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Episode 168 is a conversation with Lewis Martin from LMC, Lawrence Trifiletti from LONG, and Nicholas Gayeski from Clockworks.
Episode 168 explores workforce trends in the smart building industry with insights from Lewis Martin, founder of LMC. Join us as we discuss the importance of attracting new talent, balancing technical expertise with consultative skills, and addressing the industry's talent shortage. Enjoy!
Introduction (0:50)
Intro to Nick (2:20)
Intro to Lawrence (4:40)
Intro to Lewis (6:45)
Missing Skill Sets (8:49)
Unicorn Roles (16:41)
New Technicians (28:05)
Data (31:33)
Pool Diversity (36:38)
Company Pipeline (43:51)
Talent Investments (53:59)
NexusCon! (56:50)
Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S612980-16073.
Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!
James Dice: [00:00:00] Hey friends, if you like the Nexus podcast, the best way to continue the learning is to join our community. There are three ways to do that. First, you can join the Nexus Pro Membership. It's our global community of smart building professionals. We have monthly events, paywall deep dive content, and a private chat room, and it's just 35 a month.
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The links are below in the show notes. And now let's go on to the podcast.
Welcome to the Nexus podcast. I'm your host, James Dice. Today, we're talking talent and the smart buildings industry. And I have a group assembled here that can sort of weigh in from a bunch of different [00:01:00] perspectives. So two of you have been on the show before. So welcome back. Lawrence Trifiletti from Long Building Technologies and Nick Gajewski from Clockworks Analytics.
Uh, we'll put your past episodes in the show notes. You guys, Nick, you, you were like two or three, something like that. So we'll, uh, That's like from the deep, deep archive. We'll put that in the show notes. Um, and then we have a newcomer to the show, Louis. Uh, he's not new to the Nexus Labs community. He's our friend, Louis Martin of, uh, LMC, which is quickly becoming sort of the go to specialist recruiting firm in the smart buildings industry.
So he's perfect to talk to us about our talent. Issues and opportunities. Um, so let's kick this off. So Nexus's mission is to accelerate the transition to digital and decarbonized buildings, and people are obviously a massive part of that. Um, if we're going to, if we're going to accelerate things, we need to address some of the stuff that we're going to talk about today.
So let's talk about this, kick this off for people that don't quite grasp this. The [00:02:00] gravity of the situation here, what's the state of the talent in our industry? Let's start there. And Nick, if you could introduce yourself, uh, give us a little, um, quick intro on Clockworks and talk about sort of what your, um, what are your thoughts on the talent and resources in the industry that are available to you guys at Clockworks?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, great. Great to be back here. And yeah, it was a long time ago. Um, but excited to be a part of the community ever since then and to be here today. Um, so I'm Nick Gajewski. I'm the co founder and co CEO of Clockworks Analytics. Um, we provide fault detection and diagnostics and analytics software to, um, customers all over the world, um, and through partners who deliver services with it.
Fortunate to work with Lawrence and his team, uh, for example, we are recruiting people from across the industry who have experience in energy engineering, commissioning, building automation, HVAC, and, [00:03:00] um, You know, we're facing the same thing that a lot of people are facing, which is a shortage in, uh, in people and expecting a shortage for many years to come.
Um, so our technology is part of the solution in our eyes. Um, our mission is, uh, to empower facilities teams to have a massive positive impact in the built environment. So you can see there. Empowering people, um, to manage buildings, um, and manage the built environment better and to have positive impacts is a big part of what we're all about.
Um, and finding people to do that's hard. So how do you use technology, um, mentoring, um, and, and many, uh, tactics to, um, address this need over the next four or five years is, um, is important to us. And I think important to everybody on this call.
James Dice: I want to highlight. One of the sort of dichotomies here in solving the talent problem.
[00:04:00] It is a lot of our. Technology providers in our industry are sort of part of the solution to the talent problem. We don't have enough people. And so therefore we can automate tasks and use data to make the same people that we have more efficient, right? But it doesn't solve the whole problem because even when we have awesome technology like clockworks, we're still having the issue.
So we can't sit here and say technology is going to solve everything we're going to talk about today. Um, With that said, Lawrence, over to you. Can you introduce yourself again for the audience? Who is Long Building Technologies, and sort of what are your thoughts on the talent, uh, available to you at Long?
Lawrence Trifiletti: Yeah, so I'm Lawrence Trifoletti. Um, I run the operations for our controls branch office in Colorado, uh, for Long Building Technologies. Long Building Technologies is a kind of cradle of grave HVAC, so we sell equipment, we do mechanical service, we do construction, we uh, pretty much do the whole [00:05:00] gambit. Um, our challenge on the control side is obviously the technician, um, talent is, is very specialized, and it's different from, uh, And so trying to get people, uh, fitting into what we think is a standard, uh, tech and their levels and their career paths and all that type of stuff, um, takes a lot of effort for us, but there's a lot of shorthanded, uh.
Um, things that happen with it.
James Dice: Awesome. And you have something on your wall behind you that you said it was from, you've been, you had it on your wall since 1990, you said, and I think that Lewis was born after 1990. So can you explain what, what. That says on your wall and, uh,
Lawrence Trifiletti: Once upon a time, once upon a time.
Well, it's a Vince Lombardi, uh, kind of statement. I think it's pretty famous, but, uh, it's about what it takes to be number one. Vince Lombardi, [00:06:00]obviously, uh, Was, uh, the football coach for the Green Bay Packers and really set the standard for winning in the NFL. You know, he won the first two Super Bowls and it's just about grit and determination, uh, and keeping your eye on the ball, no pun intended, to, uh, to make it to number one.
You don't want to be number two. You don't want to be number three. You want to be number one and you want to put it all out there on the field in order to get there. So. That's kind of the summary of it, but yeah.
James Dice: Love it. I was born in 88, so I wasn't, I probably didn't. I graduated college in 88, so
Alright, awesome. Um, Louis, I know you know a few things about grit and determination, so you want to introduce yourself and, uh, sort of why are you here?
Lewis Martin: Thanks for letting me be here as well. So I'm Lewis, founder of LMC. LMC is a talent solutions firm dedicated to the smart buildings industry. So we ultimately partner with both OT and [00:07:00] also IT organizations that are looking to either digitalize or decarbonize the boat environment.
Predominantly focused around. The building operations. Uh, I think I'm here because I've got eight years of experience working with system integrators, MSIs, engineering consulting firms, technology vendors, um, and of course, OEMs, um, globally, but predominantly in North America. Um, so we're seeing some really interesting trends right now across the space in, in the U S in particular on why.
Organizations are struggling to attract, acquire, and also retain talent.
James Dice: Yeah. And you, you are over from the UK, but it sounds like from what I know about your business and how much time you spend in the U S um, you're very intimately aware and close to the U S market, right?
Lewis Martin: Yeah. We, we probably do about 90 percent of our projects in the U S.
Um, travel to the U S [00:08:00] probably once every other month to visit clients. Yeah. So, yeah, very familiar of the U. S. and, and both Nick and Lawrence.
James Dice: Totally. And so I wanted to point that out. So we're going to kind of ground this in. So Lewis, or Lawrence is in Colorado. Nick, you guys do business all over the world pretty much, but we're going to kind of ground this a little bit in the U.
S. North American market. So can we just kind of kick this off with. It seems like we all understand that we're missing some skill sets. And if we had those more of people with those skill sets, the industry could grow faster, essentially. And can we just kind of kick this off with the skill sets that we are, are talking about here and what really grounds this and what can someone do?
What can someone not do that we wish they could do, or where are the people that can do those things?
Lawrence Trifiletti: So, you know, the unicorn, if you will, would be someone that has mechanical, uh, the ability, has IT ability, has, uh, just, uh, All [00:09:00] kinds of technology and future thinking when it comes to doing that. It's not necessarily, so if you go with the mechanical world, they're not really using the computer.
And so if you go just, just at the IT world, they don't know anything really about the mechanical side. Really, it's, it's the peanut butter and chocolate. They kind of go together. So we look for someone, if you want to find someone that really has all those skills. Uh, they're very rare to find that type of stuff, so you have to develop them there.
Um, so the skills we look for besides technical skills would be people who have capacity to learn and have a desire to learn and change with stuff.
James Dice: Got it, got it. What about you, what are your thoughts, Nick?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, um, you know, I think we, we need people who can certainly work within building automation systems, so program, and one of the challenges is that building automation environments are different.
So programming in one product is different than programming in another product, configuring graphics and interfaces in [00:10:00] one product is different than another. So you can learn a skillset and it can be sort of narrowly to that product. And there are certainly people who've jumped and they know three or four, um, but there's a learning curve every time.
So that's one set. Um, there's what I would call sort of HVAC plus energy engineering where, you know, it's mechanical engineers who Or people who've come up in the industry who know how heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems work and then how to make them work more efficiently, how to optimize them.
And that sort of combines mechanical engineering knowledge with HVAC specialty with some amount of controls and optimization to understand how to do that. Um, and you know, certainly what I find is that the people who can cross those bridges, Often came up from one area of the industry, whether it's the BAS programming side, the HVAC side, they've had enough [00:11:00]crossover that they've learned enough that they can, um, they can really lead with ideas on how to, uh, how to make things better within the building.
Um, I think Lawrence also mentioned IT and networking. It's, that's a whole other layer, right? It's, it's, you have to make sure that the devices are stable, that the connectivity is good, that You They're cyber secure that, um, you know, things continue to work and, um, stay connected. Um, so it's all those areas and it's hard to find people that can cross them.
Um, and we need people who can speak multiple languages, uh, in this world.
James Dice: Yeah. So what we're getting at is like a little bit of a, Unicorn sort of skillset here. That's kind of always how I've been thinking about it, which is like, I understand how an HVAC system works. So that's like one circle out there.
And then I understand how the control system that controls the HVAC system works, that's another part of the Venn diagram. And then there's like, [00:12:00]like we're, we're adding on more and more circles to the Venn diagram to the point where it's, it's small, but something you said before we started. Lewis and Nick, you guys were kind of getting at this sort of, um, you're sort of building up skill sets, right?
You might start as a technician and then you start to realize, Oh, you know, I'm understanding more and more about HVAC. And then once you understand more about HVAC, you understand more about energy. And then once you understand how to save energy, you might understand more about FTD and how that it's using the data to understand ways to save energy.
Right. And so there's this level of experience that you're building up over time that gets you to that next level. Unicorn sort of skill set, right? Lewis, how do you think about this?
Lewis Martin: Not to echo what Lawrence or Nick said, but I think if we look at, if we look at the technicians, which I would say is one of the biggest mandates for any organization globally, um, I'm sure there's Um, Lawrence, you can back me up, I hope, uh, but everyone can hire three, four [00:13:00] more technicians.
