Chad Peterman is the president at Peterman Heating, Cooling and Plumbing. He shares how his company is developing a unique process to allow their technicians to grow and thrive in their workspace.

Elevating Individuals to Elevate the Industry

Chad knows the importance of putting in the time required to elevate the trades industry as a whole. Building a company made up of over 180 employees does not happen if you do not have a solid process and vision in place for developing your people.

Through Peterman Top Tech Academy, Chad’s team brings in people who have no background in the trades and gives them the opportunity to learn from Peterman HVAC technicians. After a three-and-a-half-month period of spending three days in the classroom and two days on the field, the students are ready to start their careers in an entirely new industry.

Finding and Hiring Great Techs

In an environment where good techs are difficult to come by, Chad believes it is important to open up the opportunity to all individuals and then narrow the applicants down from there.

“Hungry, humble, smart. We took those three qualities and basically created a rubric for which we would grade people.”

Knowing the applicants they were taking in did not have a technical background, provided them with the advantage of being in the driver's seat. Instead of feeling rushed to hire someone new simply to fill a spot, they were able to assess individuals for who they are and decide if they would be a good fit for the team. They narrowed 600 applicants down to 30-40 through their rigorous process, but ended up with students who were willing to learn the skills without any preconceived ideas.

“I would say the non-negotiables were really the values for us. We kind of went into this process saying we are going to be very, very stringent on, ‘you need to answer these questions and really show us that your values align with the company.’ And that is really what we were looking for.”

Always Be Serving Others

Chad shares that as his team has made it through this year, they have uncovered where their training program will continue to help them, moving forward. As you continue to grow, your rate of customer acquisition and membership acquisition will naturally begin to pick up velocity. The more technicians you have on the field, the more memberships you will acquire.

“When you add more people, you can run more calls which equates to more opportunity. What we have found is if we were sitting in this exact same spot and we didn’t have the school in the works, we would be in a very peculiar place because I don’t know that we could hire enough people to satisfy the demand.”

Through the school, they are able to bring more people in and impact more lives. Allowing people who would normally not have a chance to work in the trades the opportunity to thrive is something Chad is most proud of.

Chad encourages all home services owners to stay focused on serving others. Through this process, you will see exponential results and find authentic success. 

Resources: 

Peterman Top Tech Academy

The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni