For HVAC contractors, the summer season can be exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Jobs are rolling in, trucks are running constantly, and techs are moving fast to keep up with customer demand. This hectic pace can feel overwhelming, but it’s also evidence that the business is firing on all cylinders.

Or is it? Sometimes, the busy season can expose vulnerabilities within the team, including significant gaps in training. And when your technicians are moving so fast to get jobs done, these training gaps can very quickly become costly mistakes.

The contractors who are winning right now are the ones who understand that ongoing training is a year-round concern. They’re not waiting for things to slow down. Instead, they’re using short, focused training to keep their technicians sharp when it matters most.

The Time Trap

Of course, there is an obvious objection to spending time on technician training during an already demanding busy season. As a contractor, you may feel like you simply don’t have a minute to spare on anything that isn’t customer-facing work.

The truth is, your team is already spending this time — not necessarily on training, but on dealing with mistakes that crop up as your team is pulled in all directions. If you don’t believe it, just look at your numbers. Do your callback numbers tend to rise during busy seasons? How about the amount of rework you have to do, or the number of second truck rolls?

These metrics reflect the mistakes your technicians are making because, in their efforts to be as efficient as they can be, they’re taking shortcuts. They’re skipping some of the protocols and procedures meant to safeguard against sloppy errors. And, sensing that their supervisors and senior techs are already stressed and overwhelmed, they’re not asking for help when they need it.

Callbacks and rework can be incredibly costly, and they end up eating into valuable time when your team is already stretched thin. As such, an investment in training isn’t a waste; on the contrary, it’s a critical precaution. In other words, you should be thinking of training not as something superfluous, but as a valuable form of risk management during a particularly high-risk season.

Reducing Risk Through Targeted Training

Of course, as technicians face high volumes of work, it’s important to take a targeted approach to training. You need these efforts to add value, and you need technicians to understand why this extra training matters.

Consider a few best practices:

• Start with the data: During peak seasons, you can’t waste time on training that’s overly generalized or unfocused. Instead, you need to emphasize the areas where mistakes are most common and most costly. A good place to begin is with a review of your metrics from previous busy seasons: where did you see the most callbacks last summer? What kind of projects resulted in the most rework? These are likely the areas you’ll want to focus on during your training sessions.
• Keep it brief: To maintain productivity levels and aid retention, you’ll want to keep your training sessions brief. The goal here is to provide brief refreshers on mission-critical processes or procedures. Aim for around 15 minutes per refresher, and no more than one or two refreshers per week. This is a modest investment of time that can also provide powerful benefits in risk mitigation.
• Incorporate simulations: While it can be valuable to include some instruction during these refreshers, there is also merit to using simulation-based training. This allows technicians to practice what they’re learning hands-on without risking costly mistakes in the field. Simulations ensure that your technicians are creating muscle memory and building confidence, not just memorizing concepts and ideas.
• Don’t position it as remediation: Technicians don’t need to feel like they’ve messed up and you’re trying to fix them. If your training refreshers are framed as remediation, technicians are less likely to truly engage. Instead, make it clear that these trainings are about skills formation. Emphasize that you’re trying to provide techs with skills that will potentially spare them from rework, and ultimately save them hundreds of hours over the course of their career.

High Volume Means High Risk

Peak season is when costly mistakes happen, and if you’re not careful, they can derail what should be your most profitable and productive time of the year. Investing just a few minutes in training can help reduce your rate of mistakes, empowering your technicians to work competently and confidently.