And I think it's having people that really understand both systems, mechanical, but then also have, um, some exposure to controls or it's JCI, Honeywell, Toronto Electric, whatever it might be. Um, but where the industry is going, it goes back to the stuff back in the early days of Nexus is the, and we're already heading there, right?
Um, is the convergence of OT and IT. Um, and having individuals that really understand building automation and also mechanical systems, but now also understands data, IoT, software, whatever that might look like, because we need individuals that are almost, um, I would call them integration specialists or integration engineers that can really help clients merge both OT and IT together.
Um, and I would say there are very few of those individuals across the US. Thanks.
Nick Gayeski: So we were ta we were talking about the experiments experience [00:14:00] pyramid, if you will. Right. And I, I can sort of picture at the bottom of the pyramid, these building blocks, like, like you were saying, HVAC building automation, networking device sort of installation, configuration, energy optimization, and energy engineering.
So there's all these different building blocks you might even throw, like commissioning in there. And. You can find some people that know two of those building blocks. It's very hard to find people who know three or four of those building blocks. And in the industry, you know, you have these silos where at the base of the pyramid people come up through BAS energy engineering.
And then with more and more experience, they put together those building blocks. And that's what I'm thinking about with this like experiment experience pyramid that they, they, they build up those building blocks and they get more and more experience and at the top of that pyramid, you have people who can kind of like [00:15:00] use analytics technology and software to oversee tens of thousands of assets, direct the activities of people with less experience to go help manage these assets.
And as we were talking about earlier, I think it's also great, creates great career opportunities because you can be really adept at data analytics, or you could be really adept at like device troubleshooting, and those are elements of this pyramid, pyramid. And as you work your way up in your career, you can either go deep on, on those, or you can start to combine sets of this experience to help coordinate across the board.
And both of them have career advancement opportunities. So, I don't know if this pyramid of experience is really a thing to drive, to build on, but, um, in my head I can, I can see how it relates.
James Dice: Yeah, I'm thinking [00:16:00] about ways in which Lewis and us at the Nexus team can maybe take this and run with it into some good content.
Lawrence, you were talking about, before we hit record, you were talking about the ways in which the service That you're providing to building owners has been changing and therefore the expectations on your service technicians are changing. And where I'm going with this is there's also a people element to what we're talking about here.
So we've been kind of talking about the technical side a little bit, but there's also in this unicorn profile, maybe it's near the top of, of the Pyramid that Nick just described, which, which is a little bit like what we teach in our foundations or now are called our strategist course, which is understanding the human that is doing the job, the human that is currently responsible for the HVAC control system, et cetera, and really helping them figure out how to change what they're doing to include technology.[00:17:00]
Really, it's a change management piece and there's a people side of that, right? How do you think about that from your technician standpoint?
Lawrence Trifiletti: As far as, uh, how they react to it or how it works with them?
James Dice: Well, just the type of skill sets that you're looking for. Um, You know, myself as a graduate engineer, there were a lot of people in my classes that couldn't have a conversation with them to help them change how they're doing their business.
Like that's just not the engineering skillset really to, to have those conversations. Right. Um, I don't, I don't know a lot of engineers that are hosting podcasts, for example, but there are some out there. Right. Um, and so you're looking for those technicians that can understand the things technically, but then also kind of.
Have that people side as well.
Lawrence Trifiletti: The desire to do it or just the people working with it. So, yeah, I mean, you're going to get, because you said it's humans at the end of the day, it's not the machines. It's the, it's the humans that are all determining, [00:18:00] um, what they're, what they want to do with their career and how, what interests and how deep they want to go into the technology, into doing that type of stuff.
So we, we have both incentives for career paths, as I think Nick mentioned there a little bit. To incentivize and say, Hey, here's a good way of doing it. But there's also a value in people that are, uh, next pyramid that maybe are in part of the pyramid that they're not going all the way up the pyramid.
Not that it's a hierarchical, but just, uh, they want their tool bag is. is they want to do these two things versus these five things, but there's value to that. And so you have to work and adapt and overcome based, based off what people's skill sets and motivations are on. I'm not sure if that's amorphous or not, but, um, some people, Like I said at the beginning, some people, if you get people who are intellectually curious, meaning, all right, this technology can show me this and dig deeper into [00:19:00] this air handler, and I can learn much more about how to save energy within this air handler and go, you know, 10 feet deep into it, versus someone's like, I know this air handler's working not that well, but if I Do one, one or two things.
It's going to work efficient and be good where that other person is saying, okay, it's good, but it could be much more efficient because you're looking deeper into it. And I think that's where ClockWorks really comes about is helps bring some of that information up front. So they don't have to dig 10 feet down and it's our.
Responsibility, uh, as leaders to try to help them see the value of that and put that with the customer in turn, the value of it as well.
James Dice: Totally. So kind of what I'm hearing then is it's not necessarily the people skills that you need as much. Like when I asked you about the people side, you kind of went back to the technical side.
Is that kind of how.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Well, it's, it's, it's both. I mean, the technology is what [00:20:00] drives a lot of the, uh, people into the, into the business to begin with what's the technology, it depends, uh, but the people side and, and the ability to interact with the customer, uh, in a different manner, because it's different, uh, versus just going in there and doing a checklist, you have to be much more consultative.
And, and more robust. That's not necessarily for the HVAC industry, something that's natural. It's much more natural on the IT world, just because that's what they grew up doing. So changing that factor goes with the intellectual curiosity of doing those types of things.
James Dice: Got it. Yeah, Nick, Nick and Lewis. So you guys, how's the people side of things resonating with you?
Lewis Martin: I would say referring back to what Lawrence said at the start, um, for me, it's always about experience. If we look at the people coming into the industry now, they have that digital first approach because it's what they've been born with. Um, I think the change management actually comes from [00:21:00] people that are already in the industry.
So I think that's a, that's a potentially a good opportunity for people to have a pathway to, let's say they start as a trade, right? They're a HVAC technician and a, or a building automation technician. We still need those, um, like thousands across the US. Um, but if we can give them a pathway of like, this is what it looks like, you've got a great understanding of OT.
Now let's look at the other aspects of the pyramid like we're talking about to push them through. So it goes back to that desire, um, comment Lawrence said, and having individuals that really want to take that step. Um, the challenge for me is that I think we're at a stage In, as an industry where if people want to stay as a building automation technician, organizations almost have to let them because they're like, it would be too costly to let them go.
That's at least from what I can, from what I see. [00:22:00]
Nick Gayeski: I'll pick up on some things Lauren said. So, um, one of the dangers of course, of this pyramid example, is that like as if it's hierarchical and there's the top and the bottom, and I think that that's, that's not really right. Um, you know, I think we all know these examples of.
A chiller tech in a market, maybe there's like three chiller techs who are really worth their salt and everyone knows them and they're in super high demand, like that kind of thing. Like if you can know chillers, like the back of your hand, then that's, that's a super valuable skill.
James Dice: Anyone listening to this in the St.
Louis market knows Jim Chambers. There's this guy named Jim Chambers. He's retired now, but everybody knew Jim. Anytime there was a chiller problem, Jim Chambers was the guy that got called. Yeah,
Nick Gayeski: right. And you just said like the magic words, Jim's retired now, right? Like everyone knew Jim. He was the chill, he was the chiller man in St.
Louis and now he's retired. What, what, what do we do in St. Louis with chillers, right? [00:23:00] Are there people, are there people who followed up from Jim and can they pick it up? Pick up the door? Is Jim Junior out there?
James Dice: Hopefully Jim Junior's out there. Yeah.
Nick Gayeski: Hopefully Jim Junior's out there. So. You know, I think that's representative of this challenge we're facing.
And we, we definitely need people with, with super specialized skill sets like that, who can really. Um, tackle those types of challenging problems. And then we also need people that sort of span skill sets and have a, have a diversity of experience so they can coordinate. But the, the thing that I picked up on from what Lauren said is this consultative, um, people skill set, I think is also really important to talk about, um, you know, organizations that are working to transform the way they manage facilities.
You know, often need help with the vision of how they're going to do it, why they're going to do it, how they make the business case to do it, how they get broader leadership engagement to make that happen. And there's a [00:24:00]consultative aspect of that, um, that is also highly in demand and hard to find. And it's definitely a different skill set than, you know, being an expert, uh, in one building automation system or certain types of HVAC.
So, by all means, that sort of people, those, those skills, we'll call them soft skills, but consultative skills, uh, are, are really important too.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Back in the IT world, programmers used to be always the ones in the shadows, right? Literally, they were always in the dark doing their coding. A lot of times now, they are much more, they have to be out front to consult and explain and work with customers.
Microsoft On it. So they had to learn a skill that originally they were vampires living in the fricking cave. And now they had to come out and into the light and, and work with customers, which was not 20 years ago. That was not the case. And I feel like it's much more prevalent [00:25:00] now. Uh, and that's where I think we are a little bit on the, in the, uh, FDD world or the analyst in the controls world is where we're kind of come out much more in the light And be more transparent with the customer and explain these things and get some more value at depth and that takes time
Nick Gayeski: Real quick.
So there are parallels Um to the start of our business with what laurence was saying. I think that as clockworks got started Much of what we were replacing were engineers doing projects You So mechanical engineers doing hundreds or thousands of hours of work for a customer. Uh, maybe doing some auditing, maybe doing some data analysis, writing reports, coming up with various strategies.
Um, and so that is a highly consultative sort of high touch approach. Um, and now you've got analytics and automation and software [00:26:00] replacing a lot of that very expensive high touch approach. But you still need People who can talk with, with the customer on how to get it done. And that's both internal and external, whether it's working with their service vendor or internally, someone who can help leadership understand what they need to do.
Um, you still have to translate that into, into action and decision making. So the parallel I see is sort of the tech that we've been building replaces a lot of manual engineering work in the past that was highly consultative. And there's still this need for a consultative touch to it that is being That is, that is migrating to different roles than they were in the past.
Lewis Martin: And just to jump in there, I think this is where a lot of people think AI is going to take their place, but I just can't see that happening anytime soon. I think there's still that mesh that Nick's talking about.
James Dice: Okay, let's put a bow on that. Those are, those are the skills that we're looking for, that we're talking [00:27:00] about here.
I think I'd also like to say that this, uh, What we're sort of zeroing in on one sort of category, maybe two categories of technology here. There are other categories. They have similar needs as well. I'm talking about changing the user experience in an office building. There's going to be similar integration issues, similar technical issues, similar people skills that are needed there.
So let's just sort of point that out, but let's jump into the challenges with attracting people to these roles and these and training them into these skill sets. I think the place I'd like to start, and when I asked you guys what your thought your challenges were, you all said this in some way, shape, or form.
