Top 5 Tips For Running A Successful Heating Training Course

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Thornhvac

1. Be Organised
Organisation is the key, don’t leave it to the night before. Run through the itinerary as if you were attending the course. Ask yourself – does it make sense? Make sure the venue is suitable and know what your requirements are. Have all the contact details for the delegates just in case there are any last minute changes. When I started as a trainer, we had arranged a pre ACS course at a golf club near Portsmouth.  Unknown to us the organiser who had sent the course details out, had sent all the attendees to another golf club 60 miles away! It was the curse of “copy and paste” because we had in fact been there just a few weeks earlier.

2. Gear Content To Pupils Understanding
A trainer, or the course content cannot make a course, it has to be an inclusive exercise. Too many times I have been on the receiving end of a shut up and tell course, sign here and off we go. You need to agree a starting point, depending on experience or knowledge the group has, otherwise you may lose a few attendees by slide number 2. The starting point is very important; you can then build and tailor the course from there. Getting your starting point right is important to the success of the course/presentation.

3. Avoid Death By PowerPoint
Death by PowerPoint is another problem heating engineers complain about during training. In the heating industry the clientele is not the type of individual who will sit for hours watching something on a screen. The set period of time allowed must give way to practical hands on tasks, this will keep their minds interested.  Natural time away and discussion zones should also be set away from the classroom.

4. Allow Time For Questions And Breaks
It’s important to establish if your class has understood the information. A good way to correct misunderstandings is by answering questions from the class. If you’ve not allowed time for questions pupils can get frustrated, and you can lose them.  

Make sure the itinerary includes time for breaks and refreshments – the mind can only take so much!

5. Adapt Content To Find Your Style
Adaption of the information is also very useful, if allowed adapt the presentation to suit yourself and the group, unless it has to be done in a mandatory style, as long as you get the information across in a fun and informative way then you have done your job.

Within my time as a trainer at British Gas most of the information we taught was Safety and Legislation based, but in the team I worked in we all had our own style, some would do a particular item on day 1, others would leave that until after lunch on day 2.
It’s important to find your own style.
We also need to understand we are not the authority figure on all that we present, there will always be someone in the room with more knowledge than yourself.  Any questions that cannot be answered must be answered before the end of the training. 

Lastly, learn from your mistakes and improve the next course, and one last tip don’t forget the bottled water, you will need it…..

Posted in Heating, Training | Leave a comment

How to add value to your career as a fire systems designer?

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Thornhvac

Many engineers have difficulty with the word ‘salesman’. They don’t mind being called a contracts manager, a design engineer or a project engineer or project manager but try to avoid calling them a sales engineer or even worse a salesman as they might be offended.

And yet each of these roles has a sales element to them. Although the same job title may be interpreted differently in different companies each of them follows the classic steps of a sale.

Firstly an enquiry is received by you from a potential customer, then you find out what they want, understand their situation and develop a solution that gives them what they want at a profit to your company.

You explain your solution to the customer describing the benefits of it and how it meets their needs. Hopefully, if you have done your homework, the customer gives you the order and you carry out the work, making sure you or others give the customer what you promised.

Regardless of what you call yourself, if this is what you do then you can add sales to your job title and expect an increase in salary and a commission that will normally raise your overall earning up by at least 20%.

So if you agree with the above and have a minimum of 18 months experience of designing smoke extraction systems and live in the South, Midlands or the North we may have an ideal job for you.

Posted in Smoke Ventilation, Ventilation | Tagged | Leave a comment

What makes a successful Technical Manager in the Ventilation sector?

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Thornhvac

Evidence from firms recruiting Technical Managers suggests that there are several key attributes they require.

Firstly in order to succeed in this role, a Technical Manager must be able to get their team to turn around quotes for the sales team in good time. Any more than 15 days and customers will start to look elsewhere. It’s important to be a great organiser to succeed in this role.

The role of Technical Manager has become more challenging over recent years as competing manufacturers strive to win business by reducing their prices to customers. Technical Managers have to ensure designs are cost effective but also meet performance targets, which are increasingly difficult to hit due to tighter regulations. This is not always easy to do cheaply.

This problem is compounded by some companies trying to win business by excluding the cost of some equipment from their price. This makes their price seem very competitive, but it is superficially low, as subsequently the extra equipment is indeed required for the project and the price is increased. You might think how could customers fall for that one? However, sometimes there can be a delay of up to 2 years between when the design is done and the kit is required on site, so it’s not always easy to see if a supplier of kit is being disingenuous with their quote.

