No two HVAC techs possess the same specialties and skill levels. So, when bringing on new technicians to your team, it’s essential to understand where their skills stand with a thorough HVAC assessment. This will allow you to fill in any skill gaps, bring all technicians to the same knowledge level, and focus on the areas that each individual member of your team needs help with the most.
Let’s take a closer look at all the ways an HVAC assessment test can help you and your team.
What Are HVAC Skills Assessments?
HVAC skills assessments determine the skill levels of technicians across the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning field. They allow service managers to determine each employee’s skill set and identify skills gaps, or areas in which a tech needs further training. They are best used not just once, but throughout the entire career of a tech to continually check for areas of improvement.
Ideally, ongoing HVAC assessments should vary in order to test all areas of knowledge. Examples of effective skills assessment types include:
- Written assessments: Featuring a combination of fact-retention questions (multiple-choice, matching, true/false, and fill in the blank) and concept explanation questions (long-form answers and essays).
- Hands-on assessments: Employees directly demonstrate their skills in the field by interacting with HVAC systems in multi-family buildings.
- Simulation assessments: Allows technicians to challenge themselves in a variety of “extreme” and “emergency” situations.
What Are the Benefits of Online HVAC Skills Assessments?
Emerging technology is allowing manufacturers of HVAC systems to improve energy efficiency , capacity, and function. This leads to more complex components and requires that each technician on your team continue education and training to stay up-to-date. HVAC assessments help this process by identifying the areas in which techs are proficient and the areas in which to focus training.
A snapshot of other major benefits of HVAC assessments include:
- Team leaders having the ability to eliminate time-consuming ride-alongs that send employees into the field to practice skills that they may or may not already have
- HVAC techs receiving personalized training programs focused on highlighting their strengths and improving their weakness
- Businesses savings on costly training seminars that may or may not be relevant or helpful
Additionally, because HVAC assessments allow businesses to conduct ongoing training, employees are happier. According to a recent survey , more employees would stay at a company if it invested in helping them learn.
How Can You Utilize HVAC Skills Assessments?
Part of reaping the benefits of HVAC assessment tests is how you utilize them. This can mean taking advantage of them as early as the recruitment process. In reference to the survey mentioned above, workers are most interested in companies that will continue to build their knowledge and skill level. If prospect employees are aware that you offer skills assessments to help advance their skills, they may be more interested in working for your business over others.
Additionally, once technicians have actually been hired, consider the different ways to utilize HVAC assessments, such as:
- On-boarding: Conduct an initial assessment of new hires to establish their current skill levels to determine a training path.
- Continuing education and up-skilling: Fill in knowledge gaps for more seasoned employees.
- Quarterly and Annual Reviews: On-going assessments help to objectively monitor and measure tech progress that can be addressed during reviews.
- Build incentive programs: Motivate, engage and encourage up-skilling through incentives and reward programs.
Successfully Implement HVAC Skills Assessments with Interplay Learning
Regularly evaluating your tech’s skills gives you the ability to create individualized training programs that make your good techs into great ones. This can save you time and money, all while keeping your employees motivated.
With Interplay Learning’s Skills Assessment , your HVAC techs will be evaluated in ten key areas within the HVAC field. Once the test is completed, Interplay Learning’s experts personally analyze the results and deliver a report that outlines where the unique skills gaps are in your teams’ abilities. They will then let you know which competencies they need to work on and provide custom SkillMill course recommendations to help them improve in those competencies.
With access to expert-developed, fully hands-on VR and 3D simulations that can be completed anywhere, HVAC skills assessments can be a game-changer for any HVAC business.