Um, The big one is getting more people into our industry. So sort of attracting people into smart buildings as a thing that they might be excited about in their career. Right. And so Lewis, I'd love for you to kick us off. Like, how do you think about selling our industry, [00:28:00] um, and, and getting people to sort of come from other industries or come from college even into this world?
Lewis Martin: Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question. Um, I mean, I've only had eight years experience in this space, right? So I'm, I'm not a, uh, well, it's not a bad thing, but I'm not a veteran like Nick or Lawrence over there. But during that eight year period, what I've seen is that we as an industry love the industry.
It's very much mission driven. Um, there's a ton of really great organizations out there doing incredible things that 10 years ago we didn't think was possible. But, outward looking, we're very poor at showcasing why someone would, why someone would want to join the space. I'm not sure why that is, but every time you talk to someone, Um, at these conferences, they're, they're having the same conversations about we can't sell the industry, although you can sell it to your [00:29:00] clients, to your partners, to, um, to experienced employees coming in.
We seem to, we seem to have a hard time showcasing why someone would want to join the space. Um, I think that's going to change, especially with technology being more prominent technologies like clockworks. Um, companies like Long are integrating that, um, but a lot of the people, when we talk about building automation or HVAC, they think, and even real estate to an extent, they think old industry, not innovating, probably not going to start my career there.
Whereas I think we need to do a better job at changing the narrative on what your career could look like. Um, and there's some good initiatives out there that are starting to do that, but we need tenfold of those.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Well, I guess I could add that we want to get more awareness of the industry, and that's why we're working with trade schools and other schools, uh, to get teenagers exposed [00:30:00] to controls in HVAC, uh, industry, so they have the ability to, uh, You know, see it as a career.
See that there's something there to do. Not everybody's going to go to college, and I believe the trades have been under reported as far as the value of them, whatever the industry, but in particular our industry. So we're trying to get people here a couple days a week during those programs in order to expose them what Long's like and what HVAC and controls or mechanical or whatever it is.
Um, I think that will be helpful In breeding, if you will, um, a new farm system of people that will help expand the talent because a lot of times the talent we see out there and Lewis, I'm sure is familiar with this is you're seeing the same type of people or the same people sometimes just being retreaded through because it's the, the pool people is really a puddle.
It's not really a big pool. So [00:31:00] we need to, we need to increase that.
James Dice: I think it'd be a good time to talk about the data here. We have, we've pulled some data, not we, you guys have pulled some data. Um, and what it's basically showing is that there are, if I could sort of summarize what you guys have told me and we'll sort of expand it.
There are, the pool's too small. To use that same analogy that Lawrence said, there aren't enough people and there are a lot of open jobs and people are having trouble filling them. And the jobs that are happening are people changing from one company to the next. So we're poaching the same people rather than sort of.
Growing the pool, adding to it. Is that, is that a good summary? Can we talk about that data a little bit more?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, I'll jump in with some of what I looked up. Um, so yeah, the data that I recently looked at from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh, was that, uh, there's about 415, 000 HVAC [00:32:00] technician jobs in the U S market and HVAC technician is not necessarily all of what we're talking about here, but I think this is representative of many different types of roles within our industry.
So 415, 000 HVAC technician jobs. Roughly 37, 000 open positions every year with, uh, growth at 6 percent per year, which is double, um, the industry, the average for jobs generally in the U. S. market, if I remember it correctly. And then the other data point is, um, some analysis in a trade journal on roughly one in four of those jobs.
unlikely to get billed, and that's probably an underestimate as, as Lewis may want to comment on. Um, so to the extent that's indicative of many different roles across the industry, which I think it is at least directionally, um, we're going to have a major shortage. [00:33:00] of people to fill these roles and we're going to have to solve that through the kitchen sink, right?
We've got to do everything we can to solve that problem. Yeah, and just to jump on that, I think, uh,
Lewis Martin: the way in which I see it as there's short term and long term challenges to talent in our industry. Um, short term, what Lawrence is saying, it's basically a puddle in terms of the people that we're speaking to or people we're trying to recruit for organizations like Log or Clockworks.
So, 10 years down, industry people, the people actually joining the industry is down, people leaving the industry is going up due to retirement, jobs are going up. If we look at COVID. Building automation was one of the most, and I say stable with quote marks, but stable industries going because it was a right to work during COVID industry.
Um, and the demand for building automation, the demand for HVAC, especially [00:34:00] with, uh, don't want to go into it too much, but with climate change is going up. So we need to look at short term initiatives, which we'll come on to, but longterm initiatives, which is actually thinking about what your pipeline of people are going to look like in five to 10 years.
And Again, not to reference Lawrence too much during this, but those initiatives that Long are doing need to be replicated by every organization that want to, that want to move the needle. Otherwise we'll be having, we'll be having, perhaps not will, but they'll be having the same conversations when they go to conferences or trade shows in three or five years.
And following on from what Nick mentioned, I pulled together a mini talent report, a couple of talent reports, which we'll share in the show notes with the Nexus community just around talent and the diversity of talent. Um, if we look at Niagara, as in Trillium Niagara, the skill set there, [00:35:00] um, there's around 12, 000 people that have Trillium Niagara experience, um, give or take.
Um, and. There's over three and a half thousand jobs currently needing Twitter Niagara experience. There's, there's more, there's more companies looking for individuals with. The Niagara experience than what there are actually looking to leave. So we need to think about how we're trying to get these individuals going through either certification or actually in projects that are using the Niagara program.
And again, I'm referencing Niagara, but there's a variety of others that we can highlight, but that is one of the most prominent in the space. In this report, what we can see is that 90 percent of the individuals that have Niagara experience are male, um, and about 10 or 11 percent are female, which I'm personally not necessarily surprised about, but it is, it is disappointing to [00:36:00] see that level of disparity across the industry.
James Dice: Yeah. Yeah. Let me just circle back real quick on the Niagara piece, 12, 000 people with those skill sets. There are 6 million commercial buildings in the United States. I don't know, my math isn't automatic, but like, that's not anywhere near what we need. Um, on the diversity piece, um, we're certainly Experiencing that as we put together a conference and we look at who's going to be there and all the speakers that are going to be up on stage.
Um, Lawrence and Nick, how do you think about, um, the diversity of the candidate and the pool, people in the pool and what that means for your businesses?
Lawrence Trifiletti: Well, I don't think, I mean, you just based off resumes, I think Lewis would say this too. It's that you see nine out of 10 probably is accurate as far as like nine are male, one's a female, maybe.
And so, um, yeah, it just hasn't been exposed again. We've done a very bad job advertising the industry. And I think that's really [00:37:00] what has to change and to show that it's, it's, it's diverse enough within skillsets that it, that it's, it's both lucrative for them and job satisfaction for, for whomever wants to do it.
And I think. We have to, again, if you want to expand the pool, you can't leave out half the population. You need to show that the other half of the population that there is some value to it. And I certainly have some, uh, some of my top techs are on, on females as well. So they're good examples. They go to, they go to, um, I don't know what their conference is, but they go to shows at schools, like, uh, for females, for engineers, and they're all trying to push that, uh, that diversity, uh, as much as they can.
But, like I said, we still have a ways to go on advertising the show. We're cool and stuff, so.
Lewis Martin: And just to jump on that, I think it can also be quite challenging when you want to [00:38:00] create a more diverse audience. team because if you're going out there and saying I want more females and that can be classed as positive discrimination.
I think the easiest way that we support clients on on making it so that it's an experience higher and they go off experience as opposed to Then what they look like or the names, not that our clients do or anyone does, is we take off and redact all personal, um, and some professional information that may be able to showcase whether that is a, um, whether they are male or female.
And then, and then you're, you're essentially hiring the best person for the role.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Yeah, and I would say that's exactly right, but we want to increase the pool of people or pool resumes we have. And if you're doing only off half the population, it doesn't help you as much as doing off all the population.
And I think that's what we're really looking for is. You know, diversity to me is just like a lot more resumes of a lot of different skill sets of people that are interested [00:39:00] in doing this. And then we can hire the best people based off that. And so, again, infusing new blood into it, that's one of the avenues to do it, is to make it more diverse.
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, picking up on that, I think we've been very fortunate, um, to, to have exceptional women on our team. Um, and I think gender is not, you know, the only variable of diversity. Um, it's important that people from all walks of life have the opportunity, um, to get into this industry and to get the skills and to meet the need we have for, for, um, for the jobs.
And as Lawrence pointed out, and I think maybe all of you to some extent, you know, marketing this industry, sort of the message around what this industry is. Um, needs to draw people to it. And you know, why, why do people head into the direction? You know, you can ask yourself that question. I think there's job stability, [00:40:00] there's opportunity, there's innovation.
Um, there's, you know, matching what they feel their strengths are to what the needs of that industry are. I'm not, I'm not an expert on these things, but there's so many different reasons. Can you, can you communicate to people from all those walks of life about what the opportunity is for them in this industry?
We've touched on it earlier. There's technical skillsets, there's hands on skillsets, there's data analytics skillsets, there's people skillsets, there's business skillsets, and changing the perception that sort of buildings and HVAC and, and controls are like, Just a very technical male dominated industry to something that is much more thriving, which it is, um, evolving and techie, which it is also very impactful and mission driven and has a big role to play in [00:41:00] improving the world.
You know, let's reach people with messages like that, that draw them into this industry. And I think if we, If we get better at that, and I say we here, not really knowing who the we is, right? We, like a lot of different players, have to help change the messaging. Then you can attract people from all walks of life into it.
And I will plug, I think, Lewis, you're probably coming in here, efforts like Stacks and Joules, um, great for, for this kind of thing.
Lewis Martin: This might sound like a, this might sound like a joke, but, um, we almost need a smart buildings marketing consortium. Where we can, we can put money in and then we can distribute content and marketing ads out to various states or across the United States so that we can actually look at different paths to bring people in.
Um, again, referring to what I mentioned previously about this, we're moving towards content driven [00:42:00] strategies to win business. And again, this could be another option for using. I don't know, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, to find people at a really early age and put an ad on them and it's like, wow, I didn't realize what building automation was or what HVAC is.
Um, it could be far fetched, but it's an idea that I've had for quite some time.
James Dice: Yeah. I mean, we've had the idea as well. We had a, um, There's a, there's a guy named Sam who took the, our course a couple of years ago and he approached us and said, I want to create a documentary about smart buildings. It's so cool.
And we actually filmed the trailer last year and he's been trying to find someone to pick it up, um, since then. Um, because I do feel like there's opportunity to tell this story on a bigger, uh, a bigger audience. Yeah. So, um, hopefully we can get something like that to, To get some legs at some point, let's talk about the solutions.
So we've talked a little bit about, um, a couple of different [00:43:00] solutions so far, but I want to kind of frame this in a couple of different ways. When I listened to you guys, it feels like we were talking about each company creating their own pipeline. That's a word that you use Louis a couple of minutes ago, thinking about what their pipeline Needs to be constructed of in order to attract the people that they're trying to attract.