Successful Technical Managers can produce cost effective designs that perform well and meet regulations, as they have the required knowledge to design a well performing system within the regulations. They know when the competition is offering an unrealistic price, and can articulate to the salesforce why a cheap price will not always deliver the cheapest solution in the long run.

Technical Managers’ roles vary in terms of NPD depending on whether the products are made in the UK or abroad. However, the UK has some of the tightest regulations in Europe. This means that even if the products are made abroad, they will need to comply with UK regulations if the company wants to sell products here. It is, therefore, essential that a Technical Manager understands the regulations, and has the creative design skills to find clever ways to meet the regulations.

Lastly, being able to keep your team focussed and well motivated is essential, as they often work under lots of pressure, particularly when salespeople and customers are waiting for quotes!

Although there are other desirable skills, these are the essential attributes that Technical Managers should have. If you believe you have these skills, please get in touch with us as you might be suitable for this role.

Posted in Ventilation | Leave a comment

Smoke extraction design engineer works from home

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Thornhvac

It used to be that only salesmen worked from home. But increasingly this is being extended to all kinds of technical staff as the technology for remote working improves all the time.

With laptops, Virtual Private Networks, Hot Desking and Sharing of Computers, the Internet has helped to grow remote working.  A number of us in our recruitment business work from home permanently and just go into the office for face to face team meetings.

We have a Fire systems design engineer vacancy at the moment where remote working is almost a must. There are so few of these highly skilled individuals to go round the companies who want one that they are willing to go to them via remote working on the internet rather than struggle to find someone local to their office.

While the office is in the North, the customers at the moment are in the South with London being the most boyant region. So being midway between the customers and the office or even closer to the customers makes sense as the customers often require face to face technical support.

There are usually also some distinct advantages to be had for the company.
• Improved retention of employees, e.g home working can help retain working parents with childcare responsibilities.
• A wider pool of applicants from which to recruit, e.g disabled people who may prefer to work from home. This adds ‘liquidity’ to the job market and companies and candidates are more likely to find what they want.
• Possible productivity gains through staff having fewer interruptions and less commuting time.
• Increased staff motivation with reduced stress and sickness levels.
• Savings on office space and other facilities.
• Possible location of sales staff near clients rather than being based in your premises.

Posted in Ventilation | Tagged | Leave a comment

Institute of Fire Engineering want a Head of Education

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Thornhvac

The Institute of Fire Engineering are looking for a Head of
Education at their offices at Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire with a
salary of £35,000.

This is a senior management position and the successful
candidate’s remit will include:

Developing new IFE
qualifications;

Ensuring compliance
with Ofqual regulations and audit;

Overseeing course and
training provider approvals;

Managing a small team
implementing a busy examinations cycle;

Coordinating the work
of examiners and invigilators;

Externally
representing the IFE to promote IFE qualifications.

If you have a teaching qualification and/or significant
experience within a training and development FRS environment, and would like to
be part of a friendly team making a real difference to assuring technical
underpinning knowledge, we would like to hear from you.

Please email sarah.simpson@ife.org.uk for more information.

The vacancy has come about due to the continuing success of
the IFE’s examinations worldwide, the IFE is seeking to appoint a suitably
experienced individual to lead the Awarding Body function based at the IFE’s
offices.

Posted in HVAC Jobs, Smoke Ventilation, Ventilation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Stress free recruiting or advancing your career

Posted on March 9, 2011 by admin

In these days of recession and financial uncertainty, businesses have to ensure that their workforce is not only lean but also highly effective. At the same time, people looking to further their careers by securing a new role are finding it difficult to find the right placement. Talented people will always progress, but many will be hesitant to move companies in the current market conditions, considering it a risk.

The plumbing, heating and ventilation industry relies on people with a diverse range of skills. For example, engineers with the right qualifications to meet the changing marketplace; sales people with technical knowledge to enable them to match their products with applications; sales people with commercial sense, so they can negotiate prices and contracts, and managers who can work with numbers and people, overseeing budgets and motivating teams.

Clear high performers need to be filtered from the general applications and fast-tracked, making the recruitment process quick, pleasurable and effective. To successfully match people with HVAC job vacancies, and to spare businesses and job candidates from the pitfalls, a recruitment agency needs to have good knowledge and experience of our industry sector. Thornhvac was set up eight years ago exactly because it has this.

