How to Speak Maintenance - What's a Mainten-ger?

Join us today for a new episode of "How to Speak Maintenance." Our host, Jason Fein with Camden and TAAEF's Becca Ramati talk with Michelle Bridges-Pahl with Century A/C Supply all about their "Mainten-ger" training, what it is and why it matters to you!

Transcript

Jason Fein: Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining our discussion on how to speak maintenance, where we decode maintenance talks so that everybody can better understand the ins and outs and what pulls for our maintenance teams time. My name is Jason Fein. I'm the maintenance services director for Camden. And with me is Becca Ramadi with TAAEF. Hello, Becca.

Becca Ramati: Hey, Jason.

Jason Fein: And I'm really excited once again to introduce our special guests. So our special guest today is Michelle Bridges with Century Air Conditioning Supply. She's the Vice President of the Multifamily Division. She's celebrating her 25th anniversary with the company. Congratulations on that.

Michelle Bridges: Thank you. Thank you, Jason.

Jason Fein: Yeah, so thanks for joining us. Michelle, would you be willing to tell us about your experience and how long you've been working with century?

Michelle Bridges: Absolutely. I would love to talk about that. The multi family industry is something that I didn't necessarily see myself in when I first took this job. And truthfully, I think when they interviewed, they told me that, hey, people in your position, they stay like, three or five years, and then they move on. Well, okay, thanks for letting me know. So I went ahead and kind of started with that mindset, but goodness gracious, multifamily to me is one big family. It is an industry with a heart, and three to five years has turned into 25 years, and I wouldn't trade a year of it. It's been an amazing experience.

Jason Fein: That's great. I've worked with different companies that were partnered with Century, and I know how big of a company they are. So that's pretty impressive that you built up that career with them. So, Becca was speaking with you about a program that you guys are running currently. It's called the mainten-eger program. Did I pronounce that right?

Michelle Bridges: Very close, Jason. Very close. It's called the mainten-ger program, which is maintenance and managers put together kind of parts of each century. We have done training for the entire time that I have been here just to kind of help folks in the industry make it a little easier to do our jobs. So we've done lots and lots and lots of maintenance training, obviously, and we've had an air conditioning for managers course. Again, as long as I can remember, for the managers, we would teach them things like what the laws are, because a lot of managers don't realize that they are subject to the laws and the penalties from the EPA and stuff like that. So we talk about that with them. We go through the basic parts and how an air conditioner functions, talk about things they can visit with the residents about, help the residents to understand it's better to turn your thermostat up rather than off during the day. That that really is a good thing. We have done that for a number of years. And of course, the maintenance training goes anywhere from the ABCs of AC all the way up through the make your best even better programs. The mainten-ger program has its roots. We had a very unusual circumstance where we had a company that had taken their best text and really wanted to make them better, really wanted for them to be the class of the industry, able to do due diligence, to put them strategically out in the community so that they would raise the others up on the properties where they were. Since with maintenance, that's how we do most of our training, it's usually tech to tech. It's not as formal as maybe some other industries. So we had a group of very high level texts that we had. I want to say that program was five days, and we'd had them two days in a week. And then coincidentally, the following day, we had the AC for managers for the same company. But when the text found out that the managers were going to be coming in a couple of days, they started a list. These are the things we want our managers to know. These are the things we want them to understand. So we did. We took the list and incorporated some of those things. We lifted cylinders of refrigerant up two stories with a rope. We had the managers light torches. We showed them what it's like to braid compressors. We did all kinds of fun stuff. And truly, I wish we'd have videoed at that point, because we did have a manager in five inch heels who was really good. I think she carried a compressor. I was like, you go, girl. She really brought it that day. But that's where the roots came from, is what maintenance wanted managers to know. And of course, there's things managers want maintenance to know. So we started saying, well, what if we had everybody in one place at one time? What could we accomplish if we did that? When we have two different groups that have such a different skillset, difference between the two, it's tough to have them in one place because if we're teaching something that's fairly technical to maintenance the managers, it's hard to keep them engaged and vice versa. If we're talking about basically how an air conditioner works, it's tough to keep the techs engaged. So what we started developing was a training where we could do some fun stuff, and I'll talk about that here in a little bit, but where we would have some content where everybody's together and then some content where it was separate, where managers would get exactly what they need and maintenance would get exactly what they needed. And then we kind of melded it all together with some team building. We do some motivation and development speaking, the things that you see a lot of at the TAA conference, we do a little bit of that. And towards the end of the day, we have the maintenance teach managers some specific skills that they do every day. Then the managers go and do these things and they compete against the other maintenance manager teams and we give out real price. So it's a fun day, we have a really good time and folks, I think, learn a lot too.

Jason Fein: That sounds amazing. Make anything a competition and it becomes fun. And then on top of it, I love that you've broken it out and you're separating it and teaching the maintenance employees how to the other side of the business as well as the managers, the other side of the business, because that's exactly what we're talking about in this program, how to speak maintenance. So I'm really glad you came on this program. Who is the program open to? Is it on your website or where can people find out about this program?

