hey guys, what are some productive tasks that techs can achieve while not installing or completing service work?

inevitably scheduling on jobs change, or you simply dont have work booked for all of your full time techs. aside from cleaning their van, taking inventory, and cleaning at the shop; how else are you guys keeping your techs busy?

Online trainings.

Cleanup/upgrades to showroom or owner's house.

You have all the ideas listed. At some point you realize as an owner you must suck it up and pay people when it is slow. Or you ask first for volunteers to take off. Then you send them home and end up with poor moral. You should not have them doing things not related to their job. Having them wash owners cars, hang Christmas lights at owners home, furniture movers, appliance repair, painting your house is asking for trouble should someone get injured.
Let them get involved in ordering truck stock. Labor proposals on small jobs might be a few additional small task they can do.

Plus...none of your techs signed up for car washing or Christmas light hanging or furniture moving. I can understand the occasional situation but every time you get slow would have me looking for a new job. If i wanted to wash cars i would work at a car wash. Wash your own damn car.

Training..

You could offer an annual maintenance contract which includes a "tuneup" visit.

Go back through your history of clients, find the ones that were the best fit for your business, and reach out to them offering a “tune-up” for free. Use this as an opportunity to sell upgrades and additions.

Learn your products and software inside and out. Setup a demo system. Online training is so-so (not much retention)...real hands on beats that by a large margin.

Training AND practicing what the training covered. Hearing someone tell about something and how it works is OK, but without hands-on practice, it's gonna go away at the speed of light.

Do their reviews and have them concentrate on their weaknesses. Do they understand Ohm's Law and how it relates to what we do? I don't mean regurgitate it, I mean UNDERSTAND it. Can they wire a bunch of speakers without making an amplifier puke? Can they calculate a series/parallel load and can they come up with a ballpark estimate? Are they good at lacing racks? What about remote programming?

There's ALWAYS something that needs to be done.

Have them review the last several projects completed from the install perspective. What went well, what didn't, what products and design decisions made life difficult.

Ask for this as a formal report, not just a list of notes. Developing and practicing formal communication skills and an analytical process will benefit both you and the employees in the future.

Anything IT related is probably a good focus as well. A managed switch, sonos and IP camera are relatively affordable for a test-stack, identify your common system requirements and have them configure from ground up.

Pre-make some cables too. CAT-5/6/7 or whatever to a length that is commonly used on a rack. Same with fiber or other cables.

If there is a manufacturer that you use has an office near by. Ask them if your techs can go there for some hands on training.

KOT

Premade cables very often use stranded cable, so they are more flexible and can tolerate more plug/unplug cycles than handmade cables. Consistency is also better among factory-made cables.

However, we all have a lot more practice with CAT5 connectors than with CAT6 connectors, so practice with them is a great idea!

How are you scheduling your jobs? Do you only do install work on site?

Do your customers love seeing techs sitting in their houses with laptops while they update firmware, or configure equipment, or program systems?

Do you only build racks on site?

If you are not delivering completed, tested, and mostly-debugged systems to sites, then you have work that they can do in-house.

Add vehicle maintenance to this. If you don't already have them cleaning and organizing trucks, you should have them doing so.

Showing up at a job with a dirty truck (this IS a big one), that may not have the little extras needed, is not a good idea.

Truck need a full service? Sure it does. Nothing like sitting on the side of the road due do a truck that wasn't taken care of.

Yes, they can and should wash their truck. It's not something demeaning, it's just part of the job. Keeping up the image of a professional company, and it's staff. Besides, on a steamy hot summer day, this can be a good way to cool off AND get paid for it.