This video is a presentation by my good friend and good friend of HVAC School Ty Branneman Tai is one of the most dynamic Educators in our space and has incredible chops, doing almost every job that there is to do in the HVAC industry. And in this video, he's talking about Gen Z the youngest workers who are entering the workplace. Many of you already are working with folks from Gen Z and there's some different approaches that work with Gen Z rather than us kind of having the old school kids these days type of mentality. It's helpful for us to think more open-mindedly about how to really make these younger workers work well in the workplace.

I Just said the word work way too many times just there anyway. Uh, big thanks to Ty Big thanks to all the sponsors speakers. Everybody who made the fourth annual Hvacr Symposium Go! We are doing it next year. There are limited spaces, it's going to open up soon, so if you want to attend, please get your tickets quickly.

But you can also get all the presentations by going to Hvacrschool.com Symposium and you can pay 22 bucks, get the virtual tickets still on sale and watch all of the presentations right on there. Big thanks especially to Akka and Measurequick and all the other sponsors who made it possible and everybody who sacrificed their time to come down and invest in trades education. Hello everybody! I Hope you're enjoying this amazing conference! the Expo Symposium This is my favorite event of the Year This is where people come to truly learn. and one thing I can't teach I can't teach people how to want to learn and everybody here is wanting Learners So many of my mentors in here that I learn from and I respect and I've been learning from from all these years are here from other classes learning more stuff I mean that is just amazing and as much as I love the technology and I love the science and I love the mechanics of HVAC What I appreciate the most is all of you the people that make HVAC happen The stories that I get to to hear from all of these amazing people the friends I get to make sometimes I'm sad because people I want to see aren't here.

but then there's new people here and I get to see that. Ahr is cool. It's awesome show but it doesn't have this magic right here. it's the people.

it's all of you that make this and this. This is a great and I really appreciate you allowing me to be up here and talk this. What? I'm going to present on today I've never talked about before I've redone my presentation I don't know how many times I lost track at two in the morning I Thought you know it's gonna have to be good enough So this is outside my typical comfort zone, but last year I talked about how to get more people into the trade and the fact that it takes all of us doing everything we can to get more people in a trade and after that class I had a young man that came and said everything you said was true and it was great but what do you know about Generation Z and I said what I did know about Generation Z and he says well I challenge you to look into it more to research it more I said challenge accepted So this last year has been quite difficult because I have really Dove deep into trying to understand Generation Z and I have been in. they're not College chat rooms anymore I don't know what they're called but there's these apps where they communicate from and like we use Facebook Messenger but they have multiple different apps to communicate with and I have been in these apps and some of it I say my name and some of it had some aliases to really try to understand because once they found out you're an outsider, they kick you out pretty fast.

Um, but I have been in quite a journey and I have learned a lot about Generation Z and I don't have all the answers people say Ty I want to know how to how to really connect to them I don't have all these answers but I have some insights and the biggest thing is once we understand people and have an appreciation where somebody comes from, that's your first big step as much as I Love HVAC I Really love the teaching side where I get to help people and as I've traveled around the world, the more people I get to meet the more intrigued I am with people. and as much as I love this trade, it's really about the people, but sometimes we kind of, uh, forget some things. sometimes we kind of forget where we come from. But who here likes the mechanics of HVAC Who likes the cool? Excellence A few people here, right? I Thought it'd be a few more, but that's okay.

Who in here likes cars? Old cars Classics Okay, a few people. What about a 1942? Hudson Oh I got one? Ah yeah, oh look at that 1942. Hudson This is an original owner's manual for 1942 Hudson Gen Z is not going to connect with this at all. but there's my Gen X and so my baby boomers are some of my the great Generations Say this and think yeah, that's cool now I never got to actually ride in a 1942 Hudson But I do have this really cool owners Man, it's an original owner's manual and one of the things that's interesting in here is the warranty on this.

This had a 90-day or 4 000 mile warranty. They don't make them like they used to 90 day, four thousand, whichever came first. 90 days or four thousand miles. Uh, we look over here.

That said, when you first had this car, you had between zero to 250 miles do not exceed 40 miles per hour and then after you've had over between 250 to 500 miles do not exceed 50 miles per hour. And after you have between 500 to 1000 miles do not exceed 60 miles an hour. And that was the top number. Like it didn't have anything above that.

So I guess it's the faster you they wanted you to go is 60. a little a little different than how I remember this beautiful these beautiful old cars and if I go through some of these other Pages It was quite interesting. the water pump at 1 000 miles and every 1000 miles or more you had to oil the water pump. So sometimes we remember these things.

not quite so. We kind of romanticize how things were back in our day. every 2 000 miles you had to clean the take the oil bath off the carburetor and clean it. We did 500 miles a day driving here and I was thinking man, if we drove a 1942 huts and that would be awesome but in reality, well here it is.

Oh in 2000 miles we got to order or oil the starter bearings. Perla How long would that trip have been having to do all of this maintenance all the way through? It was bad enough I had to change the spark plugs. you know because they were like over 200 000 miles old and I'm looking at this. Oh the Thru the clutch.

throw out bearings every 1 000 miles. It was just amazing. Oh, and they had some how-to's in here. Uh, for example, how to clean urine out of your car I Guess that was an issue back then.

my owner's manual didn't say that. Oh, and also how to clean blood up out of your car. So sometimes we remember things and it isn't quite the way we remember it. We like to romanticize about the good old days back back when they really knew how to make stuff, but there's usually a little bit more truth to that.

