The IICRC will be presenting on October 4. This presentation will include information on the IICRC standards and certifications associated with flooring, maintenance, and inspection. The IICRC has published several standards with information for floor care professionals, including the ANSI/IICRC S100 Standard for Professional Cleaning of Textile Floor Coverings, the ANSI/IICRC S800 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Inspection of Textile Floorcovering, and more. IICRC certifications are classified into three divisions: Cleaning, Restoration, and Inspection. Certifications in the IICRC Inspection Division will be discussed, including the Senior Carpet Inspector (SCI), the Wood Laminate Flooring Inspector (WLFI), and the Resilient Flooring Inspector (RFI) Certifications. 

The IICRC Fall Flooring Education Conference will include presentations of the following IICRC/ANSI standards: 

• ANSI/IICRC S100 Standard for Professional Cleaning of Textile Floor Coverings
• ANSI/IICRC S220 Standard for Professional Inspection of Hard Surface Floor Coverings
• ANSI/IICRC S500 Standard for Professional Water Damage Restoration
• ANSI/IICRC S800 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Inspection Textile Floorcovering
• BSR/IICRC S250 Standard for Professional Cleaning and Maintenance of Resilient Floor Coverings
• BSR/IICRC S230 Standard for Professional Inspection of Flooring Subfloors and Substrates 

IICRC Inspection Division, Certification presentations to include: 

• Building Moisture Inspection (BMI)
• Introduction to Substrates and Subfloor Inspection (ISSI)
• Senior Carpet Inspector (SCI)
• Wood & Laminate Flooring Inspector (WLFI)
• Resilient Flooring Inspector (RFI) 

To register for the IICRC event, go to http://iicrc.org/fallflooringseminar or contact press@iicrcnet.org for more information. 

For the Floor Educational Guild event, October 3–4, 2023, please go to https://flooringinspectorsguild.org/. 

To register for the NICFI Flooring Inspectors Conference, October 5-6, 2023, please go to https://www.nicfi.org/october-2023-conference/. 

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It’s always been an arduous task to staff companies with people who fit the culture and have the right skills, experience, and character to become valuable members of the team. COVID-19 simply added a multiplier onto the difficulty factor of finding employees. The “good old days” haven’t returned and possibly never will. So, what can we do about this? Let’s examine why we even need to be adding employees in the first place.

Violand Management’s Sustained Profitable Growth (SPG) model is separated into three distinct dynamics—business, executive, and personnel. The SPG model operates on the theory that the three dynamics are self-leveling, and we cannot expect sustained profitable growth in a company unless all three dynamics grow in unison. For example, if a company has a good leader who has assembled and trained a good team, but has archaic business practices, the growth of the company will be stalled by the failure of the business dynamic to keep pace with the executive and personnel. The same holds true for the other two dynamics.

During Violand’s annual business planning programs, it’s not unusual to see company owners make some interesting forecasting statements. For example, a company that’s currently producing $2 million in annual revenue might make the statement that they intend to grow to $3 million in the coming year. While I applaud the optimism and enthusiasm, sometimes those statements aren’t completely thought through before being made. Here’s what I mean:

A company currently has six technicians who are managed by one project manager. Each technician produces about $30,000 per month in revenue. However, the project manager is working at capacity; to produce another $1 million in annual revenue, the company will need another project manager along with three more technicians. That’s four additional employees to recruit, hire, and train in order to hit the million-dollar increase. The number of necessary employees will continue to increase over the year if there’s any attrition. That’s a tall order! It’s certainly attainable, but when looking back at how long it probably took to recruit, hire, and train the team already in place, the question arises of whether the goal is realistic.

The point here is that if we fall short of our recruiting goals, then the personnel dynamic is holding back the proposed growth of the business. Without some out-of-the-box thinking, the growth of the company will be restricted to our ability to recruit, hire, and train those we need to help us attain our goals.

Frequently, business owners believe that staffing is finite, meaning many think staffing is a box we can check off after making that next hire. Unfortunately, this is just not the case. Staffing is the second function of management: planning, staffing, organizing, directing, and controlling.  As a manager, you never stop doing any of these five functions if you intend to be successful—so, recruiting, hiring, and training simply never ends.

I previously mentioned attrition, which is simply a fact of life in business. It’s frequently heartbreaking to lose those people we’ve worked so hard to recruit, hire, and train. However, attrition can be drastically limited when we make a conscious effort to create a company culture that people don’t want to leave. By extension, we become “the employer of choice” in our region, which then attracts good people. Let’s face it—a company run by a maniacal totalitarian with a terrible company culture and bad morale doesn’t attract the best and the brightest. Those people go to well-managed companies full of happy employees.

