As a professional in the HVACR trade, it’s to your advantage to take every opportunity you can to invest in your staff with continuing education. Learning provides an excellent opportunity to develop the productivity of your employees. But many HVACR stakeholders find professional development costs for inexperienced new hires can be expensive.
Employees who attend training workshops also miss out on work time, which may postpone the completion of service calls or installations. However, despite these initial drawbacks, training provides both the employee and business as a whole with efficiency. That makes the cost and time a worthy investment.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2018-2028, there is a projected numeric churn in the employment of 46,300 employees in the HVACR industry. That is a considerable number of people cycling in and out of the HVACR business. With that much transition in our industry, that is a lot of experience retiring out of the trade. On the other hand, a lot of rookies will enter our profession too. It is essential for future technicians and installers entering the HVACR trade to be appropriately trained and educated in this ever-growing and evolving business.
When you get a new technician or installer in your business, how do you train them? Do you let them ride with your senior technician or installer? Do you put them in a truck and say, “Here you go! Call if you have any questions!” Why not standardize the process with ACCA’s new Entry Level Technician Course? This online boot-camp type, novice-level training, was created with new HVACR technicians and installers in mind. It provides a learner with a fundamental education of HVACR to establish a solid foundation you can build on.
ACCA’s Entry Level Technician Course will take your new employee through the initial applications, knowledge, and skills to become a confident, productive member of your team. They will be able to demonstrate their value to you, their coworkers, and clients and help them navigate the challenges while working as a technician or installer. This course covers a basic HVACR introduction, career opportunities, the refrigerant cycle, compressors, condensers, TXV’s, pistons, safety, tools, cooling equipment, heating equipment, psychometrics, airflow, static pressure, heat pumps, mini-splits, electrical components and testing, Ohm’s Law, control boards, hydronic systems, system installation, system maintenance, plus much more to develop a well-rounded maintenance technician. The Entry Level Technician Course covers twenty-three different subjects and comes with the Entry Level Technician PDF Workbook. When the time comes to demonstrate a higher level of competence, the Entry Level Technician Course will count for five hours of NATE continuing education hours.
As a manager or owner, what can you expect from your new technicians and installers, once they go through the Entry Level Technician Course? First, you can expect them to come away with the core competencies in the HVACR industry. For example, how to work safely and use the right tools for the right job. This course will diminish tribal learning. Meaning, your staff will not learn how to charge a system “beer can cold.” Instead, they will learn the correct charging methods using superheat and subcooling. This course will help reduce liabilities. We’ve all had that customer say to us, “Why didn’t the last guy tell me that?!” Or, “Every time you come here, you only try to sell me something.” The course will build consistency in how to properly check components and perform standard services uniformly. This consistency is created by teaching the same procedures to every student that attends the course. The methods are grounded on industry facts and science and not opinion-based procedures.
Technicians attending this course can reduce callbacks. They are lowering callbacks by thoroughly reviewing the entire system and executing permanent fixes as opposed to band-aide repairs. Increasing your field staff’s knowledge and skills through this course provides reduced customer churn and increased earning opportunities. The Entry Level Technician Course is a change in how we do business now that you control the quality and consistency of the skills we know they need that will deliver us to a better place.
- Understanding the Importance of Proper HVACR System Design for Your Client - August 29, 2024
- Elevating HVAC Maintenance with Systematic Checklists - April 18, 2024
- Understanding a Defrost Board on a Heat Pump - January 12, 2024