Thornhvac’s aim was to provide a stress-free service to companies and managers, by taking care of the whole recruitment process: advertising, filtering CV’s and – crucially – interviewing all short listed candidates. References are taken-up at this stage with previous employers, so that the candidates can be ranked. Only after getting satisfactory references will they put the candidate forward. Performance being the most important criteria in this process. By the time the interview takes place, the applicant is 50% of the way there.

A key element of taking the stress away is ensuring that the elements of a job requiring technical knowledge elements are dealt with by someone who understands the requirements fully and can converse professionally with companies and candidates alike, to match needs and skills. This is another reason Thornhvac was set-up to serve the HVAC sectors – the Thornhvac team have technical backgrounds in heating, ventilation, air conditioning and renewables and can evaluate skills in all these areas, saving time and frustration in the interview process.

Sales, marketing and managerial skills are also covered and assessed by people who have had many years of experience working in the industry.
Whether you work in sales, marketing, management, or technical engineering roles, Thornhvac can find a role to suit you and your aspirations. And if you are an employer, Thornhvac will not only find you the high performers you need, but will also check they’re the right fit for the team they are joining

John Forster
Technical Consultant
Thornhvac Ltd.- HVAC Recruiters

Posted in High performers, High Performers looking for jobs, HVAC Companies, HVAC Jobs, HVAC Recruitment | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Why can’t we measure on performance?

Posted on January 27, 2011 by admin

Have you noticed how often people, organisations and companies measure themselves on their activity rather than performance.

How many times when a politician is asked the question, what are you doing about X,Y or Z they will reply that they have spent a record amount on the problem, x more pounds than the opposition ever spent.

Managers in business will talk about the number of projects they are working on, the number of products launches done, the number of customers processed. Hospitals will cite the number of patients treated, charities, the amount of money raised, social workers, the number of clients visited and recruitment agencies, the number of CVs they send to clients or the candidates they place.

All of this is activity and not necessarily related to performance. The projects may fail to achieve their expectations, the products may be inferior, the customers unhappy and leave, the patients not get better, the money raised be wasted or misappropriated, the clients of the social workers be left unaffected by the intervention and the recruiter’s CVs not result in a placement or the placement in a successful period of employment.

Increasingly and even politicians are saying this, voices are saying performance measurement should be about outcomes not activity. If we measured initiatives in this way we would do less but achieve more. This is because so often, particularly in politics, initiatives have unintended consequences, often the opposite of what is intended.

So we are trying to do our bit. Our latest search product guarantees to replace free of charge any candidate we place who does not meet an agreed above average performance level after a year or stay for the same length of time. Keep your fingers crossed.

Posted in HVAC Recruitment, Recruiters | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Where can HVAC companies go to get cheaper finance than the banks?

Posted on November 20, 2010 by admin

As banks concentrate on rebuilding their capital, regardless of what the government tells them, then lending to smaller businesses inevitably gets squeezed. And with around 90% of all banking services to SMEs provided by Britain’s five biggest banks, according to market research company Mintel, is there anywhere else to go?

Fortunately necessity is the mother of invention and a number of new financing alternatives are becoming available including www.fundingcircle.com, a web based social funding site that has lent around £1m to SMEs since it started 10 weeks ago.

The Economist reports how Scotmas, a family owned company in Scotland who exports water treatment chemicals and equipment was helped. In August it wanted to bid to run a water-disinfection project in Dubai, but its bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, said it would take eight to ten weeks to approve the £30,000 of funding it needed to secure in advance of bidding. Funding Circle was able to lend the money to Scotmas within 2 weeks at a rate of 7.7%.

A laser engineering company in the North East has just borrowed £20,000 for working capital at a rate of 7.8% over 3 years. And a ductwork manufacturer and installer in the North West borrowed £10,000 to buy another machine at 7.8% over 12 months.

And if these rates seem cheaper than the 11 to 12% rates typically on offer at the banks when they do offer a loan, they are. Launched at the beginning of August, Funding Circle allows savers to lend money to small businesses in exchange for returns of between 6%– 9%. Money goes direct to credit-worthy small businesses in the UK.

Small businesses can apply for loans of between £5,000 and £50,000, to be paid back over a one or three-year period. Funding Circle estimates that typical interest rates charged to borrowers on the loans will be between 6% and 9% depending on your credit rating. Once funding is agreed, small firms will also have to pay Funding Circle 2% of the amount borrowed.

With the average savings account rate in Britain currently around 0.78%, social lending sites such as Zopa and Funding Circle have come into their own. They are organised like an auction so borrowers get the cheapest average rate that lenders are prepared to accept. Funding Circle claim that more than £3m has been bid for the £1m so far lent so this tends to bring down the rate even further. Expect more sites to follow.