Now we have some quotes. Let's play: Guess the year of this quote. Here's the first quote: What has happened to work ethic in: America Nobody Wants To Work Anymore. It has not always been this way when I first started to work as a teenager I Saw people work hard.

What year? What do you think? 29 Oh, that's a little far off. Let's see. 80 20 23. This is 20 20 2014.

2014. Here's another one. Nobody wants to work anymore. They all want to work in front of a computer and make a lot of money.

What year do you think? Yes, 19.99 1999 is where that quote came from. Here's another one. Nobody wants to work anymore. That's it.

Just simply nobody wants to work anymore. 1979. I Gotta pick up that old 1979. They were somebody that said that.

Here's another one. I Heard somebody say the other day that everybody was getting too darn lazy and nobody wants to work anymore. That's the truth If I ever heard it. What? 1952 1952.

That was right on. How did you do that? Yes, 1952. Yeah, so these these new generations, man goodness, How about this one? Uh, faced with a shortage of Labor When unemployment is widespread, nobody wants to work anymore. There is work for 15 to 20 people at my place, but only get two to five workers because of unreliable labor 1937..

How about nobody wants to work anymore unless they can be paid enough wages to work half the time and are a loaf off for the other half of the time 1922. Nobody wants to work as hard as they used to 1916. labor is scarce, high, and very unreliable. Nobody wants to work for wages 1905.

Miss Uh, Susan Tolson She said today's children are spoiled by too much spending and going 1938 and the last one here. The children now love luxury they have Bad Manners contempt for Authority They show disrespect for the elders. They love chatter and place of exercise. A little chatter in place of exercise.

Children now are tyrants, not the Servants of their household and it goes on. It's a quite a long speech, but this is from a guy called Kenneth John in 1907. 1907. So we say, oh, this generation doesn't want to work anymore.

That's nothing new That's been said a long time ago. I Remember uh, my Dad's friend saying the same thing about my generation. We're Gen X and Gen X Like yeah, we're hard workers. Well, if you look at all the other sayings, every generation said that same thing.

The difference is people grow up in different environments, every environment's a little different. and Generation Z which is 25 and younger. growing up at a different generation a different time. Now when I say 25 and younger, it's not like there's this exact dividing line.

There's micro Generations There's people that have relate to more one generation than another. For example, when you talk about Generation X ending in 1980, there's people that are considered millennials that are actually very much Generation X And there's some people that are Generation X that connect more with the millennial generation or what they call Generation Y There's always going to be some in-betweens in there and that's okay. We're not talking about defining one person by their age, we're talking about a generalized concept. So a lot of it's going to be generalization and Generation Z has grown up A lot of differences.

One big thing is there are five different Generations in the workplace right now. That's got to be some kind of a record. Five different Generations You have their traditionalists also called The Silent generation your baby boomers Not meaning any disrespect that's been a a term now, but it's still the baby with Generation X it's me Millennials are called Generation Y Generation Z And now there's even a new one in school right now called generation A or Generation Alpha still in the works so people say all the time. Well, how do I understand this new generation? But we're still talking people talking about Millennials as if they're still the new generation Millennials are owning businesses, they're CEOs they're running air conditioning companies Millennials are here looking at how to train the new generation Millennials are not the new generation anymore and how they grew up and the things that's important to them are different than Generation Z So all these things that we've learned in education and teaching of how to connect with Millennials We didn't have to start over because now Generation Z is our Workforce Most the time by the age of 25 people have a pretty good idea what they're going to do.

We do have people that that still learn and transfer into HVAC But generally speaking, we need people. It's going to be in an attic that don't have bad knees yet. 25 and younger, right? We need those workers and we all share a fear of the unknown. Resistance to change is nothing new across every single generation.

Emotions We'll have emotional ups and downs. every single one of us. It's like we're human or something and we're experienced failure. And we've also experienced excitement.

Gen Z is no different at human beings, people. They're going to connect to their environment, products, your environment. The foundation of understanding how somebody behaves is empathy. The foundation of understanding how somebody behaves is empathy.

Empathy is used a lot. Oh, we need to have empathy or empathy. I'm tired of hearing about empathy, but simply understanding the foundation as somebody behaves understanding somebody else. A lot of other cultures I've been to countries I've been to just simply understanding and having an open mind.

As somebody else's point of view, simply empathy. So instead of us blaming oh, these kids don't want to work anymore, let's have a little bit of empathy. Let's look into a little bit of their lives and both have to change. It's not just saying that we're going to adapt everything to Generation Z but there's some things that we can definitely do to help make that go smoother.

Generation Z has faced many challenges that we didn't have to to experience, such as school shootings. They have to be worried if somebody's going to be coming through the door. They've had friends because now it's a much bigger environment. They're online, they have friends in schools that have had to deal with school violence and things that we didn't have to deal with back in our day and back in our day.

