that it exists. They don't know that that's a viable option for them. Even if you're a large corporation, have your branch managers do this, you know, put them in charge of some type of local outreach initiative. I firmly believe that is one of the best things you can do, as far as getting awareness and bringing people on board to your company next once you talk to people, emphasize growth opportunities. So this is one of the most attractive aspects that a company has. It's not the initial pay, but it's the prospect that a new employee can come in and they can see that career path, trajectory I talked about this goes back to having people in the pipeline. When you have someone move up, you have someone else already filling their spot. I remember listening to one podcast that was a nationwide service industry podcast, and a guy was saying he never has to worry about employees, because I think it may have been a plumbing company. He says all of his Master Plumbers or journeyman plumbers, whatever, they all have a helper. They have an apprentice with them. Think back to what we mentioned earlier, that whole master apprentice relationship with this master or journeyman or plumber has an apprentice with them, that journeyman or master, whoever moves up in the company where they already have someone to fill those shoes. When that person moves up, they have someone else coming behind them. If you're a young employee out there just getting started on your career and someone dangles this fruit in front of you, you're going to jump on it. You're going to love the idea that you're going to be able to move up and title and in rank and see that laid out in front of you. Next is equally important, and this is be a company that people want to work for, if you do everything right, but your company has a toxic work culture. No one's going to want to be there. I saw something, probably on social media that said culture isn't a statement in a handbook, it's how your employees feel on Sunday night. And I think that speaks volumes. I've worked jobs that were basically digging ditches around people. I enjoy being around, and I look forward to that work every day, and then I've had kind of high profile jobs, so to speak, where I was miserable. Everyone was out for themselves, back stabbing, throw you under the bus, and it was not a good place to be in. So the next thing that will lead to is word of mouth. That can be one of the best revenues that you have for new talent. If you think about all the people that talk at the different supply houses at trade events, some companies even have referral programs where their existing employees get some type of benefit from, you know, referring a friend if that friend gets hired on. So I don't know how well the referral programs work, but I do know I've seen a lot, a lot of my former students get jobs with companies because their friends or the people they work for work for those companies. So always utilize word of mouth as much as possible. The next one is the no brainer, that's all for competitive pay and benefits. I mean, that kind of goes without saying. This is one of those things that it's not really going to give you a leg up over your competition, but it's just something you're going to have to do to even be in the conversation. Now, when we talk about competitive pay and benefits, I do have a caution for you, and that is not to use money as the primary motivator. The reason is, human beings have a tendency to what I call zero themselves out. So when I used to weigh my refrigerant, I would take my tank and put it on my scales. It didn't matter what it weighed. I hit the zero button and then if I filled that tank up, you know, if it was two pounds, five pounds, that's what I read. So human beings, we have a tendency to normalize our current situation. If someone is getting paid $15 an hour, and you hire them in at $20 an hour, for instance, how long do you think it's going to take before that becomes a dorm for them and they feel like they're worth $20 an hour, right? So you don't want to start off overly paying someone. You really want to assess what that job is worth and pay them accordingly, because that offers two things. Number one, if you tell them you're hiring them in even though they're not really, you know, let's say you have level three technician, level two, level one, tell them you're hiring them in even though they're not a level three tech, yet you're going to start them at a level three tech pay. But this is what you know that you expect from them to be able to do as a level three tech. So you work towards that, then they have room to grow from there. Once they're at level three, they know what it takes to get up to level two, and can get paid accordingly. Next is, of course, to utilize social media. Again. This is one of those no brainers, but I feel like it also goes back to if you have that company culture, if you're a place people want to work for, you get that word of mouth. A lot of that word of mouth will come from the social media. Yes, you may want to put a social media post up every day just to stay relevant, just so people see you. But who's really seeing it? Is it the people that are looking for a job, or is the people that already know you and are friends with you on social media? So what's really going to help is when your employees post about their job, and every time you have a new job, your employee shares that, and all of their friends who are in a similar industry will see it and say, Oh, he really likes his job. That's a good place to work. That's a really good way to utilize social media. The last thing I want to talk about is identifying the traits that you need. So everyone out there wants the same thing. They want someone who shows up, someone who's willing to learn. They want a problem solver, somebody that shows initiative and has those good soft skills, so on and so on. But think a little bit deeper about what attributes and what traits you're looking for for the jobs you're trying to fill. When I recruited for our HVAC industry, I talked a lot about the people who enjoyed this were the people who liked being outside. There were people who liked visiting maybe different sites every day, different job sites. They didn't want to work in that one building, in that one factory. They didn't want to have a boss, you know, breathing over their shoulders or right down their neck. They were given keys to their company vehicle. They had company cell phones, company credit cards, and they had, usually, some type of tablet that gave them their work orders for that day. So they would go out and they would do their job. They had the freedom to do their job. If they were tired, they took a break. If they're hungry, they eat. So that is a really big draw, and it's a truth that's a really big important thing in our industry that I think a lot of people really enjoy and respect about it. So having said that, that pretty much sums up my advice for you on recruiting. I really believe that you would do well to not wait for someone to have two or three years of experience out in the field. Get them while they're young, get them straight out of high school, get them straight out of a college system, because training is forever. You're not going to hire them in and train them and then be done with it. They're going to need continual training. You might as well bring them in when they're young and trainable, before they've developed a lot of bad habits, and start young and start training them into being what you want them to be. And look at your company culture, look at the way you do things. Be aware of a lot of the generational differences and do your best to try to keep people on board with what you've got going on. So having said that, kind of wraps it up for me. So thank you for listening to the smart building Academy podcast. Hope you learned something from this episode. If you found this episode valuable, please leave us five star review on Apple podcast or Spotify. If you're watching this on YouTube, please like, comment and subscribe, and if you're watching this on LinkedIn, please share this with your network as always, this will be available on our website at podcast, dot smart buildings academy.com, forward slash 482, thank you all, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye.