Michelle Bridges: It is you can sign up for it. And we do want manager maintenance teams and we prefer them to be from the same property, wouldn't have to be that way, but we prefer them to be from the same property. Since the team building that we're doing benefits that team and they can sign up there. A lot of folks do it by management company, which is a great way as well. It's a fun day for everybody where they can all participate and have a really good kind of team building day.

Jason Fein: That's great. Do you have to be a partner with Century or can anybody sign up for it?

Michelle Bridges: Pretty much anybody in multifamily can sign up for it.

Jason Fein: It's amazing. That's great. These are the programs that we need. We need more of these where we can take a break and we can relax and be able to get ourselves into a learning in a comfortable space where we can be able to get our hands dirty without impacting. Residents, I see behind you, you have a whole setup, but sometimes you wonder if somebody's background is virtual or if it's an actual setup. Is that an actual setup of HVAC units behind you?

Michelle Bridges: This one is real. Yes. I'm in the training lab.

Becca Ramati: And Michelle, what kind of feedback are you getting from the teams that have gone through the program and what's happening after they get back to property?

Michelle Bridges: I've gotten some really good feedback from when folks come as a group. Typically the supervisors or executives will come along as well. And I've gotten some good feedback from them saying that especially in times of transition, that it is a really good program because it brings people together, it gets them working in the same direction. Not to give anything away, but there are some specific team building exercises to kind of help with that, to get people aligned and to think about working together, rowing the same direction. And I have heard that it helps with that and it's kind of light hearted and fun and it's fun to see your co workers in a little bit different light.

Jason Fein: Definitely. Where are these centers located?

Michelle Bridges: The one that I'm affiliated with is in Houston. So we do a lot of stuff here in our training center. As I've shown you, this is the training lab. There's also a classroom in the other room in the same building, which is where we do the combined content, where we do the managers content, and then the text. All love the lab. For years, I would peek in the back of a classroom when texts were training. And you can just see to me, texts are not typically book learners and not necessarily PowerPoint learners. I know to some degree, maybe there is some theory that you have to cover that way. But what I would peak in the back of the classroom if we were doing PowerPoint or something, that was lecture. You can just body language, right? I mean, techs are engaged. They're paying attention, but it's not lighting them up. You bring them in the lap and the slouchy, hey, I'm listening. But I'm used to be running around doing ten things. It's hard for me to sit still. You bring them in the lab and there's live equipment and there's tools, and there's all these good techy things. Techs are they're wanting to see over the person in front of them. They're like, Great, when can I put my gauges on this? So I love to have live equipment for the text. I think that that's a really great way for them to learn and really give them the information in a way that they can assimilate best.

Jason Fein: That's great. What subjects do you teach in your classes? Is it all AC? 

Michelle Bridges: For tech? For the managers. We really have the air conditioning for managers, which is kind of as I described for Tax, truly, it's kind of the whole gamut. There's the basics. ABC's of AC Here are the very basic components, and this is how they go together. And this is basically how a system functions. During COVID, the head trainer and I during walk down, found ourselves without things to do. I call on executives. And during Covet, executives were busy, right? They had life and death issues on properties, we had income concerns, we had all kinds of stuff. And the head trainer was accustomed to having a classroom full of folks. So the two of us put our heads together and decided that we would come up with a good workable Zoom program for tech to help them diagnose without going inside a unit. What all could they diagnose without ever going inside? And it was fun for us to learn Zoom because neither one of us were very good at it at all. We did get to we're pretty good at Zoom. From there, we branched out. There's an entire mechanical diagnosis, tracked, if you will. We should have taken a couple of those classes and turned them into a diagnostic app that takes four simple readings. Which is. By the way. Some of what we teach the managers to take are those four simple readings. And it will give maintenance a diagnosis. Tell them kind of what the cause might have been. What caused this issue. And some basic repairs that they might explore for fixing that. So we have an entire mechanical diagnosis track. We also have an electrical diagnosis track. Again, during Covid, we're putting together all of these Zoom programs. The lead trainer would be training me to do this so that I could make the PowerPoint and goodness gracious, meters. To me, electrical meters, multimeters are very confusing. I mean, there's a dial with like eight or ten things on it. When you take a reading, do you use the little test leads? Do you use the clamp? Is the power on? Is the power off? I mean, there's a lot that goes on there. It's worse than trying to program your VCR from back in the day. So one of the things that we have done with the electrical diagnosing class is we made, to me, kind of a cheat sheet that tells you for each thing that you're checking, is the power on? What are you going to put your meter on? Which implements are you using? Is it test leads? Is it the clamp? What a good reading looks like so that, you know, when you're taking these readings, is this good? Is it not kind of a cheat sheet, if you will, a one page little cheat sheet thing to help with electrical diagnosis. And we have classes to support all of those things. We have installation classes to talk about the proper ways to evacuate, to breathe and to charge. Because the most important day in an air conditioner's life is the day that it gets installed.