Here we go back in our day. We had, uh, you had to upset with somebody, You take it out in the parking lot right? nowadays? it's a whole different environment, so there is a Fear Factor naturally involved that we have to deal with. They're also used to an unstable economy. you figure the Great Recession and then also you had uh, Covid-19 two big economy disruptions in their life.

So these are things that make impact. They've seen their parents struggle, they've seen their parents have to deal with financial side of things and um, the physical and the digital worlds are one. So we've grown up, we've had to adapt to the Digital Life we've had to adapt to well. First it was emails and we adapted two text messages.

Then we adapted to all these other apps and communication towards Generation Z They've grown up with that. They've grown up with the phones. they're readily available. the internet.

in school, having computers. this is something they've grown up to. It's their natural environment towards me. I've adapted I feel like I've adapted pretty well.

but it's not my natural environment I am a native analog to where we have native digital. That's their whole. That's what they're comfortable with having a communication. whether it's face to face or a communication.

Whether it be digital, it's still it's still communication. And they have friends in a much larger area. It's where we have friends that's usually in our local area. Millennials Typically typically wanted a life work balance that was a big importance to them, whereas Generation Z they want a solid work environment.

They're looking at a lot of times compensation being well compensated because of the financial issues they've had. They also look for some flexibility and stability. They can make a lot of work. They can make other work on the sides.

They have all these streaming things that they do. They have different podcasts, different shows. There's a thing called Twitch that I don't really understand, but somebody plays the video game and people watch them and they get money for it. There's other ways that they can make money, not enough to fully support them, but there's multiple ways of making money.

So when you're talking with a somebody for Generation Z money is going to be a big factor more than the work-life balance. What's interesting is Generation Z has more of a tendency to work harder, longer hours, the more likely to blur the work and the personal life as long as they're enjoying it. Man, that sounds like me like I'm always talking HVAC and just about everything I do my personal life of HVAC and the fresh. It's like this blurred line.

A lot of us in here like that. We talk about stuff and it always ends up being HVAC the Generation Z They're naturally one of them. They're driven, they have something that they want. They want the financial stability.

now. one of the issues with that is when we hire somebody, we want to pay them the lease because they don't know anything. But if you think about somebody that's concerned about the financial side and they can work at a fast food restaurant without any experience and make a lot more money than they can working for you. And they have to also buy tools and they have to be treated a certain way without any respect which we'll talk about also.

Um, it's not a good decision. So if you have somebody left over that's willing to work for less money under harsher environments and have to spend money on tools, you've already hired somebody that's making bad decisions. On the way in, we stopped at Bucky's We stopped at almost every Buckeyes that we saw in the way and they had these big signs outside they start people out it it was uh wasn't 18 an hour and then if you end up being a team leader it was 22 to 24 an hour and then if you're a manager of a department is 120 000 a year. and then it had store managers at these you had your whole career right there.

It was a incentive to get started and then a path to move forward in a path to growth. What do we offer at HVAC Hey work for us. We need somebody. That's it.

Like that's the sales pitch. I Met all these manager groups and we men. They talk about how to Market They talk about like well just really just marketing and sales. The only thing you talk about and I'm thinking, what about the skills that we do? Anybody can sell a box, but it's us.

It's us that makes the air conditioning happen, How that box is installed, How that box is serviced, How that is controlling the whole house system. We are the commodity. We're the ones that we should be selling. So and part of that is taking care of your people taking care of that next.

Generation Making sure that they have a path to be successful. So sure you're going to start them out. It may be less than what you would ideally like to make, or even what, less than what they're ideally going to make, but what path do they have for moving forward? David When are you going to evaluate them? What is your typical evaluation? Two years? Maybe you're getting one of those new companies that evaluate you every year. Okay Gen Z we lived with that.

but I Also, remember before my evaluation like a few weeks before and start working really hard I Want to be noticed I'm gonna. it's time for my raise. So I would wait the whole most of the year and it's right there before the end. I'm sorry.

Oh yeah. I'll do whatever it is you want to do raises coming up. the violations coming up was that ever really effective? I Mean if we're in business, hey, we're going to evaluate you once. maybe twice a, um, once once every year, maybe once every two years.

A little kind of quiet in here, so maybe even back then it wasn't the best way right now. Generation Z Has things changing constantly. Constantly changing. You figure they put a post up on social media and they see if that post is doing good instantly by the likes.

Oh I Only got 15 likes. Oh, this one got a million likes. They instantly know how they're doing. They get constant feedback in everything they do.

Anything they say that's wrong. They get quick feedback on everything they do. so Gen Z looks for more feedback. So one of the things we can do is leverage that leverage that.

So we talk about somebody giving them a path. hey you're doing great this week you specifically not just giving them false hey great jobs like specifically hey your duck working you did today was great ductwork you had. we didn't have any leaks when you did all the ductility. It was nice and straight.

That was really good job. if you do this certification or take this other class or get this other whatever it is you want them to do. if you do this other thing, we're going to give you a race. Maybe it's maybe it's a 10 cent razor to 20 cent raise, but it's something that says I acknowledge you I acknowledge your work I Appreciate what you're doing because you're growing and you're helping the company.

