These are challenging times for the HVAC industry. With the most experienced technicians reaching retirement age, profit margins shrinking, and HVAC technology continuing to advance, it is becoming more and more difficult for owners and managers to keep up. Even while taking care of all the various aspects of a business, one must still attend managing the team of technicians responsible for taking care of their customers out in the field. However, many managers are spending far too much time managing their techs. This is time away from other critical business functions like finance, marketing, and general management. So, why then are you spending so much of your time managing your tech team, and how can you regain some time to focus on other critical tasks?

There is one major reason you are spending too much time managing your tech team— lack of adequate HVAC training. Regardless of your location, the reality is that over time, your very best HVAC technicians are going to retire, leaving you with younger, less experienced workers. While these younger HVAC techs may have certifications and/or some basic HVAC skills, the problem is, they are far from field-ready. Some may get complacent about obtaining continuing education after initial learning, but the truth is, many of these young techs are motivated to learn, they just don’t have the opportunity to get more training due to personal costs, inflexible course schedules, or needing to travel. Whatever the reason, their lack of HVAC know-how and hands-on work experience means they require more of their manager’s time to upskill them. So, the issue still remains— if you are already too busy, how are you going to find the time to offer more HVAC training? Whether you provide it yourself, or bring in someone else to do it for you, HVAC training takes resources. With the rate of baby boomers retiring, and new techs coming on board, you need a solution that is scalable, repeatable, and can be tailored to various skill levels.

You also need to figure out when to offer training. This can prove difficult if your calendar is booked with jobs and your priority is
needing your techs in the field.

Finally, you need to find a way to ensure that the training you choose is effective. It would be costly and frustrating to invest in HVAC training only to find out that is hasn’t really helped to reduce the time you spend managing your tech team.

So, how can you offer more HVAC training without expending even more of your valuable time? How can you mitigate the risk of
providing training that has no positive impact on your business? Fortunately, there is a solution that will save you time and money
while also ensuring that your staff has access to the very best and latest training.

With Virtual Reality and online, 3D Simulation HVAC training, you can provide your technicians with the training they need in a format that is affordable, flexible, and more effective than traditional learning methods. With 50+ hours of video-based HVAC courses, you can customize a learning track for technicians to give them the specific training they need so they can get their work done with less input from you.

Through the power of VR, they will also have access to their own HVAC training simulator. Techs can learn and practice their craft in 3D HVAC simulations that let them repeat common tasks until they get it right. On-demand training means that employees can learn at the time and place that works best for them.

With interactive, 3D simulation-based HVAC training, you can offer more to your employees while giving up less of your time. You can make assignments, customize learning tracks, and even track progress all from your Administrator Dashboard. Whether they are brand-new recruits that need to understand the basics of HVAC or experienced veterans that need to learn the latest troubleshooting procedures, there are many courses and simulations available to help them learn and grow.

While lecture-based classroom learning is no longer effective for hands-on trades, online HVAC simulation training is engaging and it helps people learn faster and retain more. This means more time for the rest of your work and more training time for techs. While there will always be aspects of managing a team that requires a hands-on approach, providing high-quality training, ondemand will not only save you training time, it will make your team easier to manage. Skilled, trained techs need less time from you. They can make better decisions, be more proactive, and make fewer mistakes. Technicians will learn faster with VR training and retain more. This will make them more efficient in the field and improve productivity, with very little input on your part.