Posted in Getting Finance, HVAC Companies | Tagged | Leave a comment

Make your CV a record of your performance

Posted on August 29, 2010 by admin

One of the most frequent emails we send out to candidates we give the nickname Improve Your CV. It says the following. 

Thank you for sending us your CV.
Employers have to wade through lots of CVs and will simply reject those that do not provide some evidence of performance in the role.
You can see a sample HVAC CV on our website at here 
If you will help us by redoing your CV we will have another look at your suitability for this role and others.

regards.

The reason for this is pretty straight forward. Most employers know that the best predictor of job performance is work history. If you have performed well in a similar job previously you are likely to perform well again.

So it follows that employers will be expecting evidence of performance outcomes in a role rather than just the activity or responsibilities. An example from the sample CV on our website is shown below for a sales engineer where the need is pretty obvious.

Current Employment
June 2001 – June 2006: Sales Engineer, UK Boilers
Company Description: UK Boilers is a boiler manufacturer for the commercial market.
They also design and install heating solutions into end users properties.
Responsibilities: My role was to sell the design and installation of these systems and
their appliances to small to medium sized commercial properties focusing mainly on the
public sector in the East Midlands area.
Achievements: In my first two years I hit target, and in subsequent years I was
consistently in the top 3 out of 11 salespeople. I managed to sell a record order of over
£2 million to Lincoln City Council.
Reason For Leaving: The company’s products are now outdated in the market place,
and I’d like to join a more progressive company.

For a sales engineer the need is pretty obvious. Yet most of the CVs we receive, regardless of occupation, fail to include performance measures. For any sales role with targets this is easier to include. But why should it be ignored for other roles? In our experience it is one of the characteristics that will distinguish the high performer from the average.

Increasingly companies are including KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in job descriptions and monitoring their performance in reviews so the figures are often available and just need to be brought into your CV to give an overview of your performance.

Even when a company does not regularly gather this kind of information itself shouldn’t the job holder but doing it for him or herself. How do you think it will sound to the prospective employer if you end up saying ‘we never had targets’ or ‘they never told me how I was doing’.

Most targets try to track that the company are are delivering what the customer wants at a profit. Key items are performance against schedule, budget, resources, risks, changes and customer satisfaction.  BRE and The University of Salford have developed some useful information on KPIs and a KPI Engine to help support the collection, reporting and analysis of data. The engine is an on-line tool that can be accessed from any web-enable location without the need for any additional software.

Posted in CV Tips, High performers | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Keeping your job in HVAC in a recession

Posted on June 19, 2010 by admin

Most jobs in HVAC are at a higher level of risk of redundancy than they were a couple of years ago despite the companies that buck the trend and continue to grow. And talking to employers and employees in the industry most seem to agree that a serious upturn is quite a way off still.

As a consequence, the priority for many candidates is keeping their existing job rather than checking out pastures new.The latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development survey gives an interesting perspective on this. It’s employees survey found that less than a third of employees trusted their senior managers and that trust in their leaders had reached an all time low.

So what can you do  to help keep your job in a recession? When your senior managers sit down with your boss to decide who is to go in the latest head count reduction, how do you influence his decision away from recommending you.

I would suggest looking at three areas:

Communication

We are a male dominated profession and I think it would be fair to say that communication is not our strongest point. Find out what the company’s business plan is and how it is doing against that plan. You may be employed within an enlightened organisation that shares this information with its employees but many don’t.

Try to find out also how it is meeting its cash projections and if it is managing to collect its debts. Most companies that go bust, do so because of lack of cash rather than lack of orders.

Do you have a set of objectives agreed with your boss and if so how are they measured? If you know these two things then it is easier to communicate your value to your boss and the company if and when it comes to head count reduction. You can ask for a regular review if you don’t already receive one and ask, ‘How am I doing?’

Empathy with and loyalty to your boss

Do you know what your boss’s objectives are and how he or she is measured? How could you help your boss achieve his or her objectives? To a large extent we develop loyalty within our network by doing favours for each other. Little things that don’t cost money like passing over an interesting article on a subject the boss is interested in or working on.

Contingency planning

What would you do if your boss put you onto the redundancy process today? How prepared are you? Who is recruiting in your sector? Could you go self-employed and if so what would be your competitive advantage? I hope redundancy doesn’t happen to you but is it worth doing some contingency planning in the event that it does?

Posted in HVAC Jobs | Tagged , , | Leave a comment