Also, how was that? How is that a bad thing anybody? I Don't see as a bad thing at all. It does take more time with the valuations. It takes more time talking with them, but it's also keeping that care in front of them keeping the carrot right there. So yeah, we do have to spend a little bit more time with the with the talking and giving the feedback.

And some people don't like that. Well, you're Gen Z You should just deal with it. Just do it because that's how we've been doing it since 1907.. But that that carrots always been there today is a faster time.

Everything's going fast. Look at how much the news changed, there's something that goes viral Nationwide It's like oh my God End of the world. Can you believe this is happening? Oh this is horrible and then next week oh we have a new one. Oh this is the end of the world.

This is exciting. This is incredible. Oh maybe even three times in that week. Oh, here's the new thing.

It's going to be the end of the world. Times are changing fast now and they've grown up with this fast change. Fast Change Fast Change We're going to have to adapt to that. You don't have to adapt to that.

You can continuously wait and only hire Gen X and only pay them the top dollar and only hope that their needs hold out until they turn 90. Or we can make some changes now and realize that the Generation Z is going to be the future generation. The Millennial Generation Y is already working. Let's get Generation Z Excited about air conditioning? Let's get them into this.

Let's give them a path where they can grow. Let's give them a path that they can learn more. Another thing that's big about Generation Z. They don't want to be told to do something.

They want to be told the why and then let them figure it out. Then you can grade them after you do it. So we're growing up. Do it like this.

Don't ask questions I Don't know how many times my dad said that. just do it. Why? Because I said my wife works with my dad. Is that that's right.

because I said okay. Well, it worked for us because we didn't have a lot of options. But now there's information everywhere. They can look stuff up.

There's constant information flowing everywhere. So if you explain to them the why, then let them figure it out. And now they feel like they've accomplished something. You let them be a part of their story.

Let them be a part of that. For example, brace with nitrogen. Why? Because you're supposed to It's The End thing right now. No, hey, let me show you a TXV We're going to open this up.

Look at all the stuff inside of this. TXV Oh, all Txds are bad. Well not. If we know the why we know the why we can see.

Hey, look how we overheated this. TXV Oh, look at the heat damage on the spring. Oh, they just don't make them like they used to. The Y is a big important factor that we didn't get the luxury of having but the new generation.

That's what they want. They want the why they want to be able to build their story. Another thing, what do you hear? Oh, they're always on their phone. You have the whole world of internet on your phone.

I Remember when I had a problem, we carried quarters and we went and had to call in for tech support or they would send the fax to the office and you'd have to drive back to the office. You had this horrible page or you had the radios. If you were at a high-end company, you'd hit three to base. Go ahead.

Uh, can you send somebody over here to this job site? Yeah, what do you need I Just need somebody to come over here. Uh, what do you need? Uh, just can you send somebody by? Uh yeah. why? uh, my ladder blew off the roof right? happened to me. But the Elite freely Now people have access to information, They want to try their life, they want to build their life, and they want to be treated with respect because they believe respect is a decent human courtesy.

And I thought Man: I Remember my dad just told me that he said Ty everybody gets a level of respect and from that point they can build on that level of respect or they can automatically reduce from that level of respect. Whatever my dad's saying, everybody should be treated the level of respect and then from there they can increase or decrease. What Generations Z doesn't like is to become in and be like you're a nobody because you haven't done your time. Once you've been doing this for 10 years, then you can come talk to me and then 10 years.

but won't you been doing this for 15 years? Well then it's 20.. once you've been doing it for 20 years, well then it's 25.. once you've been doing it for 25 years it's like man, it's just. it's never ending because why the respect was never there.

That's better. So respect is never there. So when we have people come in and want to work in our trade, we should be excited. We should celebrate that.

Hey this is a trade I Love I Love this trade I Want to share it with you If you're interested in this trade, let me give you some tips. Let me give you some advice. Let's let you work forward. Another thing they like to do is to be able to build their own story.

So instead of having this ladder, well if you're an installer for long enough, we'll let you do maintenance. And if you do maintenance for long enough, we'll let you do service. Maybe. But if you're a really good installer, we're still not gonna let you move up because we need good installers so you're going to have to stay there for the rest of your life.

Eternity An eternity for Generation Z is a year. It's already for me is a year. Like things change so fast. Now it's just the world's a different place.

Every year, every six months it seems to be a different place. So giving them the path, they want to build a path. and they're typically not excited to go to college because they've seen their parents saddle with college debt. It's not just the college debt, it's the fact that the interest keeps growing and growing and growing.

It's not the fact they agreed to pay that back, but the fact that the interest grows and they've seen their parents suffer. They love to learn, but they're more likely to do non-traditional passive learning. Generation Z is more likely to be the trades person that we say that we need, but there's a key they want to learn. They don't want to have to do installs for a thousand years before they finally get the chance to do something else.

But on your hand you're thinking. but we need installers. We got to have these installs done and I agree 100 percent Well, here's another option. How about if you do a plan to work with them, How about if they installed for four days a week and then on? Friday They went with the maintenance technician and rode with them.

Now they're learning new stuff and then send them with the service technician. You don't have them be with the dispatch, learn how the dispatch is going, have them do it with the the book side. So now they're learning more skills. As they're growing, they're feeling appreciated.