Right. And then we have industry wide initiatives that we can sort of all get behind. Right. So if we're thinking about all of us being in Denver at the Nexus con in a few weeks, um, by the time this comes out, we'll, we'll be there probably. Um, we're going to probably want to talk about all the things that everyone at the conference can get behind.
Right. So there's two things. Let's start with the pipeline piece. So each company needing a pipeline. Lewis, it was your word. I want to start with you. What does this pipeline need to look like for each company?
Lewis Martin: Following in the digital path. Um, and I'm going to use Nick as an example, just because, [00:44:00] um, he's, uh, published, uh, um, a similar, uh, strategy that, that we advise to our clients.
Um, but if you think about LinkedIn, for example, which is predominantly where people go to find. Um, talent for their organizations, or for example, in my world, as a recruitment business owner, we use LinkedIn 90 percent of the time. We may use other platforms, but it's predominantly LinkedIn. So we need to look at how we transfer the marketing strategy, um, of selling to customers into the marketing strategy for building pipeline for future employees.
And Clockwork's had a really, um, a really good example of this recently. And I'm sure you'll put the link in the show notes, but it's a video which is really showcasing what the business is about, where it came from, the mission, speaking to a couple of employees from [00:45:00] different departments and why they joined and why they're still there.
And it talks to the audience in a different way, as opposed to what a job advert would, or just a, a word, um, document on, on their LinkedIn. really showcasing And if you think about the marketing strategy, you're always looking to bring in different channels, um, or, or different types of media, whether it's emails or whether it's, um, articles, podcasts, videos.
I think Clockworks has done, have done a really good example of that. And that's perhaps why they are able to attract and then also retain the talent that they've got, because they've got individuals on that video, That promote the business and advocates for the business. That would be one of the steps that I would advise organisations to put into it.
It takes time. There's a little bit of investment from a, from a, um, from a marketing standpoint, but, um, there will be benefits [00:46:00] over the short and long term of hiring people. Fascinating. And
James Dice: Nick, do you want to add anything to that?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, I'll just add, I think employer branding is not something every company does.
And, you know, to put it simply, it's who are you and what are you about? What are you trying to accomplish? What types of people? Draw them, are drawn to that and want to join your team and be a part of it, right? You want to make sure people understand, um, The bigger picture of what you're trying to do. So that's, that's what that was about for us.
James Dice: So Lawrence, we talked a little bit about your pipeline earlier. Can you talk about how you're thinking about the pipeline when you think about engaging trade schools and things like that, building the long pipeline?
Lawrence Trifiletti: Yeah, so I think the trade schools for us are there. So we're trying to expand and expose people who are not familiar with our industry at all.
I think, uh, you know, a lot of trade [00:47:00] schools, they'll have electricians, they'll have, you know, Uh, we want to kind of be in that same vernacular where we're exposing people to what HVAC is. When I got into HVAC, uh, you know, I couldn't even spell it, so to speak. I, you know, didn't know what it was. And, and really, uh, Uh, you had to enter into it and see the, all the possibilities.
We also, like, uh, Lewis said, we do a lot of social media to shows and exposes how great long is and why we're a great place to work and why we do innovative things with videos and things like that. Uh, but that really just touches people who know the industry more or less, uh, and that attracts that talent, but really on the trade schools is to attract a whole different, uh, people.
Population that knows nothing about what the heck it is. And now that's where, that's where we'll hopefully in a few years, see some, uh, it bears some fruit.
James Dice: And this is really, it's really striking me [00:48:00] all the parallels between marketing your product or service and marketing your company to talent. Um, When we talk about marketing your product or service, we work with all of our partners, ClockWorks included, to basically say, well first it's validating your category.
So ClockWorks does FDD, validating that a builder, a building owner needs to think about FDD and prioritize that in their smart buildings program. Um, it seems like the same arc needs to happen With all of us, as we think about marketing first, the smart buildings industry, and then it's almost like twofold.
And then us, why we're special in the smart buildings industry. So let's talk about those industry wide initiatives now. Like how can we all sort of work together? I think a lot of times in our industry, we like to think we're more. Competitive than we actually are, right? The first goal should, for all of us should be to say like, Hey, come into this world.
It feels like, so we've talked about stacks and jewels. Um, what are the other ways in [00:49:00] which, and then stacks and jewels, people can check out our episode with them. That explains sort of how that, how that, um, program works. It's amazing program. We all sort of want it to grow and scale to every city. Um, Let's, let's leave that aside a little bit.
People can dive into that later. What are the other sort of ways in which we can all sort of work together to grow the, grow the talent pool?
Lawrence Trifiletti: I was just saying like with it, you know, obviously good partnerships, like with Clockworks and others, expands our exposure and, and pool, different pools. We expose Clockworks to probably different clients that, and vice versa.
Is that what we're, is that what you're kind of thinking about? Kind of like, exposing us to different things.
Lewis Martin: Not necessarily NexusCon, but I've always thought, uh, the likes of RealCom and, uh, I think AHR do it a little bit, but not as much. Um, I'm missing an opportunity by [00:50:00] not inviting the local colleges and universities to that conference.
Um, so that they can get first hand exposure of like, what it is like. And I don't want to keep talking about Stacks and Jules. Um, because we, we've spoken about them, but they've obviously brought individuals to different conferences and it's been a phenomenal exposure for Saxon Jewels, for the students that are going there, which then also supports them and really understanding where do I see my place in the industry.
Um, I think if we're going to work together, which I, which I think we all should be working towards this because otherwise in 10 years, we might not have an industry if there's no people. Um, but working together to, to showcase what it's like to work in this industry, um, and where your place could be now, but also in the future.
Um, we often talk about. Technology [00:51:00] and silos within that, um, I would say it's, it's also fairly similar within talent. Everyone has their own mini initiative or they're trying to figure it out, where I think that there is argument for us all working together to create something bigger that helps us, um, over the next five to ten years.
Nick Gayeski: Lauren said something earlier about PAS technicians historically working in the shadows and sort of now kind of coming out of the shadows a little bit with some of these technologies and needing to engage the customer and I see a parallel there to our industry as a whole. The facility operations side of the real estate business has been working in the shadows.
We're sort of behind the scenes, like keeping everything running, making sure things work smoothly, and I think there's a certain amount of coming out of the shadows for this whole side of the industry, um, [00:52:00] engaging in communities like NexusCon. Marketing themselves and what they do more aggressively and why it's important to the world, why it's an attractive job to have and career to be in, why it's a good place to be.
And I think the power we have in that is just how impactful it is, right? Like, In the U. S., 70 percent of the electricity consumption through building, 40 percent of the energy, 40 percent of the carbon emissions, so much opportunity for impact, so much job security, job growth, um, lots of innovation today.
It's, sure, it's a slow moving industry because these are real physical assets with a lot of equipment. A lot of capital, you know, expense to them and so on, but, you know, digitization, technology, AI analytics, all hitting the industry hard. So I think coming out of the shadows to really be vocal about what we're doing through things like engaging in, in the Nexus community.
Like marketing yourselves and not just like [00:53:00] how you're different, but why it's important, because I think talking about why, what we do is important draws people to the industry as a whole, not, you know, why our product is the best or why, um, you know, people should choose Clockworks over anybody else.
It's really like, why does it matter? Why is it important? And I think that draws people in.
Lewis Martin: If we think about Gen Z. There's a stat which showcases that they are, they are more likely to join an organization that's mission driven, as opposed to one that's not. And I think there's argument here to say that every organization, or the majority of organizations in our space, Is mission driven one way or another.
James Dice: Absolutely. So talking about that mission and talking about that, why first love it. All right. So let's, let's do a little rapid fire round to close this off. Um, what will you guys be investing in over the next 12 months in terms of talent? And what do you [00:54:00] think listeners should be? Should be doing give, give people some actions here.
Lewis Martin: We, uh, we as an organization are donating 5 percent of our revenue to Stacks and Jewels in year two. Um, and I think everyone should look to follow in Lawrence's and Long's footsteps in terms of creating that local talent pool of individuals that may not necessarily know what burden automation or HVAC is.
Uh, but with a little bit of support and effort and time from your current employees. So Louis answered my question, so,
Lawrence Trifiletti: or answered my question. Thanks, Louis.
James Dice: Well, I'll build onto it. This is a local problem, right? So engaging in all of our local communities is where it starts. Nick, how about you?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, for us, there may be some differences here.
I mean, Part of what we do is our investment in product, specifically how to connect [00:55:00] buildings, how to work with the information model, how to use it. We see sort of an obligation to make that easier and easier and easier because, partly because at least, Of the skill gap. Um, we need to make it so easy that wherever you are in the industry coming into it, um, you can engage with it and get the job done.
And so a lot of our investment really goes into that. How do you simplify, simplify, simplify. Um, of course we are, um, going to continue to hire. Um, we're going to be hiring, uh, to do that, but, um, to, to, to onboard buildings and to, to support and serve our customers, but another piece that's happening is. A lot of our clients, both partners and end customer clients, are hiring for roles, um, to use FDD, um, to manage their portfolios.
So working with them on where they go, [00:56:00] see candidates, what communities they engage with to find those candidates. Advising them on who to talk to and how to build their own pipelines is part of what we have to do. So you said action items for people. I would, I guess I would leave them with educate themselves on the organizations we mentioned, whether it's Stacks and Jewels or the Nexus community.
Um, because if you're watching this video, then you, well, you've probably already been a Nexus, but, um, you're probably in a position to go hire some of these people or in an organization that are looking for people like this. So, engage in the communities where this discussion is happening. Um, try to draw people into it by speaking about it.
James Dice: All right. I'll close us off, uh, speaking on behalf of Nexus. We obviously have NexusCon coming up and we, we intend to bring all of us together to be talking about these things, but we're also planning on continuing to Invest in our partner program, right? [00:57:00] So, um, partnership with Lewis, partnership with Nick, and we really are, are seeing ourselves more and more as an advocate for the industry.
We're not just partnered with Nick. We're also partnered with other FDD providers, right? And seeing ourselves as the ones that are helping tell those stories on a broader, broader level. And we're going to continue to sort of invest in that as well. So thank you all for being here. Thanks to all the listeners.
Uh, thanks Lawrence, Lewis and Nick for For giving your like raw thoughts on this. We don't have this solved at all. Um, but it's more of like, here's where we're at. And I really appreciate you guys coming on to, to talk about where we're at.
Rosy Khalife: Okay. Friends, thank you for listening to this episode as we continue to grow our global community of change makers. We need your help for the next couple of months. We're challenging our listeners to share a link to their favorite Nexus episode on LinkedIn with a short post about why you listen. [00:58:00] It would really, really help us out.
