The Difficulty and the Enjoyment of Finding the Next Technician to Hire
- Post By: Greg Crumpton
- Date:
- Category: Blog
The wonderful world of mission critical HVAC is where I spend much of my life. Many of the hours are spent are with people who are, or become, members of the core tribe, we call them AirTightans. We search high and low for the right type of person to join our tribe. No, they are not tribe members day one, but if we search out the right kind of folks, they can blend into our tribe and as they learn the AirTight culture, eventually (10,000 hours or so) they morph into AirTightans.
Yes, we do all of the “must do’s” to ensure we are vetting out and getting the people to interview who at least have the best chance to stick around long-term. 35% of our small and young company have been with us 5 years or longer. We are 14 years old and have 35 employees on the payroll. We also still have the first ever employee, Denny Baumgart and our first customer, Childress Klein Properties.
As you know, if you have ever tried to hire anyone, let alone a skilled craftsman, it’s a laborious effort. As you are interviewing, multiple times with multiple different people within your tribe, real life keeps going. So after three rounds and three different groups of us interviewing, we narrow down our list, as that list gets narrowed, we inch into the relationship with a ride along session with team leaders, work with our production team, etc…
If all of that goes well, then we get to make an offer and see if we can come to terms on finances and benefits. We are not a unionized shop, so we actually get to negotiate based on the person’s skills value, versus there positional pay, much better in my mind, kind of like our customers do with us!
Well, this past Friday we came to an agreement with such a gentleman. We are excited by the prospects of his arrivial, his opportunities to understand us, our ways, and most importantly, how strongly we feel that Excellent Customer Service and Care are the cornerstone of AirTight.
Wish us well in our new relationship. We will be learning each other, coaching, mentoring, guiding and everything humanly possible to allow this to flow as it should.
Next up, to start looking for, and being open to, the next great soul that comes along and wants to take the ride with us.
Is that you?