They're growing, they're learning. You know What's even better when that next position comes up and your service guy quits or your maintenance person quits or your dispatcher quits, You have somebody that has those skills that can take over. You have somebody that's appreciate, and they're building their own path without being a set letter. They're building their own path, learning multiple different things, and you have somebody's already trained up.

Is that a bad thing? Heck no. That's a great thing. If somebody told me hey, Ty we want you to dispatch on Fridays and be like no I have no desire to that but with Generations having that option of hey, we would like to have you sit with dispatch on Fridays for this much time that could really change things and maybe they're not into that. but give them the option hey we want to offer offer you this these different points I Remember I did have to sit with dispatch for a couple of days because I had an argument with the dispatcher because I was a young hot head.

uh at the time, maybe sometimes I still am. but at the time I was I knew everything and uh so I had to sit with the dispatcher for two days and man I will never forget that I was like I will never argue with the dispatcher ever again. It's beneficial for me. but the new generation.

they want to grow. They want to do things they're more likely to do. DIY They're able to figure things out, work with their hands. they want to do more of the things and guess what and then what we do.

We figure things out. Who in here calls for an electrician when they have a problem with their light switch at their house Hooter calls electrician for anything unless it's code required, right? No, we do it all ourselves. We do our own Auto stuff. We do our own carpentry stuff.

We do all of our own stuff because we're truly we're like we're let the professional do it. But we DIY everything else. the new generation. That same thing.

they like to figure things out. do things make things happen and what we can do is we can use that energy and guide them. They're typically much harder worker working than a lot of the other. Generations They're actually set to be the most financially independent of all the generations.

because they save money, they're less likely to buy something because their friends buy it before you had fast. where. Oh, this brand of clothing is the clothing that you need. Now they're seeing a lot of different fats.

People want the unique identity. they want to be identified as being different. so they wear different clothes if you notice. a lot of the the box stores are struggling to stay afloat now because Generation Z wants the independence, they want to be unique.

It's one of the things we have to do is instead of having our service company our service person in a uniform, everybody looking the same, everybody doing the same simply being allowing that person to be a little bit unique. I Remember I Love setting my service fan up to where it was my way is perfect and I know for a service company it's best to have all the Vans exactly the same with the exact same Parts business-wise I Get that, but we're missing out on the unique personality. Who in here likes to service set their service fan up. Who in here spent all day before setting their service stand up? Good? That's me now.

Imagine them saying no, We have preset that van up and you will have only these supplies and only be set up this way so you can jump into any van business-wise Yeah, I get that. it makes sense, but how would you feel the new generation? Generation Z they like that Independence that unique. setting it up their way and this may make this may also mean changing the uniforms up, allowing a little bit of independence with the uniforms. We've been doing this way for 20 years.

Why should we change that? I Remember back in when I started they had these hats and I called them the billboard hats because they were like ginormous. They had this big giant patch on it. they had the shirt with the gym like the patch was like massive tie, two letters, a giant. Then the big name of the company I was like oh I hate wearing these and then that the stitching would scratch you.

It's like oh that was horrible. And then we started actually being able to wear uh, different clothes and we had these cotton clothes in these um, these polos that we get to wear. but being able to be comfortable is important. but giving somebody a little bit of identity to have them feel.

hey I am also myself. Well let's talk about people being on the phone all the time. Generation Z wants to be connected with their job. so when you talk about them being on the phone, oh I'm on Tick Tock Yeah and they're doing all this stuffies that we make fun of them for.

We should embrace that as long as getting the work done. We should embrace that because they're proud of what they're doing when they're taking a selfie of oh my first phrase. That means they're proud of their work. Why don't Embrace that anybody taking a picture before of your work that you did yeah, Jim's they.

They're doing that but at a much higher level, taking pictures, sharing it And you know what? The cool thing is. They're showing that the trades are cool, They're showing that the trades are fun and awesome and they're proud of it. We always say, well, why don't we give Tradesmen the respect. Trades people deserve the same respect as as other professions.

I 100 agree. Guess what? When Gen Z is sharing these pictures and these photos of what they're doing they're taking Pride they're sharing it. People are now having more respect for the professionalism of our trades people. How awesome is that? Yes, it's cool.

Yes, let let them share. Here's another thing that Gen Zia found that they want is they have an F-o-m-o There's so many letters I've had to look up this last year. Oh my goodness. Fear of missing out? It's actually a thing.

F-o-m-o Fear of missing out. They have a fear of missing out because there's all this life going on all the time. They have a fear of missing out. Fomo did I say wrong I Guess not gonna say the letters Fomo like to me I don't know.

It just connects to other things. It's just uncomfortable saying fomo. Uh, fear of missing out? So when you have the fear of missing out? Hmm I don't want to not go to that event because don't miss out. How could we use that for the trades people? Hey, we got this very important install coming up.

It's going to be at a very big house. It's going to be a really big deal, right? This is going to be a big thing for the company. We need this to go smooth. We need to pull this off.

Are you in for it? Yeah. Fantastic. Come on, let's get it done versus all right. Come back tomorrow.

We'll do it another install. If you do good, you can keep your job. Hmm. it's the same thing, but now we've made it in events.

