Even if you’re not a provider of commercial refrigerators, if you own any units, the refrigeration technician crisis could have a great influence on your business. Certified technicians are needed for maintenance, repairs, and installation in many cases.
Luckily, there are a few steps that you can take to ensure you’re not left without refrigeration. Read on to learn more about the crisis, how it could impact your business, and what steps you can take to avoid issues.
The Problem
The crisis at hand is simply a shortage of certified technicians. Traditional commercial units are complicated and take a lot of training to master. For years, the industry has relied on the younger generation filling the shoes of the experienced technicians who are retiring.
However, there has been a vast shortage of young technicians. This disparity has resulted in too few technicians available to do much-needed work. A study showed that last year, there were 745 technicians for 4,500 jobs in the U.S. With so many veterans retiring without successors, there has been a serious lack of important on-the-job training.
How Does This Affect You?
At first glance, this may seem like more of an issue for service providers rather than businesses with refrigeration units, but the crisis will affect all parties. Imagine running a restaurant and your main unit that stores your meats goes down. You may be able to maintain healthy temperatures for a few hours to a day, but after that, you’ll be tossing out rotten food and wasting money.
Businesses rely on hasty technician responses to minimize loss of product. The sales side of refrigeration is booming with the restaurant industry on the rise. However, this rise is resulting in a high demand for maintenance and repairs. In addition to the shortage, new technicians who lack hands-on training are much more likely to make mistakes and have your system faltering again sooner rather than later.
What Can You Do?
Obviously, you can’t control how many people are taking a certain career path, so how do you avoid being left with slow response times and harm being done by poorly trained technicians? As with any machine, routine maintenance is great idea. However, this method will still eventually fail you.
The best solution is to switch units to a low-charge ammonia system. These units are significantly less complicated and much easier to install. In addition, they use much less energy, which decreases regulatory burdens and lowers the cost of ownership. The simplified systems are much easier to work on and require minimal training to install and repair.
Don’t get swallowed up by the shortage of experienced technicians in 2018; schedule your regular maintenance or upgrade to a low-charge system to reduce product loss. At Imbera, we are pioneering sleek design and outstanding function to help our clients improve their refrigeration and merchandising capabilities. Contact us at 678-504-6835, and we’ll match you with the right equipment for your business.