Putting this altogether, we know it’s harder than ever to find good people, but you should now understand that recruiting, hiring, and training never ends. If you plan on being successful, you can’t just throw your hands in the air and give up. To attract and retain top people, you need to become “the employer of choice” in your area. But you should also know that the effort put forth will yield huge dividends and help you reach those lofty goals you’ve established. And let’s face it—a company full of happy, competent people is just downright fun to operate!

The post Recruiting, Hiring, and Training: The Never-Ending Story appeared first on Cleanfax.

OSHA’s annual program is designed to fund in-person safety and health training for workers and employers in industries with high injury, illness, and fatality rates; underserved youth; workers with limited English proficiency; and small businesses.

OSHA has made funding available in the following categories:

• Targeted Topic Training: Supporting educational programs that identify and prevent workplace hazards. Applicants must conduct training on OSHA-designated workplace safety and health hazards.
• Training and Educational Materials Development: Supporting the development of quality classroom-ready training and educational materials that identify and prevent workplace hazards.
• Capacity Building: Supporting organizations in developing new training programs to assess needs and plan for full-scale safety and health education programs, expanding their capacity to provide workplace safety and health training, education and related assistance to workers and employers.

OSHA will host a free webinar, How to Prepare a Competitive Susan Harwood Training Grant Application, to assist organizations in preparing grant applications on May 25, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. CT.

Nonprofit organizations, such as labor unions, educational facilities, and faith-based organizations, also are eligible for the Susan Harwood Training Grant program. The deadline for application is July 7.

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As a certifying agency, the National Organization of Remediators and Microbial Inspectors (NORMI) too often receives calls from clients concerned about a member misrepresenting either what they’ve been taught or what they should have more closely listened to in a NORMI class. This is the question every trade association faces: What can the organization do when its members don’t follow their training, their professional practices, or the industry standard of care? The answer isn’t easy.

When you do your own thing

Several years ago, we received a call from an attorney suing a remediator who had cleared a mold project with “just a few” Stachybotrys spores in the Air-O-Cell. At the deposition, which had just occurred the previous day, the attorney asked the remediator where he had received his training and certification. The remediator proudly declared, “I learned this from NORMI.” Fortunately, we were able to send the NORMI professional practices and training slides to the attorney as evidence that what the remediator had done was totally against his training. The NORMI professional practices identify Stachybotrys as a zero-tolerance mold. 

According to the attorney, NORMI was off the hook, but the remediator was not. Because he did what he wanted to do instead of what he was trained to do, he was on his own.

The risks of going rogue

If a trade association had a licensing or franchise agreement with professionals who use their logo, the association would have some control over how those professionals market their businesses and services. If a trade association had some ownership in the companies they train, the association would have some control over the quality of work performed or the techniques used. But because none of these relationships exist between the trainer and the trainee, a trade association can only recommend best practices and continue encouraging their members to “do the right thing.”

What we’ve learned, through the years and by experience, is that insurance carriers can defend an insured professional when that professional follows the training. When they don’t follow industry standards or guidelines, they can be on their own, shouldering the burden of any legal expenses and jeopardizing their license or certification. It’s a very unpleasant place to be. 

For these reasons, we suggest every trained professional take the following three steps:

1. Get trained and certified by an organization recognized in the industry for its integrity and support of the standard of care and professional practices. It isn’t about the money; it’s about the quality of the training. The investment is worth it, and the consequences of getting bad training could cost a professional a lot more than his business.
2. Stay trained and certified. Quality certification agencies want to ensure that the professional is staying up to date with trends, new products, and techniques in that industry. Certifying agencies that require some type of re-certification credits help professionals stay connected to the industry. The mold industry is incredibly dynamic and requires the professional to keep current with license changes, reporting requirements, and government oversight changes. Again, the investment is worth it and could save the professional time and money.
3. Get more training. The cynical professional might think this is just about the money, but a good organization will encourage the professional to get all types, and different kinds, of training. NORMI recommends the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification’s (IICRC) Water Damage Restoration Technician (WRT) course along with the Applied Structural Drying Technician (ASD) course. Also encouraged are Occupational Safety and Health’s 10-hour training (OSHA10), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting (EPA Lead RRP) course, and other ISSA training and programs that will strengthen the professional’s place in the marketplace and help him broaden his offerings to the client. And, with good, reputable certifying agencies, re-certification credits can come from many sources. Again, the goal is to keep getting more training. 

My conclusion is, don’t go rogue! There are too many “cowboys” out there already messing up the industry’s reputation. Follow the industry standards and implement them into your business model. Make sure that your employees are supporting your efforts to provide the highest quality service they can under your direct supervision. This will protect you from potential liability and give you an advocate, your insurance carrier, who can and will defend you. 

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