We've made it exciting. You see, if you do supply House training, the supply houses that advertise hey, we're having this person come in to do this presentation. You'll see that class full of people versus the one you just okay. here's another presenter who stick it on the board.

Go in there in the back. two people in that class. Why? Because of the fear of missing out making an event I Love Alex When he does his classes coming he's like hey everybody I'm going to be in this town and it's cool because like and I get to meet Alex he's going to be in my town. It's not just that I Get to go over all these manuals and how to do stuff I get to meet Alex he's the one I want to meet and that's a big part of what it is.

It's not just the fact of oh, we have this information. We got this. We have to do it this certain way because we've always done it that way. We want the experience.

Hey, tomorrow you're going to get to work with Bob and Bob specializes in Duck systems. This is Bob's specialty I want you to work with Bob tomorrow because I want you to get as much information you can from Bob How does that sound? Yeah now maybe Bob could only do duck work. Maybe that's all and that's nothing wrong with that. That is a skill that is lacking, but that's the only thing he does.

and maybe he's bitter about it. But now you've made it fun. You've made it an event. You've made it something they don't want to miss out on is that changes things.

We didn't have to sugarcoat it, we didn't have to really make, but it's interesting. It's fun. even filter changing I hear so many people like oh, you're just a filter changer Oh man I Hate that because have you seen units that don't have their filters changed? the mess? Have you seen units that don't change the filters Okay I thought it was just me I was like man, it's horrible that duck Works Horrible. The equipment tour was so much more work.

The filters are so important. So we're talking about having somebody change filters. Let's make it an event. Let's make it important.

Hey that house in 32nd North Street They have young kids in there and they're having health issues. Let's go in. I Know you're just changing the filter but that is so important. The health of that child is very important.

Or we got this commercial building. They're doing all of this medical stuff in here. Those filters. They must be changed.

Make sure you're taping off the side because these contaminants can come in and really mess up that process. That manufacturing process man I have importance to it and we're not making stuff up. It's literally true. Filter changing is so important.

Maintenance is so important. We need to make sure that when you go out to this customer's house, you can look for anything that could possibly go wrong with that system. They're going to be running through 110 degrees this summer. They have kids in there.

They work from home I Need you to go through every possible thing and find out anything that could possibly go wrong with that system. Can you do that? Is that? Is that an important assignment? Can you handle that task? Yes, yes, let's do it. Let's make it happen. You see how a little bit of change in that can make it important? Also celebrating them.

One thing that the Millennials liked was typically and I don't mean this rude but everybody got a trophy, everybody got acknowledged Generation Z doesn't want everybody to be acknowledged. They want to be acknowledged for what they do. Good simple things such as a handwritten letter hey I think you did a great job on whatever project that you did. A handwritten lever goes great because they're bombarded with information constantly, emails and tick tocks and text messages and 27 different communication apps.

They have information comes through classically anyone any out the other but when you have a handwritten letter just a few words and say hey I appreciate specifically this one thing and what you did goes a long ways. Also, face to face goes a long ways. In a digital world where everything is digital. Taking time out and taking somebody to lunch or taking somebody as a student to the to the side and say hey I really appreciate what you did on this, you went out of your way.

You did great, it's awesome and even if they do wrong, well Bob uh you did wrong the other day. It didn't really turn out the way we wanted. They already know they did wrong. Can't eat lettuce down.

So if we do these other changes, we do these modifications. You think we can solve that problem next time? Yes the person smiled. yes I just told them they did wrong and we didn't make it better. They smiled.

Wow! We're improving people. We're getting a better. It's like almost like it's a human issue. It's like if we care and respect other people, they can be successful.

And if they're successful against us is successful. All of us. to him, all of us are successful. There was a a company as a doctor's office and he said he focused a hundred percent on customer satisfaction.

It was all about the customer, but in two years he had a 100 turnover rate. 100 turnover rate. is that kind of familiar? Maybe your company has a high turn of a rate? One thing that they missed out was the people. If we're not taking care of the employees, how the employee is going to take care of that customer.

If they hate their job, how are they ever going to do anything that they they need to do for your customers? So let's talk about Customer Service Customer Service Customer Service Go Do it. Take care of that customer. You treat them with respect. Sometimes it makes short-term results, but in the long term, okay, I'll do what I have to do until I get another job landed because that's what I'm going to do.

Typically speaking, Generation Y The Millennials would work someplace about two years, but Generation Z is more like three to five years. That may not still seem like a long time, but they are more stable. They're looking for that longer term job they want that it's all we want too, right? But there's a few things we just have to change. Treating them with a little bit of respect.

yet we have to get that job done. Sometimes we have bad days and it's hot in an attic and I can't be nice all the time when it's you know, 200 degrees in the attic and we're putting the unit in the Attic which also doesn't make sense, right? But then we can stop and say at the end of the day, hey, we had a rough day today I snapped at you I apologize Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. You know, let's let's talk about it. On the drive home, you're already driving home anyways instead of yelling at the traffic because it doesn't change something as simple as taking the human aspect I said hey, we respect you.

