Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 234. Getting More Qualifications (Even If Your Company Won't Pay)

Transcript

Episode 234. Getting More Qualifications (Even If Your Company Won't Pay) · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker: Today I want to dive in. I had a few people ask some questions on the challenges of employers needing qualified technicians, but a lot of the time they don't want to invest in training. And I've heard this for decades. This happened even before I got into the industry and not only in our industry.
• 0:01
  So some people may think it's our industry. No, it's not even our industry. It's, it's training in general. One of the biggest things I've seen and I've heard from many people over the years is like the first thing that goes is training and I've seen it. And. I don't know the numbers on that, and I don't know the statistics, and none of that even matters.
• 0:02
  , the thing that matters is that if you're at an organization that they need more qualified technicians, more technicians that need more skill, but they're not willing to invest the time or the money to train them, maybe that's not the place for you, or maybe, maybe it is the place for you, but you have to do it yourself.
• 0:03
  Because if you blame or complain or criticize the way they're doing it, why don't you do something different? That's step one. So if you, if they do not train, why are you not going to look for a job somewhere else? Why do you continue to stay at this job that you don't believe that they're training you?
• 0:04
  I'm not saying this is the case from the person that wrote that question. And we, we need to dive into it and talk about what the factors, because there's a lot of owners that I talk to and, and CEOs, service managers, they are willing to invest a lot of money in their employees. The problem is the employees do not want to invest in the training.
• 0:05
  So right now, hands down, if you want to. I think the easiest and quickest way to, to get into training, once again, come up with a plan, come up with a plan how to get the train. Say you want to get into a Dan Foss controller training, and you know there's one coming up in, , a city near you, an hour away, two hours away, whatever it is, there's one coming up and it's in three months time, and you know the exact day it is, or the two days that there is.
• 0:06
  First of all, are you willing to take those two days off without being paid from work? Are you willing to pay for that training course yourself? These are the first things you got to ask yourself, because if you're willing to do that, then I would say your employer Should be willing to want to, to, to pay for that.
• 0:07
  There's so many people out there that I've even had people in my course. I've, I can't go do those assignments unless my company's paying for paying for my time to go out and do that. And I think I said this before in the podcast, like that, just, you know, a hundred percent, 20 years ago, I was in that mindset as well.
• 0:08
  Cause that's the people I was around and that was what was happening. But the first step, would you be willing to take days off work? So your personal time off and go and pay for this course for your education. So that's what you got to tell yourself. Are you willing to do that? So that's step one.
• 0:09
  So if you are willing to do that, you could probably come up with a plan for you and your service manager. You're not, you should not be worrying about anybody else's education at this point, you need to educate yourself because I hear a lot of people, well, these guys need training in this and that person needs training on that and this worry about you first, because if you can't take care of yourself first, you can't take care of the people around you.
• 0:10
  You got to educate yourself. That is your most valuable thing that you have. I get on. It's not a commodity, but it's the most valuable thing you have is your education.
• 0:11
  You're learning your knowledge. They can't take that from you. Okay. So now if you're working on an organization that they, they don't invest in training, why, what is the reason that they don't, do you know, are you just making up? Did you ask questions or are they training people that you don't know? And there's trainings going on.
• 0:12
  After hours on weekends, but you're not willing to go do that training because I know here here in Canada There's a the union school 787 and they've been doing this for years. They got evening trains. They got weekend trainings they got trainings happening all the time for their members and Over the years, it's less and less and less.
• 0:13
  Less people want to come in on their own time, even though it's all, I'm pretty sure it's all free training, or mostly free training for the members, , less and less people are coming in and showing up, they cancel classes, and these could be anything from CO2 classes, or um, VRF or VRV classes, whatever it is, it doesn't even matter.
• 0:14
  This is the opportunity to learn, but people aren't showing up because it's any, they may even be getting paid their wage. I don't know. The training's free, but the classes are empty. Maybe the, maybe the training's not exciting for the people. Maybe, maybe it's not the right courses for the certain people.
• 0:15
  I don't know the, the behind the scenes. But the biggest thing is, is are you willing to take that time off to go to the training? Are you willing to pay out of your own pocket? Because if you are, That gives you a better opportunity to have the conversation with your business owner. And so why don't you make a plan?