Make sure to tag us in the post so we can see it. Have a good one.
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Episode 168 is a conversation with Lewis Martin from LMC, Lawrence Trifiletti from LONG, and Nicholas Gayeski from Clockworks.
Episode 168 explores workforce trends in the smart building industry with insights from Lewis Martin, founder of LMC. Join us as we discuss the importance of attracting new talent, balancing technical expertise with consultative skills, and addressing the industry's talent shortage. Enjoy!
Introduction (0:50)
Intro to Nick (2:20)
Intro to Lawrence (4:40)
Intro to Lewis (6:45)
Missing Skill Sets (8:49)
Unicorn Roles (16:41)
New Technicians (28:05)
Data (31:33)
Pool Diversity (36:38)
Company Pipeline (43:51)
Talent Investments (53:59)
NexusCon! (56:50)
Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S612980-16073.
Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!
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The links are below in the show notes. And now let's go on to the podcast.
Welcome to the Nexus podcast. I'm your host, James Dice. Today, we're talking talent and the smart buildings industry. And I have a group assembled here that can sort of weigh in from a bunch of different [00:01:00] perspectives. So two of you have been on the show before. So welcome back. Lawrence Trifiletti from Long Building Technologies and Nick Gajewski from Clockworks Analytics.
Uh, we'll put your past episodes in the show notes. You guys, Nick, you, you were like two or three, something like that. So we'll, uh, That's like from the deep, deep archive. We'll put that in the show notes. Um, and then we have a newcomer to the show, Louis. Uh, he's not new to the Nexus Labs community. He's our friend, Louis Martin of, uh, LMC, which is quickly becoming sort of the go to specialist recruiting firm in the smart buildings industry.
So he's perfect to talk to us about our talent. Issues and opportunities. Um, so let's kick this off. So Nexus's mission is to accelerate the transition to digital and decarbonized buildings, and people are obviously a massive part of that. Um, if we're going to, if we're going to accelerate things, we need to address some of the stuff that we're going to talk about today.
So let's talk about this, kick this off for people that don't quite grasp this. The [00:02:00] gravity of the situation here, what's the state of the talent in our industry? Let's start there. And Nick, if you could introduce yourself, uh, give us a little, um, quick intro on Clockworks and talk about sort of what your, um, what are your thoughts on the talent and resources in the industry that are available to you guys at Clockworks?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, great. Great to be back here. And yeah, it was a long time ago. Um, but excited to be a part of the community ever since then and to be here today. Um, so I'm Nick Gajewski. I'm the co founder and co CEO of Clockworks Analytics. Um, we provide fault detection and diagnostics and analytics software to, um, customers all over the world, um, and through partners who deliver services with it.
Fortunate to work with Lawrence and his team, uh, for example, we are recruiting people from across the industry who have experience in energy engineering, commissioning, building automation, HVAC, and, [00:03:00] um, You know, we're facing the same thing that a lot of people are facing, which is a shortage in, uh, in people and expecting a shortage for many years to come.
Um, so our technology is part of the solution in our eyes. Um, our mission is, uh, to empower facilities teams to have a massive positive impact in the built environment. So you can see there. Empowering people, um, to manage buildings, um, and manage the built environment better and to have positive impacts is a big part of what we're all about.
Um, and finding people to do that's hard. So how do you use technology, um, mentoring, um, and, and many, uh, tactics to, um, address this need over the next four or five years is, um, is important to us. And I think important to everybody on this call.
James Dice: I want to highlight. One of the sort of dichotomies here in solving the talent problem.
[00:04:00] It is a lot of our. Technology providers in our industry are sort of part of the solution to the talent problem. We don't have enough people. And so therefore we can automate tasks and use data to make the same people that we have more efficient, right? But it doesn't solve the whole problem because even when we have awesome technology like clockworks, we're still having the issue.
So we can't sit here and say technology is going to solve everything we're going to talk about today. Um, With that said, Lawrence, over to you. Can you introduce yourself again for the audience? Who is Long Building Technologies, and sort of what are your thoughts on the talent, uh, available to you at Long?
Lawrence Trifiletti: Yeah, so I'm Lawrence Trifoletti. Um, I run the operations for our controls branch office in Colorado, uh, for Long Building Technologies. Long Building Technologies is a kind of cradle of grave HVAC, so we sell equipment, we do mechanical service, we do construction, we uh, pretty much do the whole [00:05:00] gambit. Um, our challenge on the control side is obviously the technician, um, talent is, is very specialized, and it's different from, uh, And so trying to get people, uh, fitting into what we think is a standard, uh, tech and their levels and their career paths and all that type of stuff, um, takes a lot of effort for us, but there's a lot of shorthanded, uh.
Um, things that happen with it.
James Dice: Awesome. And you have something on your wall behind you that you said it was from, you've been, you had it on your wall since 1990, you said, and I think that Lewis was born after 1990. So can you explain what, what. That says on your wall and, uh,
Lawrence Trifiletti: Once upon a time, once upon a time.
Well, it's a Vince Lombardi, uh, kind of statement. I think it's pretty famous, but, uh, it's about what it takes to be number one. Vince Lombardi, [00:06:00]obviously, uh, Was, uh, the football coach for the Green Bay Packers and really set the standard for winning in the NFL. You know, he won the first two Super Bowls and it's just about grit and determination, uh, and keeping your eye on the ball, no pun intended, to, uh, to make it to number one.
You don't want to be number two. You don't want to be number three. You want to be number one and you want to put it all out there on the field in order to get there. So. That's kind of the summary of it, but yeah.
James Dice: Love it. I was born in 88, so I wasn't, I probably didn't. I graduated college in 88, so
Alright, awesome. Um, Louis, I know you know a few things about grit and determination, so you want to introduce yourself and, uh, sort of why are you here?
Lewis Martin: Thanks for letting me be here as well. So I'm Lewis, founder of LMC. LMC is a talent solutions firm dedicated to the smart buildings industry. So we ultimately partner with both OT and [00:07:00] also IT organizations that are looking to either digitalize or decarbonize the boat environment.
Predominantly focused around. The building operations. Uh, I think I'm here because I've got eight years of experience working with system integrators, MSIs, engineering consulting firms, technology vendors, um, and of course, OEMs, um, globally, but predominantly in North America. Um, so we're seeing some really interesting trends right now across the space in, in the U S in particular on why.
Organizations are struggling to attract, acquire, and also retain talent.
James Dice: Yeah. And you, you are over from the UK, but it sounds like from what I know about your business and how much time you spend in the U S um, you're very intimately aware and close to the U S market, right?
Lewis Martin: Yeah. We, we probably do about 90 percent of our projects in the U S.
Um, travel to the U S [00:08:00] probably once every other month to visit clients. Yeah. So, yeah, very familiar of the U. S. and, and both Nick and Lawrence.
James Dice: Totally. And so I wanted to point that out. So we're going to kind of ground this in. So Lewis, or Lawrence is in Colorado. Nick, you guys do business all over the world pretty much, but we're going to kind of ground this a little bit in the U.
S. North American market. So can we just kind of kick this off with. It seems like we all understand that we're missing some skill sets. And if we had those more of people with those skill sets, the industry could grow faster, essentially. And can we just kind of kick this off with the skill sets that we are, are talking about here and what really grounds this and what can someone do?
What can someone not do that we wish they could do, or where are the people that can do those things?
Lawrence Trifiletti: So, you know, the unicorn, if you will, would be someone that has mechanical, uh, the ability, has IT ability, has, uh, just, uh, All [00:09:00] kinds of technology and future thinking when it comes to doing that. It's not necessarily, so if you go with the mechanical world, they're not really using the computer.
And so if you go just, just at the IT world, they don't know anything really about the mechanical side. Really, it's, it's the peanut butter and chocolate. They kind of go together. So we look for someone, if you want to find someone that really has all those skills. Uh, they're very rare to find that type of stuff, so you have to develop them there.
Um, so the skills we look for besides technical skills would be people who have capacity to learn and have a desire to learn and change with stuff.
James Dice: Got it, got it. What about you, what are your thoughts, Nick?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, um, you know, I think we, we need people who can certainly work within building automation systems, so program, and one of the challenges is that building automation environments are different.
So programming in one product is different than programming in another product, configuring graphics and interfaces in [00:10:00] one product is different than another. So you can learn a skillset and it can be sort of narrowly to that product. And there are certainly people who've jumped and they know three or four, um, but there's a learning curve every time.
So that's one set. Um, there's what I would call sort of HVAC plus energy engineering where, you know, it's mechanical engineers who Or people who've come up in the industry who know how heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems work and then how to make them work more efficiently, how to optimize them.
And that sort of combines mechanical engineering knowledge with HVAC specialty with some amount of controls and optimization to understand how to do that. Um, and you know, certainly what I find is that the people who can cross those bridges, Often came up from one area of the industry, whether it's the BAS programming side, the HVAC side, they've had enough [00:11:00]crossover that they've learned enough that they can, um, they can really lead with ideas on how to, uh, how to make things better within the building.
Um, I think Lawrence also mentioned IT and networking. It's, that's a whole other layer, right? It's, it's, you have to make sure that the devices are stable, that the connectivity is good, that You They're cyber secure that, um, you know, things continue to work and, um, stay connected. Um, so it's all those areas and it's hard to find people that can cross them.
Um, and we need people who can speak multiple languages, uh, in this world.
James Dice: Yeah. So what we're getting at is like a little bit of a, Unicorn sort of skillset here. That's kind of always how I've been thinking about it, which is like, I understand how an HVAC system works. So that's like one circle out there.
And then I understand how the control system that controls the HVAC system works, that's another part of the Venn diagram. And then there's like, [00:12:00]like we're, we're adding on more and more circles to the Venn diagram to the point where it's, it's small, but something you said before we started. Lewis and Nick, you guys were kind of getting at this sort of, um, you're sort of building up skill sets, right?
You might start as a technician and then you start to realize, Oh, you know, I'm understanding more and more about HVAC. And then once you understand more about HVAC, you understand more about energy. And then once you understand how to save energy, you might understand more about FTD and how that it's using the data to understand ways to save energy.
Right. And so there's this level of experience that you're building up over time that gets you to that next level. Unicorn sort of skill set, right? Lewis, how do you think about this?
Lewis Martin: Not to echo what Lawrence or Nick said, but I think if we look at, if we look at the technicians, which I would say is one of the biggest mandates for any organization globally, um, I'm sure there's Um, Lawrence, you can back me up, I hope, uh, but everyone can hire three, four [00:13:00] more technicians.
And I think it's having people that really understand both systems, mechanical, but then also have, um, some exposure to controls or it's JCI, Honeywell, Toronto Electric, whatever it might be. Um, but where the industry is going, it goes back to the stuff back in the early days of Nexus is the, and we're already heading there, right?