The other thing is, a lot of women are excited about getting into trades doing all the trade stuff. and I did a few videos about women in the trades and wow, I didn't realize that it still upset men like are we in 2023 because I didn't realize that was a thing my mom grew up working I grew up with my mom working with my dad. My wife actually works with my dad climbing up on roofs doing metal work like women can do pretty much anything a guy can do. And if that offends you, I really strongly encourage you to have some enthalpy talk to some people.

talk to them first because we need people in the trade I Don't remember saying hey, we need white men in the trade No, we need people in the trade I Don't care if somebody has a men bun. For some reason that upsets people hey I don't care if you have a man bun. come in. let's throw our air conditioning and guess what? if they have a different political Viewpoint than you, It's okay.

don't talk about it. They don't have to have the same political Viewpoint It doesn't matter which one you're thinking because I've seen people take one and they just the other one's the Enemy No Matter What Cool. Leave that stuff on the news because as a human, we can connect I have friends. um and I are my friends and um oh Saudi Arabia I Got friends in um I have good disgracious Europe um Israel I got friends that are in jail I got friends that are in the police force I got friends that are atheists I got friends that are, uh, full-on I got friends from all types of walks of life.

It's it's because I'm looking at what we have in common, not for our differences. As long as you have respect for me, we're going to get along when you lose the respect for me. Now we have an issue, but it doesn't matter. all of our differences.

Look around, you look at All the people in this room. Everybody has a little different life experience but look at all the people you can talk to. It's amazing the stories you get because it's focusing what we have in common, the goal of getting this job done and that's one thing I love about traveling around this country is all the different people and all the different viewpoints. and sometime initially I kind of get my guard up.

oh hey hey oh well, it's not cool and then I start thinking wait that bothers me, maybe it's my issue and most of them it is. So we need people in the trade we have to look at. hey maybe maybe hiring a different cultural person because to Jay's Generation generation Z has grown up with a lot of different cultural aspects inside and I know it's a dangerous area talking about cultural stuff. but really and truly they've grown up with in school being all different types of people in the school room.

they're used to working with that they they want to work, they want to be successful in the trade. Bring them in. let's work. Of all the stuff that I've been through and have looked at and read, this book has been the easiest to understand.

So if you really want to understand Generation Z Unlocking Gen Z it's by Hannah Grady Williams I have no connection I've only typed to the author one time I have nothing to to benefit by this, but this book right here really helps you understand. Generation Z if you're an instructor I Strongly suggest getting this book. There's so many little details about how Generation Z thinks, how they work, understanding the environment they grew up in, and some small changes we can make. And really one of the things I found is giving somebody a little bit of respect.

Hey, and we're going to need the we're going to be working together. One of one student that I had they went to work for a company. They can get their EPA license on their own. They bought some tools on their own.

They went to work for Bob's air conditioning. They wanted to go to work for Bob's air conditioning. it wasn't applied for Bob's air conditioning Bob I Want to come work for you I want to be a trades person? This is the career I want to have Bubble Yeah, will you hire me? Bob But well, uh, you need to go to school. Okay, so they said fine.

They don't really excited about going to school, but they spend twenty thousand dollars going to a 10-month program and they get their certification paper. Um, and they're a little cheap tool bag and they've spent hours every single day studying. The biggest thing is they spent all of that time and time is extremely valuable for a Gen. Z They spent all this time learning how to do stuff and then they go back and Bob's like well I guess so we'll start you out at 12 now because you don't know nothing and the person said okay fine I'll I'll take it I'll take that pay cut I will make less than I was making it fast food on top of having to pay back the student loan to come work people because I want to be a tradesperson and the first thing that happens when we get into that company is uh, the person they're working with says Hey first thing you need to do is forget everything you learn in school.

You told me to go to school and now you say forget everything I did at school it's not really going well now. Also, think about your first day. Now a lot of us we have our own companies, we've we've been doing it a while. but think about the first day going for a company.

you're nervous like you don't even know where the front doors or you go to the front door and the office person's like no, you're supposed to go in the side door with everybody else I didn't oh you can't park here so we're gonna tow this vehicle, somebody moved this car or okay uh, everybody's going on here. You're nervous you're standing there. oh yeah, forget about you. um go right as Bob who's Bob that Bob's then go ask around.

how was that for an experience for your first day? I've been through multiple companies with that exact scenario. Hey, well, we're starting. Hey. Oh, I've even been in schools.

Hey, uh okay. just go sit in the classroom. Well man. I really appreciate that respect.

It's a human making it that experience. Somebody's starting thinking ahead of time. Hey, when you come in, uh, where are these clothes, you're going to be dirty. Uh, you're going to need to bring a lunch.

Or don't bring a lunch. Whatever it is, here's where the front door is going to be and then when you get there, have a plan together and actually celebrate them. Have them have them be excited that you're there. You can simply walk up to somebody and look them in the eyes.

Hey, thanks for coming in. We're glad to have you here. We're going to have you work with Jim today. How does that sound? Does that sound sound good, right? You have any questions for us? All right And today I want to meet with you I Want to hear how your first day went? Did that cost me anything? No, but you know what? The benefit of that communication will last a long time, but not just the first day continuously every week.

Check on them, give them a call, give them a little FaceTime chat. Hey, just want to check on you see how things are going. They found out that Gen Z responds greatly when somebody's walking to to get coffee and they simply make a detour and say how you doing you doing okay? you doing good? Need anything that look? he's smiling. You're not even my employees smiling.

