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It’s a good problem to have, but a problem just the same—when your company is experiencing explosive growth, how do you hire enough people to keep up?
Greenwood-based Peterman Heating, Cooling and Plumbing Inc. is tackling the challenge through an innovative new in-house training program that is generating interest from both potential students and peer companies nationwide.
The four-month program, called Peterman Top Tech Academy, equips students for careers in either plumbing or heating and air-conditioning repair. Students draw a paycheck while enrolled, and the curriculum includes both technical training and life skills like budgeting and cooking.
Students sign a two-year employment contract, which helps the company ensure that its newly trained employees will stick around once they’ve finished their schooling.
The first class launched in October, and those 16 students (nine in heating and air and seven in plumbing) graduated Jan. 29. All began working as Peterman service technicians this week.
A new session of classes began immediately, with a third scheduled to launch in August.
“Every three to four months, we’re going to have new, fresh team members rolling out in the field,” said Vice President of Operations Tyler Peterman, who owns the company along with his brother, Chad, and father, Pete. “I think where it could take us is endless.”
Staffing is an ongoing challenge for the industry and especially for Peterman, which has experienced a serious growth spurt in recent years and landed on IBJ’s Fast 25 list in 2019 and 2020. The company’s revenue, which stood at $10.4 million in 2017, swelled to $29 million in 2020 and is projected to reach $40 million this year.
Peterman has just more than 200 employees, about two-thirds of whom are service technicians; the company estimates it will need to hire 80 to 100 people this year.
“We do quite a bit of marketing. We’re trying to be out there in front of as many customers as possible,” Tyler Peterman said. “Sometimes, we have to shut the marketing down because we don’t have enough people to do the calls that we have.”
Peterman based its curriculum on one developed by Nexstar Network, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based professional organization for residential service companies. Nexstar’s curriculum was designed as a self-guided study program for technicians looking to upgrade their skills.
Peterman adapted the program, adding in company-specific training such as how to deal with a frustrated homeowner or a rambunctious dog.
These soft skills are important, said President Chad Peterman, because, when technicians are out on service calls, they are the face of the company. “Really, our technicians are the conduit to customers knowing who we are and trusting what we do.”
Top Tech students also attend workshops on a range of life-skills topics, from healthy cooking and personal finance to handling automotive emergencies like a flat tire or a dead battery.
“We just kind of thought, in order to be a fully engaged employee and to give 100% during your work day, you also need to be 100% at home,” said Dani Wernert, an executive administrative assistant at Peterman who helped develop the school and oversees its day-to-day operations.
Craig Caldwell, associate dean of graduate and professional programs at Butler University’s Lacey School of Business, said Peterman’s approach is a “very sophisticated, very forward-thinking” solution to the shortage of skilled workers.
Over the years, society’s emphasis on college over vocational training has devalued careers in the trades, Caldwell said. “Right now, trades generally speaking are still not popular career paths,” he said. “What Peterman is up to here is, they are going to be their own solution to talent acquisition.”
In-house training is “the new standard” in the service industry, said Julian Scadden, Nexstar’s president and CEO.
And the approach is generating a lot of interest. Peterman received 600 applicants for the 16 slots in its inaugural class, Wernert said, and the company has also fielded queries from many service companies around the United States who are interested in launching their own training programs.
Numerous factors are fueling the industry’s and the company’s rapid expansion, Chad Peterman said. For one thing, homes built during the housing boom that led to the Great Recession of 2008-2009 are now at the age where their infrastructure might need repairing or replacing.
And, though investment firms have been snapping up service companies of late, the industry is still composed of many smaller firms and Peterman has been able to pick up market share from some of its competitors.
Perhaps most important, Chad Peterman said he and his brother have made growth and experimentation a priority. When their father, Pete, founded the company in 1986, he never envisioned its growing as large as it has. When Chad Peterman joined in 2011, he was the 21st employee.
When the sons took the reins in 2016, they decided to get aggressive about expansion.
“The one thing I love about our organization is, we move fast,” Chad Peterman said. “We’re always looking for a better way to do something.”
The company revamped a long-running membership program in 2018, shifting to an auto-pay model and adding perks for customers who pay a monthly membership fee. Enrollment in the program has more than doubled as a result.
Last year, the company established an in-house leadership program. Any employee who’s interested can enroll and advance through the program by reading books from Peterman’s collection or completing selected activities.
The goal of the leadership program, Chad Peterman said, is to develop a pipeline for employees interested in advancement. “What we want to provide is a really crystal-clear career path.”
A focus on leadership should help the company build the infrastructure needed to handle its “explosive” growth, Butler’s Caldwell said.
“It is extraordinary, even in a growing industry, to have growth like this,” he said. “You have to have a leadership team that’s capable of scaling.”•
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CONGRATULATIONS to the staff over at Peterman . Educating the workforce along with forward thinking on how to do it customized to their Companies needs, nicely done !
Eric Handy