The Maintenance Angle - Eps 2

"Hey everyone, welcome to The Maintenance Angle podcast. My name is Mark Sharp and this is episode number two. I recently went to a local apartment association event, and I asked the question: What do you think of the current maintenance training landscape? Here are some of the responses I got. Yeah, great question Mark. I think currently the maintenance training could definitely use more development a lot of times, a lot more PowerPoints and in classroom instruction when it should have a lot more hands-on training. And I think if we did a lot more hands-on training, we would get a lot more participants in the maintenance industry. I don't believe that we trained enough. Guys coming in the door properly. And a lot of times PowerPoints are not really training, it's just looking at a screen and Right. What kind of hands-on experience do they get by that? Sure. So to me, there should be a lot more hands-on experience and a lot more hands-on training on different range of topics. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Yes.  Alright, Nathan, so what do you think about the current maintenance training that is offered in the multi-family area? Is it not enough? Does it need more detail? What you got maintenance training go. We can definitely use more, especially for the young guys just getting into the business. A lot of troubleshooting that needs to be gone over appliance repair. I can go down a laundry list of things. Yeah, we, the more training we can put together the better equipped we're gonna be for our residents. Yep. Can I ask you a follow up? So when you say we need more maintenance training can you be a little bit more specific? Do we need hands-on, do we need PowerPoint presentation, classroom type stuff? Or are you talking physically here's. Crew driver and here's how you fix it. Yeah. We're gonna have to have a mixture of both. I think. Learning a little bit in the classroom then getting hands on to actually apply what you're learning. 'cause a lot of these guys are gonna have to learn hands on. That's the way I learn too. Show me how to do it, tell me how to do it, and then get outta the way. Yeah. Kind of thing. So I've gotta learn how to do it. Make some mistakes to learn. Yeah. And that's the best way to do it. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Yes sir. Thank you.  All right, we have my friend John Maudlin. John, same question. What do you current, or what do you think about the current maintenance training offerings in multifamily? For me, honestly, I think the challenge right now is. That if you talk to most owner operators, their maintenance training involves virtual training. They're watching a video online. They're watching a seminar online, a webinar, and the maintenance guys that are out there now, they need the hands-on training. There's not enough hands-on training. There's not enough, there's not even enough training when they get on site with another team member because there's always an emergency. There's always a quick turn. There's always something going on where. They're not able to learn at the speed they need to learn. There's just the hands-on training is missing, and that's the piece that nobody's found a way to replicate and duplicate on a mass level. For everywhere. There's there, they the owner operator companies don't have enough people to train. They're all working, they're all doing maintenance because there's a shortage and there's no companies out there that offer hands-on training across the board in every market, everywhere. It's just not, it's not financially feasible to do the way it's set up right now. So that's our challenge and it's gonna be a challenge until somebody figures it out. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you.  I think our maintenance is undervalued. They definitely need more pay. They need to be, there are lots of companies that do have good training programs, but they need to encourage them to go to other, venues or training  in order to.  Feel  valued and developed. Yeah. Awesome. So if you let them know that they are valued and you send them to those things they will stay longer. Yeah. Alright. Perfect.  I think maintenance does a really good job. I think that they could use some help where where they can, I think they all deserve to get paid more. Let's give these guys more money. What is this? $20 an hour for a tech? If we're not making 30, come on now. Let's go. Amen.  For maintenance. I don't think they never get enough money and they're always needing more training. A lot of times it's a lot of turnover, especially with the culture we get. So they're constantly gonna need more and more training and understanding and also the best equipment. I don't care how often you think that you have. For the equipment and maintenance for it, there's never enough. And then also, technology's changing all the time, so they're always gonna need more training, more assistance. And unfortunately, yes, that means more of a budget. But yeah, that's it. Perfect. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir.  So I think that for maintenance training as a whole there could definitely be more exposure to the training that is offered. I feel like a lot of maintenance techs or supervisors may not have the right social media tools to know about all the events that are happening and all the trainings that are happening. So maybe just finding an alternative way to get them to know of what's. Coming up and what's available could always be a benefit. Some of them might not have LinkedIn, some of them might just not be on social media, so just getting another route of exposure to them about the classes. I think there's a great amount that are offered, maybe some that aren't on virtual, so I feel like also a lot of maintenance. Don't like virtual trainings or Zoom meetings because they might not be as tech savvy and they really love hands-on experiences. So doing more hands-on training or more networking, connecting with other maintenance supervisors allows them to relate to each other, share ideas, and really just push it to the next level. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah.  Go. So first of all, I would encourage you to get plugged into your local apartment association. I'm proud to say that we put on three free maintenance classes a year. However, free is not the answer. Property managers. You have to let your maintenance leave. You have to let them leave the office so they can get training to be better Maintenance tech supervisors, groundskeepers, et cetera. Not just the important stuff like CPO and EPA. Let them come, continue to learn. Let them learn from each other. What does that? Iron sharpens iron. Let    So I hope that management companies or owners are truly investing in their people. I think that there is opportunities to learn across the board, but it's about the onsite teams, the senior, the old, the older team, right? The older generation to teach those skills to their team members and people being open and honest about what they know and what they don't know. Love it. Thank you. your maintenance guys leave and take a class. You heard it direct from them. Some people think that online classroom style is good. It's gonna be sufficient. Some people think it needs to be hands-on. Uh, some people say you need to pay them more. I left that in on purpose because I agree. I think you need to pay them more. Uh, but then we started to bring it home a little bit more about getting the apartment associations or getting the technicians involved in the apartment associations. Uh, one of the, um, individuals who spoke said that you've got to let them leave. You've got to let them leave the property, and again, this goes back to something I said a while ago on a completely separate podcast, but, you know, if, if your thought process is, "I don't want to let my team members leave because I don't know what they're gonna do when they're off-site," you have the wrong team members. Okay? You do. If you do not trust your team, you got the wrong team. All right? You have to let them leave. You have to let them be involved in their local apartment associations. Apartment associations are excellent resources for maintenance training, and most of them offer some form of maintenance training for free. But yes, free isn't always the answer. A lot of associations have maintenance appreciation committees who put on events for these individuals so they can grow through their profession, right? Encourage that. Be a part of it. Let them go. Let them learn. Let them meet other people like them who struggle like them. It will help. All right. This has been Your Maintenance Angle. I appreciate you listening. Let me know in the comments, do you agree? Do you agree? Is virtual training enough? Are webinars enough? Are hands-on or is hands-on what is needed? Do you feel technicians should be paid more? Do you feel, uh, with the last person who, who spoke up, do you feel that some of the responsibility should fall on some of the older technicians passing on that knowledge to them? Let me know in the comments. What do you think? And we'll catch you on the next one. See ya. "