• 0:16
  So just say that they don't do training, say, okay, well, can we do this? How about this course costs 5, 000, whatever the course costs, I will pay out of my check. Can you pay it up front? And then I will pay each of my check, whatever it is. 500 a month, you know, so it's going to be 10 months before you pay the 5, 000 off.
• 0:17
  So 500 a month. So we can pay it off. That's one solution. Okay. So now you're, you're still paying for it, but they're paying for it upfront. So you can get to that class. Another one. Can I get these certain days off? Okay. Well, what do you mean? Well, maybe you're on call that day. You didn't plan ahead. Cause if you plan all this stuff in, in January, February of the year, it's going to be a lot easier than the week before.
• 0:18
  Oh, I hear there's a course I want to take it. So you have to come up with a strategy. Most companies want to help you get educated. The companies call me all the time, service manager, business owners. And I talk to them about who should be in the program. technicians who are in the mindset of that they'll only do it during work hours, they won't do it in the evening or on the weekends, they won't do it unless they're getting paid, they won't go do the assignments unless they're getting paid.
• 0:19
  They're not right for my programs. I'll tell you right now, they're not right because I'm looking for people just like you are here listening right now or listening on this podcast who want to get to the next level in their career. And they're willing to put their own time, their own money on the line to be better, to grow, to get that next level.
• 0:20
  And this is what I talk about with business owners. Because a lot of them, and I've seen and I've heard stories about them, they'd spend twenty, thirty thousand dollars on a technician over a few years to develop their skills. And they do not bring any more value in the amount of money that they spend on them.
• 0:21
  And this is one of the worries for business owners, because they can look at the data, the bigger, the smaller companies, maybe not. And even that point, they can look at the data, but they spend this amount of money on, on someone to train them, educate them, get them to that next level. But they're not bringing in the value back into the company and this is all done by gross margin If you know what your gross margin and how much you make versus how much you cost it right there hands down That's the quickest way it is so if you you take training for two or three years do tons of training They pay for you They send you all these different courses And then they look at your gross margin from before the training to two years after and if it's still all the same That did you did that training did not bring value to it.
• 0:22
  Did you make other things that may have bring value to company totally, you know? But that direct effect you can see that so could be different types of course, so you got to think about that So if you're going to take a course, how does it bring value to the company? So just to say I want to take training because it's a training that that means that maybe you don't work on or you guys Are not going to work on any of that stuff So you want to go take a vrv training and you do commercial refrigeration that you don't work on that at all You So you have to make sure it's correlated.
• 0:23
  You have to talk about the value it's going to bring the company. So you've got a better opportunity here to get the training. If you can explain and prove your case of why that training is valuable. For example, I do an advanced compressor and troubleshooting masterclass. And inside there. Again, help people understand.
• 0:24
  I got an email yesterday from, from someone, it just blew my mind to the business owner, how their business has turned around. How's it changed, how they're looking, talking to customers differently because of the course. But the thing is, is that I always thought, Oh, I know compressors. You know, and then I went and worked at a compressor manufacturer and I work with all the different compressor manufacturer learning from them growing.
• 0:25
  How do I help make you better? How do I share the knowledge with you? That's going to help your customer bring your business value, bring your customer value. And inside the program, it's about inspiring you to want to get better. A lot of it. The technical stuff you can really find and learn online today.
• 0:26
  You can go on my YouTube channel and you can go there, but inside the program, it's structured and we take the time to get you to what you need to know. And when you're in the mindset of learning and you want to learn it, it's way better. Then just, and I've seen it before, just in the class, okay, I'm just here, I needed a day off, this is a good, good place just to relax, I don't have to think, I get some pizza at lunchtime, or I get some food at lunchtime.
• 0:27
  No, that's not, you gotta get in the mindset of learning. And inside the program, it's developing your skills, little by little, To show the value you can bring that company for example If you have an org a company and all of a sudden you're replacing compressors every year You're in you work for this company, but you know at this customer you're replacing compressor every year.
• 0:28
  That's a problem That's when you need an advance Your company needs it or some people add your company to the advanced service and troubleshooting compressor program. You need it Because compressors shouldn't be failing every year, because if they are, that means there's an issue. It could be a design issue, but most likely, I mean, it could be a customer issue, but most likely, it's not understanding, not having the right tools in place to figure out what's the problem.
• 0:29
  Taking the compressors apart, looking inside, figuring out what the problem is, getting to the real root cause and not just replacing them. Sometimes it is just easier for the customer just to replace it, spend the 20, 000 because there it's a million dollars a day process, but they'd have redundant redundant systems in there.
• 0:30
  So you got to think about ways that you can show the value you can bring, and then, so a lot of people say, well, now what about the newer people, the people that are new, that don't really understand that they knew they do need training. Well, this really comes back to, depending on where you're at in the world.
• 0:31
  Because depending on where you're in the world, well, there will be regulations. You can't not just go and be a refrigeration technician here in Canada. You have to go to different programs. You have to take an apprenticeship program. You have to get a certain skill ticket to be able to do the service, the maintenance, the install, and there's different ones across the country.
• 0:32
  You can't just go work it. So that's part of the training. But what I've seen and I did it is when a lot of these people are in the training in the schools, they're not ready. Some people are, but I started in the refrigeration industry way after it was my second My second career really in the education system, and I, I, there was no turning back when I was up against the wall.
• 0:33
  I needed to make this happen. And this is where I see older people getting into the refrigeration industry and crushing it because they might have a couple of kids. They have bills to pay. And so when they're in the training, when they're in an apprenticeship, they're crushing it. And then I see when they get to, an organization, those service managers, the business will understand that they have a lot on the line.
• 0:34
  And so if when they come up to them and they want to talk about certain training, they develop a plan, that plan works out a lot of times, not all the time. Not all the time, but it works out a lot of the time. There's other ways to get these, this training as well. Instead of just complain that they don't, they don't do any training.
• 0:35
  What wherever you are in the world, is there government incentives? Have you gone to look there are here in Canada, there's lots in the different States, depending on what, uh, industry you're in. Have you did some investigation? Did you spend the 10 hours, 20 hours trying to research these incentives for the organization so you guys can get trained, but then I hear a complaint.
• 0:36
  Well, we don't get training. Well, training costs money. It's a very, very expensive for good training too. And it should be, so what are you doing to, to help that out? So maybe it's certain discounts for government incentives, maybe tax breaks. So if you come up with this, that would be, uh, you know, an incentive for that business owner to start looking into this more, you bring it out, you figure it out.
• 0:37
  You figure out what that tax rate is or the grant or the funding for the organization. You do it at work, but if you sit and complain that they don't want to train us, And you don't do any work. So where does that leave them? Okay. And then if you do all this work and you get it all ready and they say, no, this is, this is, we don't want to do this.
• 0:38
  This is a waste of time trying to get tax breaks or grants for you guys to be educated. Well, you should make the decision. Is this the place you want to work? Is this the culture? Of this organization you want to be in. So you make that decision. It could be something else, like depending on where, maybe it's a partnership, maybe you go to a school, local, uh, a trade school, refrigeration school, whatever it is.
• 0:39
  And you're a local area and try to come up with a partnership with them. For training and education. Do they have evening courses? Can we get some technicians in there? What's that partnership look like? Come up with that. This is different than what you do. So maybe it is when someone graduates the program that company will be the one that gets to uh work with them to get them trained Initiated in the organization,
• 0:40
  figure that out because they are, uh, a for profit organization too. So they need to make money. They got lights to keep on. They got equipment to come in and it all depends on the different situation.
• 0:41
  I know there's, there's a lot to it that just saying, oh, we need training, there's a lot more to it because it's not only a technical training.
• 0:42
  But there are so many other trainings that are mandatory that have to be done, like, fall arrest, uh, confined space, you name it, first aid, all these different things that we, it's mandatory, we need.
• 0:43
  The personal development, like communication, sales, we need that stuff too. So you need to build a plan for yourself first. And then when you have your plan broken down, you find other people inside your organization that have a similar mindset as you, who want to get educated or who are going to stop complaining about they're not being trained and do something about it.
• 0:44
  So if you're listening on here and you know, you're driving around in your truck and you want, and you want some training, first step is what training do you want? You need to be specific. You know, when do you want to get it by?
• 0:45
  Do you want it by the end of this year, by the end of next year? What are you willing to do to get it? Are you willing to start and get, do some on your own time? Are you willing to pay for yourself? Like I said already, These are the things you need to think about
• 0:46
  Make yourself 1 percent better tomorrow than you are today. And this is what we're trying to do here to really just to grow that knowledge. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time and, uh, let's get a conversation going.
• 0:47
  Everyone have a good one.