They said that makes all the difference in the world And I hear people say well Italian But we have. We have a business to run. We don't have time with all that stuff. It's amazing how we can be so nice to our customers.

Hey Sir, how you going today? Uh, we checked out your whole system. What we really found is you need a maintenance program because your system really could be lasting a long time. With these simple things that we can do, we can make sure your system's lasting. We learn how to treat the customer with respect.

But yet our fellow trades people, hey idiot, get the truck, let's go. He didn't smile. Everybody else is dead smile. You're not an idiot.

You're respected for videos clarify that. but this is how we sometimes we talk to everybody. well. Tradesmen We're supposed to be tough.

Are we really are? Is that is that? Really our goal is to who can be tough. It's like if we did this trade for long enough, it gives us the right to treat people without respect. I'm telling you here that as humans, as human beings, let's treat our fellow trades people with respect. Let's be the professionals, right? That's a simple little thing with the respect.

the human aspect of it. How we done on time. oh man. Perfect.

I Have I Normally don't make note cards I have a ton of note cards here that I missed. um Generation Z they'd like to be. it's their life story they call it. They like to be a part of what they're doing.

They just don't want to just work for somebody. They want to feel like they're doing something. So when you're going in and say hey, we solve air issues, we solve human Comfort issues. or if it's mechanical buildings, we save the life of this building with what we do because it is important Compressors man.

I've learned so much about compressions these last two years. Every little detail about saving the life of the compressor and these details are important to making sure that system operates right. But when you understand hey, we're we have this appreciation for what we do because what we do is important. All of you being here learning something is important.

So unfortunately I didn't get to cover everything that I thought that I could cover because I'm an optimist I do recommend checking out this book. Sending me if you want you can contact me, send me questions about it I don't know all the answers but I know it comes down to a few things. Pay them well. Sometimes they don't want the benefits, they just want a lot of times to pay.

Give them the flexibility. Hey, if you don't want side work done, then clarify it at the beginning. Or if you say Hey you can do all the side work you want. Um, clarify that.

And if you don't let them do side work, have some other option. You know one of my friends, his whole entire advertising is just tick tock having your employees the Generation Z being able to share their story, what they're doing, the proud of the work that they're doing. they're sharing that in social media. other people are saying oh, that's really cool I Like that, admire the skills that person have and they're calling them for work Generation Z is telling their parents and their friends and their other homeowners and their businesses about about Bob over here and the good work Bob does and how excited he is to be at work.

That's something that I review can't buy you so a lot of times thinking about the fact of that person wants to be on their phone, pay them extra for that. Hey, let's promote what you do in our company. They naturally do that anyways. people spend lots of money inspiring somebody for 150 000 a year just to manage a few.

Social Media stuff towards a Generation Z person does that. Naturally, they can make a video in five minutes that takes me two hours to do I don't have that natural ability I get frustrated trying to do Tick Tock stuff. Uh, and Instagram and Linkedin and the other 100 different things to do. but they do it naturally.

The other thing that I found is you will see people on Tick Tock there's a lot of hate on Tick Tock I Tell you. But one thing I found is Generation Z are the ones that actually want to learn when you post information about stuff they're like oh, that's interesting I didn't know that I learned more in Tick Tock that I ever learned in school. It's the Generation Z that's on Tick Tock are the ones that are so freaking mean I've been doing this for 27 years and you're wrong. Uh, about what let's talk about? Nope, you're just wrong.

like what? So now I do want to clarify that. Generation Z Not this. nice friendly people because we see them talking in chats. All the stuff that they can say will make a sailor blush.

so it doesn't mean that they're this nice innocent. you know, uh, guilt-free generation. There are some things that they they can do, but a lot of times it's just simply understanding being able to have that empathy appreciating what they do. John's going to be coming up here in a little bit Ieq expert I've I've met John and of all the people I talked to is in this big conference training.

the trainer didn't know anybody there and John and his wife comes over and talks to me hey Ty how's it going? Didn't know who I was because John kept met me with respect, didn't know who I was I didn't know who he was at the time and we started talking about air quality and solving problems and man I started getting all excited. Yes talking about air quality. Hey we can't just sell a product to make the air clean. Yeah I've been saying that.

Cool. Let's be best friends. Yeah we are the best friends forever. So be sure and welcome John up here.

John's got good stuff but all these people in here get to know somebody. Start talking, walk up to a stranger and start talking to them and get to know them. There's so many amazing people here we go ahead. I didn't see the stop.

Okay, stop, we're done. Big thanks to Ty for doing this. I Think you can see why I was so excited to share this presentation with you. A lot of hard truths in there, but it's coming from somebody who cares about the trade and cares about doing really good work.

And I think if you see Ty's heart in this, it's hard not to agree with a lot of his points to find out more about everything. We do go to Hvcr School.com and like I said, Hvacrschool.com Symposium is where you can still get the virtual ticket and get all the presentations. Big thanks to all the speakers and sponsors who made it possible and big thanks to everybody who attended both in person and virtual. It is your commitment to trades education that really makes this a trade worth working in.

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