Um, is the convergence of OT and IT. Um, and having individuals that really understand building automation and also mechanical systems, but now also understands data, IoT, software, whatever that might look like, because we need individuals that are almost, um, I would call them integration specialists or integration engineers that can really help clients merge both OT and IT together.
Um, and I would say there are very few of those individuals across the US. Thanks.
Nick Gayeski: So we were ta we were talking about the experiments experience [00:14:00] pyramid, if you will. Right. And I, I can sort of picture at the bottom of the pyramid, these building blocks, like, like you were saying, HVAC building automation, networking device sort of installation, configuration, energy optimization, and energy engineering.
So there's all these different building blocks you might even throw, like commissioning in there. And. You can find some people that know two of those building blocks. It's very hard to find people who know three or four of those building blocks. And in the industry, you know, you have these silos where at the base of the pyramid people come up through BAS energy engineering.
And then with more and more experience, they put together those building blocks. And that's what I'm thinking about with this like experiment experience pyramid that they, they, they build up those building blocks and they get more and more experience and at the top of that pyramid, you have people who can kind of like [00:15:00] use analytics technology and software to oversee tens of thousands of assets, direct the activities of people with less experience to go help manage these assets.
And as we were talking about earlier, I think it's also great, creates great career opportunities because you can be really adept at data analytics, or you could be really adept at like device troubleshooting, and those are elements of this pyramid, pyramid. And as you work your way up in your career, you can either go deep on, on those, or you can start to combine sets of this experience to help coordinate across the board.
And both of them have career advancement opportunities. So, I don't know if this pyramid of experience is really a thing to drive, to build on, but, um, in my head I can, I can see how it relates.
James Dice: Yeah, I'm thinking [00:16:00] about ways in which Lewis and us at the Nexus team can maybe take this and run with it into some good content.
Lawrence, you were talking about, before we hit record, you were talking about the ways in which the service That you're providing to building owners has been changing and therefore the expectations on your service technicians are changing. And where I'm going with this is there's also a people element to what we're talking about here.
So we've been kind of talking about the technical side a little bit, but there's also in this unicorn profile, maybe it's near the top of, of the Pyramid that Nick just described, which, which is a little bit like what we teach in our foundations or now are called our strategist course, which is understanding the human that is doing the job, the human that is currently responsible for the HVAC control system, et cetera, and really helping them figure out how to change what they're doing to include technology.[00:17:00]
Really, it's a change management piece and there's a people side of that, right? How do you think about that from your technician standpoint?
Lawrence Trifiletti: As far as, uh, how they react to it or how it works with them?
James Dice: Well, just the type of skill sets that you're looking for. Um, You know, myself as a graduate engineer, there were a lot of people in my classes that couldn't have a conversation with them to help them change how they're doing their business.
Like that's just not the engineering skillset really to, to have those conversations. Right. Um, I don't, I don't know a lot of engineers that are hosting podcasts, for example, but there are some out there. Right. Um, and so you're looking for those technicians that can understand the things technically, but then also kind of.
Have that people side as well.
Lawrence Trifiletti: The desire to do it or just the people working with it. So, yeah, I mean, you're going to get, because you said it's humans at the end of the day, it's not the machines. It's the, it's the humans that are all determining, [00:18:00] um, what they're, what they want to do with their career and how, what interests and how deep they want to go into the technology, into doing that type of stuff.
So we, we have both incentives for career paths, as I think Nick mentioned there a little bit. To incentivize and say, Hey, here's a good way of doing it. But there's also a value in people that are, uh, next pyramid that maybe are in part of the pyramid that they're not going all the way up the pyramid.
Not that it's a hierarchical, but just, uh, they want their tool bag is. is they want to do these two things versus these five things, but there's value to that. And so you have to work and adapt and overcome based, based off what people's skill sets and motivations are on. I'm not sure if that's amorphous or not, but, um, some people, Like I said at the beginning, some people, if you get people who are intellectually curious, meaning, all right, this technology can show me this and dig deeper into [00:19:00] this air handler, and I can learn much more about how to save energy within this air handler and go, you know, 10 feet deep into it, versus someone's like, I know this air handler's working not that well, but if I Do one, one or two things.
It's going to work efficient and be good where that other person is saying, okay, it's good, but it could be much more efficient because you're looking deeper into it. And I think that's where ClockWorks really comes about is helps bring some of that information up front. So they don't have to dig 10 feet down and it's our.
Responsibility, uh, as leaders to try to help them see the value of that and put that with the customer in turn, the value of it as well.
James Dice: Totally. So kind of what I'm hearing then is it's not necessarily the people skills that you need as much. Like when I asked you about the people side, you kind of went back to the technical side.
Is that kind of how.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Well, it's, it's, it's both. I mean, the technology is what [00:20:00] drives a lot of the, uh, people into the, into the business to begin with what's the technology, it depends, uh, but the people side and, and the ability to interact with the customer, uh, in a different manner, because it's different, uh, versus just going in there and doing a checklist, you have to be much more consultative.
And, and more robust. That's not necessarily for the HVAC industry, something that's natural. It's much more natural on the IT world, just because that's what they grew up doing. So changing that factor goes with the intellectual curiosity of doing those types of things.
James Dice: Got it. Yeah, Nick, Nick and Lewis. So you guys, how's the people side of things resonating with you?
Lewis Martin: I would say referring back to what Lawrence said at the start, um, for me, it's always about experience. If we look at the people coming into the industry now, they have that digital first approach because it's what they've been born with. Um, I think the change management actually comes from [00:21:00] people that are already in the industry.
So I think that's a, that's a potentially a good opportunity for people to have a pathway to, let's say they start as a trade, right? They're a HVAC technician and a, or a building automation technician. We still need those, um, like thousands across the US. Um, but if we can give them a pathway of like, this is what it looks like, you've got a great understanding of OT.
Now let's look at the other aspects of the pyramid like we're talking about to push them through. So it goes back to that desire, um, comment Lawrence said, and having individuals that really want to take that step. Um, the challenge for me is that I think we're at a stage In, as an industry where if people want to stay as a building automation technician, organizations almost have to let them because they're like, it would be too costly to let them go.
That's at least from what I can, from what I see. [00:22:00]
Nick Gayeski: I'll pick up on some things Lauren said. So, um, one of the dangers of course, of this pyramid example, is that like as if it's hierarchical and there's the top and the bottom, and I think that that's, that's not really right. Um, you know, I think we all know these examples of.
A chiller tech in a market, maybe there's like three chiller techs who are really worth their salt and everyone knows them and they're in super high demand, like that kind of thing. Like if you can know chillers, like the back of your hand, then that's, that's a super valuable skill.
James Dice: Anyone listening to this in the St.
Louis market knows Jim Chambers. There's this guy named Jim Chambers. He's retired now, but everybody knew Jim. Anytime there was a chiller problem, Jim Chambers was the guy that got called. Yeah,
Nick Gayeski: right. And you just said like the magic words, Jim's retired now, right? Like everyone knew Jim. He was the chill, he was the chiller man in St.
Louis and now he's retired. What, what, what do we do in St. Louis with chillers, right? [00:23:00] Are there people, are there people who followed up from Jim and can they pick it up? Pick up the door? Is Jim Junior out there?
James Dice: Hopefully Jim Junior's out there. Yeah.
Nick Gayeski: Hopefully Jim Junior's out there. So. You know, I think that's representative of this challenge we're facing.
And we, we definitely need people with, with super specialized skill sets like that, who can really. Um, tackle those types of challenging problems. And then we also need people that sort of span skill sets and have a, have a diversity of experience so they can coordinate. But the, the thing that I picked up on from what Lauren said is this consultative, um, people skill set, I think is also really important to talk about, um, you know, organizations that are working to transform the way they manage facilities.
You know, often need help with the vision of how they're going to do it, why they're going to do it, how they make the business case to do it, how they get broader leadership engagement to make that happen. And there's a [00:24:00]consultative aspect of that, um, that is also highly in demand and hard to find. And it's definitely a different skill set than, you know, being an expert, uh, in one building automation system or certain types of HVAC.
So, by all means, that sort of people, those, those skills, we'll call them soft skills, but consultative skills, uh, are, are really important too.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Back in the IT world, programmers used to be always the ones in the shadows, right? Literally, they were always in the dark doing their coding. A lot of times now, they are much more, they have to be out front to consult and explain and work with customers.
Microsoft On it. So they had to learn a skill that originally they were vampires living in the fricking cave. And now they had to come out and into the light and, and work with customers, which was not 20 years ago. That was not the case. And I feel like it's much more prevalent [00:25:00] now. Uh, and that's where I think we are a little bit on the, in the, uh, FDD world or the analyst in the controls world is where we're kind of come out much more in the light And be more transparent with the customer and explain these things and get some more value at depth and that takes time
Nick Gayeski: Real quick.
So there are parallels Um to the start of our business with what laurence was saying. I think that as clockworks got started Much of what we were replacing were engineers doing projects You So mechanical engineers doing hundreds or thousands of hours of work for a customer. Uh, maybe doing some auditing, maybe doing some data analysis, writing reports, coming up with various strategies.
Um, and so that is a highly consultative sort of high touch approach. Um, and now you've got analytics and automation and software [00:26:00] replacing a lot of that very expensive high touch approach. But you still need People who can talk with, with the customer on how to get it done. And that's both internal and external, whether it's working with their service vendor or internally, someone who can help leadership understand what they need to do.
Um, you still have to translate that into, into action and decision making. So the parallel I see is sort of the tech that we've been building replaces a lot of manual engineering work in the past that was highly consultative. And there's still this need for a consultative touch to it that is being That is, that is migrating to different roles than they were in the past.
Lewis Martin: And just to jump in there, I think this is where a lot of people think AI is going to take their place, but I just can't see that happening anytime soon. I think there's still that mesh that Nick's talking about.
James Dice: Okay, let's put a bow on that. Those are, those are the skills that we're looking for, that we're talking [00:27:00] about here.
I think I'd also like to say that this, uh, What we're sort of zeroing in on one sort of category, maybe two categories of technology here. There are other categories. They have similar needs as well. I'm talking about changing the user experience in an office building. There's going to be similar integration issues, similar technical issues, similar people skills that are needed there.
So let's just sort of point that out, but let's jump into the challenges with attracting people to these roles and these and training them into these skill sets. I think the place I'd like to start, and when I asked you guys what your thought your challenges were, you all said this in some way, shape, or form.
Um, The big one is getting more people into our industry. So sort of attracting people into smart buildings as a thing that they might be excited about in their career. Right. And so Lewis, I'd love for you to kick us off. Like, how do you think about selling our industry, [00:28:00] um, and, and getting people to sort of come from other industries or come from college even into this world?