Jason Fein: That's amazing.

Michelle Bridges: And let's see, what else do we have? All kinds of fun stuff. I'm pretty much the gamut of air conditioning courses.

Jason Fein: That's amazing that you set up those troubleshooting trees as well to be able to be used in the field. Sometimes watching a class or getting somebody on Zoom is difficult when you're at an HVAC unit. So having that troubleshooting tree is very helpful. Is that still available on your website?

Michelle Bridges: Yes, it is. And we teach the classes either live or Zoom to support it so that folks understand kind of what they're looking for. Anything to make it easier, right? Maintenance has a tough job. Maintenance, from our perspective, maintenance is really expected to act essentially like an air conditioning contractor, like a licensed air conditioning contractor. And then our air conditioning contractors typically only have one, maybe two trades. Maybe they do a little plumbing as well. But on site, the maintenance needs to act like a licensed plumber and a licensed electrician. And they need to be able to do some carpentry, and they need to fix the pool pump, and they need to be able to set tile. I won't go on and on and on, but truly, maintenance has this huge amount of themes that they are responsible for. And the way that we train in our industry is typically they follow around a more senior tech. You're limited by a couple of things when you do that. You're limited to the knowledge of the senior tech who is limited to the knowledge of the tech that taught them. And you're also limited to what you have on site. It's really tough to learn chilled water or heat pumps if you're on a conventional split AC property. You can't learn those things. So one of the things that we have really tried hard to do with the managers is for them to understand that there probably are gaps in their text knowledge because this is the industry that we work in and the way that the way that the education happens. There's almost certainly going to be we think that it's very important for managers to make it okay for text to tell them. Hey. I don't necessarily understand this as well as I would like to. And for them to be able to get training for it. I know that some techs are worried about saying those things, look, I got hired to do this job, but I'm here to tell you we have amazing technicians in our industry, folks that work so hard and care so much about things. But because of how our training system is, there are gaps in their knowledge. So we need to make it okay for them to say so and be able to get that training. I'm a big proponent for that.

Becca Ramati: And it's great that supplier partners like Century offer some opportunities to fill those gaps. And if you go to the Room to Grow website roomtogrowtx.org, there is a list of training opportunities from some of our supplier partners, including Century. So that's a great way to get some of those extra training opportunities. And I know, I think the management companies too, would you appreciate the fact that those kinds of courses are there. We just need to make sure they know about them.

Jason Fein: Some of the larger property management companies might have training divisions, but some of the smaller out there, they might not have the resources. And now knowing that Centuries out there and you guys have training materials and classes and zooms, that's amazing. And it's important to make sure they understand that it's crucial to make time for training. We had a whole session on training and we actually had to break it up into two calls. So then that way we can be or two discussions, so then that way we can be able to cover more material because you hit it on the head when you said that. Our maintenance employees are jacks of all trades. They have to know a little bit about a lot of different things. And it's true that they do learn from watching over the shoulder of their more seasoned technicians. So this has been a great conversation and I really appreciate your time. Becca do you have any other questions?

Becca Ramati: The only thing I'd like to ask Michelle, is as a supplier partner, do you find that speaking maintenance and trying to bridge that gap helps you in your business? Because do the people who take the classes, the companies who send their people, does it help you not just with the business part, but understanding the needs? I guess. What have you found?

Michelle Bridges: Absolutely. I think understanding that on a lot of properties, there is a difference between how you might communicate with the office and how you might communicate with maintenance. That there probably is a little bit different focus even though everybody's rowing in the same direction. The office is responsible for financial structure and for financial integrity. The maintenance is responsible for the property itself. Right. All the mechanical integrity, all the structural integrity. But even more than that, maintenance, a lot of times they're helping with aesthetics, they're helping with our comfort. These are the places shelter is a basic human need, and maintenance makes it so much more than just a basic human need. I think for suppliers, it is important to be super respectful of their time. They probably have ten other things they need to be doing. So if you're going to be there, bring something of value. Be sure that it's not a hey, what's up to kind of a thing. You need to have something of value to justify maintenance, making time for us as suppliers, and I think be respectful of the amount of things that they need to do.

Becca Ramati: That's great, Jason. I bet you would agree with that.

Jason Fein: I completely agree with it.

Becca Ramati: Well, thank you so much, Michelle. I think this is helpful, and I think the best way for people to reach out to take a look at the website, is that right?

Michelle Bridges: Yes. That would be great. Centuryac.com.

Jason Fein: Thank you, Michelle, for your time. And thank you for making a huge impact on maintenance and the relationship between the office and our maintenance teams. So it's really important and I appreciate it.

Becca Ramati: Thank you for speaking maintenance, Michelle. Thank you everybody so much.

Jason Fein: Thank you. Bye.