Lewis Martin: Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question. Um, I mean, I've only had eight years experience in this space, right? So I'm, I'm not a, uh, well, it's not a bad thing, but I'm not a veteran like Nick or Lawrence over there. But during that eight year period, what I've seen is that we as an industry love the industry.
It's very much mission driven. Um, there's a ton of really great organizations out there doing incredible things that 10 years ago we didn't think was possible. But, outward looking, we're very poor at showcasing why someone would, why someone would want to join the space. I'm not sure why that is, but every time you talk to someone, Um, at these conferences, they're, they're having the same conversations about we can't sell the industry, although you can sell it to your [00:29:00] clients, to your partners, to, um, to experienced employees coming in.
We seem to, we seem to have a hard time showcasing why someone would want to join the space. Um, I think that's going to change, especially with technology being more prominent technologies like clockworks. Um, companies like Long are integrating that, um, but a lot of the people, when we talk about building automation or HVAC, they think, and even real estate to an extent, they think old industry, not innovating, probably not going to start my career there.
Whereas I think we need to do a better job at changing the narrative on what your career could look like. Um, and there's some good initiatives out there that are starting to do that, but we need tenfold of those.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Well, I guess I could add that we want to get more awareness of the industry, and that's why we're working with trade schools and other schools, uh, to get teenagers exposed [00:30:00] to controls in HVAC, uh, industry, so they have the ability to, uh, You know, see it as a career.
See that there's something there to do. Not everybody's going to go to college, and I believe the trades have been under reported as far as the value of them, whatever the industry, but in particular our industry. So we're trying to get people here a couple days a week during those programs in order to expose them what Long's like and what HVAC and controls or mechanical or whatever it is.
Um, I think that will be helpful In breeding, if you will, um, a new farm system of people that will help expand the talent because a lot of times the talent we see out there and Lewis, I'm sure is familiar with this is you're seeing the same type of people or the same people sometimes just being retreaded through because it's the, the pool people is really a puddle.
It's not really a big pool. So [00:31:00] we need to, we need to increase that.
James Dice: I think it'd be a good time to talk about the data here. We have, we've pulled some data, not we, you guys have pulled some data. Um, and what it's basically showing is that there are, if I could sort of summarize what you guys have told me and we'll sort of expand it.
There are, the pool's too small. To use that same analogy that Lawrence said, there aren't enough people and there are a lot of open jobs and people are having trouble filling them. And the jobs that are happening are people changing from one company to the next. So we're poaching the same people rather than sort of.
Growing the pool, adding to it. Is that, is that a good summary? Can we talk about that data a little bit more?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, I'll jump in with some of what I looked up. Um, so yeah, the data that I recently looked at from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh, was that, uh, there's about 415, 000 HVAC [00:32:00] technician jobs in the U S market and HVAC technician is not necessarily all of what we're talking about here, but I think this is representative of many different types of roles within our industry.
So 415, 000 HVAC technician jobs. Roughly 37, 000 open positions every year with, uh, growth at 6 percent per year, which is double, um, the industry, the average for jobs generally in the U. S. market, if I remember it correctly. And then the other data point is, um, some analysis in a trade journal on roughly one in four of those jobs.
unlikely to get billed, and that's probably an underestimate as, as Lewis may want to comment on. Um, so to the extent that's indicative of many different roles across the industry, which I think it is at least directionally, um, we're going to have a major shortage. [00:33:00] of people to fill these roles and we're going to have to solve that through the kitchen sink, right?
We've got to do everything we can to solve that problem. Yeah, and just to jump on that, I think, uh,
Lewis Martin: the way in which I see it as there's short term and long term challenges to talent in our industry. Um, short term, what Lawrence is saying, it's basically a puddle in terms of the people that we're speaking to or people we're trying to recruit for organizations like Log or Clockworks.
So, 10 years down, industry people, the people actually joining the industry is down, people leaving the industry is going up due to retirement, jobs are going up. If we look at COVID. Building automation was one of the most, and I say stable with quote marks, but stable industries going because it was a right to work during COVID industry.
Um, and the demand for building automation, the demand for HVAC, especially [00:34:00] with, uh, don't want to go into it too much, but with climate change is going up. So we need to look at short term initiatives, which we'll come on to, but longterm initiatives, which is actually thinking about what your pipeline of people are going to look like in five to 10 years.
And Again, not to reference Lawrence too much during this, but those initiatives that Long are doing need to be replicated by every organization that want to, that want to move the needle. Otherwise we'll be having, we'll be having, perhaps not will, but they'll be having the same conversations when they go to conferences or trade shows in three or five years.
And following on from what Nick mentioned, I pulled together a mini talent report, a couple of talent reports, which we'll share in the show notes with the Nexus community just around talent and the diversity of talent. Um, if we look at Niagara, as in Trillium Niagara, the skill set there, [00:35:00] um, there's around 12, 000 people that have Trillium Niagara experience, um, give or take.
Um, and. There's over three and a half thousand jobs currently needing Twitter Niagara experience. There's, there's more, there's more companies looking for individuals with. The Niagara experience than what there are actually looking to leave. So we need to think about how we're trying to get these individuals going through either certification or actually in projects that are using the Niagara program.
And again, I'm referencing Niagara, but there's a variety of others that we can highlight, but that is one of the most prominent in the space. In this report, what we can see is that 90 percent of the individuals that have Niagara experience are male, um, and about 10 or 11 percent are female, which I'm personally not necessarily surprised about, but it is, it is disappointing to [00:36:00] see that level of disparity across the industry.
James Dice: Yeah. Yeah. Let me just circle back real quick on the Niagara piece, 12, 000 people with those skill sets. There are 6 million commercial buildings in the United States. I don't know, my math isn't automatic, but like, that's not anywhere near what we need. Um, on the diversity piece, um, we're certainly Experiencing that as we put together a conference and we look at who's going to be there and all the speakers that are going to be up on stage.
Um, Lawrence and Nick, how do you think about, um, the diversity of the candidate and the pool, people in the pool and what that means for your businesses?
Lawrence Trifiletti: Well, I don't think, I mean, you just based off resumes, I think Lewis would say this too. It's that you see nine out of 10 probably is accurate as far as like nine are male, one's a female, maybe.
And so, um, yeah, it just hasn't been exposed again. We've done a very bad job advertising the industry. And I think that's really [00:37:00] what has to change and to show that it's, it's, it's diverse enough within skillsets that it, that it's, it's both lucrative for them and job satisfaction for, for whomever wants to do it.
And I think. We have to, again, if you want to expand the pool, you can't leave out half the population. You need to show that the other half of the population that there is some value to it. And I certainly have some, uh, some of my top techs are on, on females as well. So they're good examples. They go to, they go to, um, I don't know what their conference is, but they go to shows at schools, like, uh, for females, for engineers, and they're all trying to push that, uh, that diversity, uh, as much as they can.
But, like I said, we still have a ways to go on advertising the show. We're cool and stuff, so.
Lewis Martin: And just to jump on that, I think it can also be quite challenging when you want to [00:38:00] create a more diverse audience. team because if you're going out there and saying I want more females and that can be classed as positive discrimination.
I think the easiest way that we support clients on on making it so that it's an experience higher and they go off experience as opposed to Then what they look like or the names, not that our clients do or anyone does, is we take off and redact all personal, um, and some professional information that may be able to showcase whether that is a, um, whether they are male or female.
And then, and then you're, you're essentially hiring the best person for the role.
Lawrence Trifiletti: Yeah, and I would say that's exactly right, but we want to increase the pool of people or pool resumes we have. And if you're doing only off half the population, it doesn't help you as much as doing off all the population.
And I think that's what we're really looking for is. You know, diversity to me is just like a lot more resumes of a lot of different skill sets of people that are interested [00:39:00] in doing this. And then we can hire the best people based off that. And so, again, infusing new blood into it, that's one of the avenues to do it, is to make it more diverse.
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, picking up on that, I think we've been very fortunate, um, to, to have exceptional women on our team. Um, and I think gender is not, you know, the only variable of diversity. Um, it's important that people from all walks of life have the opportunity, um, to get into this industry and to get the skills and to meet the need we have for, for, um, for the jobs.
And as Lawrence pointed out, and I think maybe all of you to some extent, you know, marketing this industry, sort of the message around what this industry is. Um, needs to draw people to it. And you know, why, why do people head into the direction? You know, you can ask yourself that question. I think there's job stability, [00:40:00] there's opportunity, there's innovation.
Um, there's, you know, matching what they feel their strengths are to what the needs of that industry are. I'm not, I'm not an expert on these things, but there's so many different reasons. Can you, can you communicate to people from all those walks of life about what the opportunity is for them in this industry?
We've touched on it earlier. There's technical skillsets, there's hands on skillsets, there's data analytics skillsets, there's people skillsets, there's business skillsets, and changing the perception that sort of buildings and HVAC and, and controls are like, Just a very technical male dominated industry to something that is much more thriving, which it is, um, evolving and techie, which it is also very impactful and mission driven and has a big role to play in [00:41:00] improving the world.
You know, let's reach people with messages like that, that draw them into this industry. And I think if we, If we get better at that, and I say we here, not really knowing who the we is, right? We, like a lot of different players, have to help change the messaging. Then you can attract people from all walks of life into it.
And I will plug, I think, Lewis, you're probably coming in here, efforts like Stacks and Joules, um, great for, for this kind of thing.
Lewis Martin: This might sound like a, this might sound like a joke, but, um, we almost need a smart buildings marketing consortium. Where we can, we can put money in and then we can distribute content and marketing ads out to various states or across the United States so that we can actually look at different paths to bring people in.
Um, again, referring to what I mentioned previously about this, we're moving towards content driven [00:42:00] strategies to win business. And again, this could be another option for using. I don't know, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, to find people at a really early age and put an ad on them and it's like, wow, I didn't realize what building automation was or what HVAC is.
Um, it could be far fetched, but it's an idea that I've had for quite some time.
James Dice: Yeah. I mean, we've had the idea as well. We had a, um, There's a, there's a guy named Sam who took the, our course a couple of years ago and he approached us and said, I want to create a documentary about smart buildings. It's so cool.
And we actually filmed the trailer last year and he's been trying to find someone to pick it up, um, since then. Um, because I do feel like there's opportunity to tell this story on a bigger, uh, a bigger audience. Yeah. So, um, hopefully we can get something like that to, To get some legs at some point, let's talk about the solutions.
So we've talked a little bit about, um, a couple of different [00:43:00] solutions so far, but I want to kind of frame this in a couple of different ways. When I listened to you guys, it feels like we were talking about each company creating their own pipeline. That's a word that you use Louis a couple of minutes ago, thinking about what their pipeline Needs to be constructed of in order to attract the people that they're trying to attract.
Right. And then we have industry wide initiatives that we can sort of all get behind. Right. So if we're thinking about all of us being in Denver at the Nexus con in a few weeks, um, by the time this comes out, we'll, we'll be there probably. Um, we're going to probably want to talk about all the things that everyone at the conference can get behind.
Right. So there's two things. Let's start with the pipeline piece. So each company needing a pipeline. Lewis, it was your word. I want to start with you. What does this pipeline need to look like for each company?
Lewis Martin: Following in the digital path. Um, and I'm going to use Nick as an example, just because, [00:44:00] um, he's, uh, published, uh, um, a similar, uh, strategy that, that we advise to our clients.
Um, but if you think about LinkedIn, for example, which is predominantly where people go to find. Um, talent for their organizations, or for example, in my world, as a recruitment business owner, we use LinkedIn 90 percent of the time. We may use other platforms, but it's predominantly LinkedIn. So we need to look at how we transfer the marketing strategy, um, of selling to customers into the marketing strategy for building pipeline for future employees.
And Clockwork's had a really, um, a really good example of this recently. And I'm sure you'll put the link in the show notes, but it's a video which is really showcasing what the business is about, where it came from, the mission, speaking to a couple of employees from [00:45:00] different departments and why they joined and why they're still there.
And it talks to the audience in a different way, as opposed to what a job advert would, or just a, a word, um, document on, on their LinkedIn. really showcasing And if you think about the marketing strategy, you're always looking to bring in different channels, um, or, or different types of media, whether it's emails or whether it's, um, articles, podcasts, videos.
I think Clockworks has done, have done a really good example of that. And that's perhaps why they are able to attract and then also retain the talent that they've got, because they've got individuals on that video, That promote the business and advocates for the business. That would be one of the steps that I would advise organisations to put into it.
It takes time. There's a little bit of investment from a, from a, um, from a marketing standpoint, but, um, there will be benefits [00:46:00] over the short and long term of hiring people. Fascinating. And
James Dice: Nick, do you want to add anything to that?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, I'll just add, I think employer branding is not something every company does.
And, you know, to put it simply, it's who are you and what are you about? What are you trying to accomplish? What types of people? Draw them, are drawn to that and want to join your team and be a part of it, right? You want to make sure people understand, um, The bigger picture of what you're trying to do. So that's, that's what that was about for us.
James Dice: So Lawrence, we talked a little bit about your pipeline earlier. Can you talk about how you're thinking about the pipeline when you think about engaging trade schools and things like that, building the long pipeline?
Lawrence Trifiletti: Yeah, so I think the trade schools for us are there. So we're trying to expand and expose people who are not familiar with our industry at all.
I think, uh, you know, a lot of trade [00:47:00] schools, they'll have electricians, they'll have, you know, Uh, we want to kind of be in that same vernacular where we're exposing people to what HVAC is. When I got into HVAC, uh, you know, I couldn't even spell it, so to speak. I, you know, didn't know what it was. And, and really, uh, Uh, you had to enter into it and see the, all the possibilities.
We also, like, uh, Lewis said, we do a lot of social media to shows and exposes how great long is and why we're a great place to work and why we do innovative things with videos and things like that. Uh, but that really just touches people who know the industry more or less, uh, and that attracts that talent, but really on the trade schools is to attract a whole different, uh, people.
Population that knows nothing about what the heck it is. And now that's where, that's where we'll hopefully in a few years, see some, uh, it bears some fruit.
James Dice: And this is really, it's really striking me [00:48:00] all the parallels between marketing your product or service and marketing your company to talent. Um, When we talk about marketing your product or service, we work with all of our partners, ClockWorks included, to basically say, well first it's validating your category.
So ClockWorks does FDD, validating that a builder, a building owner needs to think about FDD and prioritize that in their smart buildings program. Um, it seems like the same arc needs to happen With all of us, as we think about marketing first, the smart buildings industry, and then it's almost like twofold.
And then us, why we're special in the smart buildings industry. So let's talk about those industry wide initiatives now. Like how can we all sort of work together? I think a lot of times in our industry, we like to think we're more. Competitive than we actually are, right? The first goal should, for all of us should be to say like, Hey, come into this world.
It feels like, so we've talked about stacks and jewels. Um, what are the other ways in [00:49:00] which, and then stacks and jewels, people can check out our episode with them. That explains sort of how that, how that, um, program works. It's amazing program. We all sort of want it to grow and scale to every city. Um, Let's, let's leave that aside a little bit.
People can dive into that later. What are the other sort of ways in which we can all sort of work together to grow the, grow the talent pool?
Lawrence Trifiletti: I was just saying like with it, you know, obviously good partnerships, like with Clockworks and others, expands our exposure and, and pool, different pools. We expose Clockworks to probably different clients that, and vice versa.
Is that what we're, is that what you're kind of thinking about? Kind of like, exposing us to different things.
Lewis Martin: Not necessarily NexusCon, but I've always thought, uh, the likes of RealCom and, uh, I think AHR do it a little bit, but not as much. Um, I'm missing an opportunity by [00:50:00] not inviting the local colleges and universities to that conference.
Um, so that they can get first hand exposure of like, what it is like. And I don't want to keep talking about Stacks and Jules. Um, because we, we've spoken about them, but they've obviously brought individuals to different conferences and it's been a phenomenal exposure for Saxon Jewels, for the students that are going there, which then also supports them and really understanding where do I see my place in the industry.
Um, I think if we're going to work together, which I, which I think we all should be working towards this because otherwise in 10 years, we might not have an industry if there's no people. Um, but working together to, to showcase what it's like to work in this industry, um, and where your place could be now, but also in the future.
Um, we often talk about. Technology [00:51:00] and silos within that, um, I would say it's, it's also fairly similar within talent. Everyone has their own mini initiative or they're trying to figure it out, where I think that there is argument for us all working together to create something bigger that helps us, um, over the next five to ten years.
Nick Gayeski: Lauren said something earlier about PAS technicians historically working in the shadows and sort of now kind of coming out of the shadows a little bit with some of these technologies and needing to engage the customer and I see a parallel there to our industry as a whole. The facility operations side of the real estate business has been working in the shadows.
We're sort of behind the scenes, like keeping everything running, making sure things work smoothly, and I think there's a certain amount of coming out of the shadows for this whole side of the industry, um, [00:52:00] engaging in communities like NexusCon. Marketing themselves and what they do more aggressively and why it's important to the world, why it's an attractive job to have and career to be in, why it's a good place to be.
And I think the power we have in that is just how impactful it is, right? Like, In the U. S., 70 percent of the electricity consumption through building, 40 percent of the energy, 40 percent of the carbon emissions, so much opportunity for impact, so much job security, job growth, um, lots of innovation today.
It's, sure, it's a slow moving industry because these are real physical assets with a lot of equipment. A lot of capital, you know, expense to them and so on, but, you know, digitization, technology, AI analytics, all hitting the industry hard. So I think coming out of the shadows to really be vocal about what we're doing through things like engaging in, in the Nexus community.
Like marketing yourselves and not just like [00:53:00] how you're different, but why it's important, because I think talking about why, what we do is important draws people to the industry as a whole, not, you know, why our product is the best or why, um, you know, people should choose Clockworks over anybody else.
It's really like, why does it matter? Why is it important? And I think that draws people in.
Lewis Martin: If we think about Gen Z. There's a stat which showcases that they are, they are more likely to join an organization that's mission driven, as opposed to one that's not. And I think there's argument here to say that every organization, or the majority of organizations in our space, Is mission driven one way or another.
James Dice: Absolutely. So talking about that mission and talking about that, why first love it. All right. So let's, let's do a little rapid fire round to close this off. Um, what will you guys be investing in over the next 12 months in terms of talent? And what do you [00:54:00] think listeners should be? Should be doing give, give people some actions here.
Lewis Martin: We, uh, we as an organization are donating 5 percent of our revenue to Stacks and Jewels in year two. Um, and I think everyone should look to follow in Lawrence's and Long's footsteps in terms of creating that local talent pool of individuals that may not necessarily know what burden automation or HVAC is.
Uh, but with a little bit of support and effort and time from your current employees. So Louis answered my question, so,
Lawrence Trifiletti: or answered my question. Thanks, Louis.
James Dice: Well, I'll build onto it. This is a local problem, right? So engaging in all of our local communities is where it starts. Nick, how about you?
Nick Gayeski: Yeah, for us, there may be some differences here.
I mean, Part of what we do is our investment in product, specifically how to connect [00:55:00] buildings, how to work with the information model, how to use it. We see sort of an obligation to make that easier and easier and easier because, partly because at least, Of the skill gap. Um, we need to make it so easy that wherever you are in the industry coming into it, um, you can engage with it and get the job done.
And so a lot of our investment really goes into that. How do you simplify, simplify, simplify. Um, of course we are, um, going to continue to hire. Um, we're going to be hiring, uh, to do that, but, um, to, to, to onboard buildings and to, to support and serve our customers, but another piece that's happening is. A lot of our clients, both partners and end customer clients, are hiring for roles, um, to use FDD, um, to manage their portfolios.
So working with them on where they go, [00:56:00] see candidates, what communities they engage with to find those candidates. Advising them on who to talk to and how to build their own pipelines is part of what we have to do. So you said action items for people. I would, I guess I would leave them with educate themselves on the organizations we mentioned, whether it's Stacks and Jewels or the Nexus community.
Um, because if you're watching this video, then you, well, you've probably already been a Nexus, but, um, you're probably in a position to go hire some of these people or in an organization that are looking for people like this. So, engage in the communities where this discussion is happening. Um, try to draw people into it by speaking about it.
James Dice: All right. I'll close us off, uh, speaking on behalf of Nexus. We obviously have NexusCon coming up and we, we intend to bring all of us together to be talking about these things, but we're also planning on continuing to Invest in our partner program, right? [00:57:00] So, um, partnership with Lewis, partnership with Nick, and we really are, are seeing ourselves more and more as an advocate for the industry.
We're not just partnered with Nick. We're also partnered with other FDD providers, right? And seeing ourselves as the ones that are helping tell those stories on a broader, broader level. And we're going to continue to sort of invest in that as well. So thank you all for being here. Thanks to all the listeners.
Uh, thanks Lawrence, Lewis and Nick for For giving your like raw thoughts on this. We don't have this solved at all. Um, but it's more of like, here's where we're at. And I really appreciate you guys coming on to, to talk about where we're at.
Rosy Khalife: Okay. Friends, thank you for listening to this episode as we continue to grow our global community of change makers. We need your help for the next couple of months. We're challenging our listeners to share a link to their favorite Nexus episode on LinkedIn with a short post about why you listen. [00:58:00] It would really, really help us out.
Make sure to tag us in the post so we can see it. Have a good one.
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