Bringing Talent Into the Fold

There are numerous paths to a career in the trades, as well as many advantages that make the journey worth taking. Last fall, HRAI welcomed several trades champions to its 2024 conference to explore the benefits of working in sectors like HVAC and how to build a future-ready workforce.

“It’s just such a rewarding job,” says Jessica Bannister, operations manager and level 4 apprentice with Cam Cool Refrigeration Inc., “For me, no two days are the same. I’m always visiting super interesting places, working with my hands and solving real problems for people.”

“There’s nothing like the feeling of taking on a challenging job and getting that system to work,” she adds. 

Entering the trades wasn’t Bannister’s initial plan, despite having a father who had spent his career in HVAC and a brother who followed suit. “Growing up, I'd never seen a person that looked like me, a girl, doing what my dad did,” she says. “I always liked working with my hands and solving problems, but it never occurred to me to get into HVAC.”

Nevertheless, Bannister decided to give the sector a shot in her mid-30s. Now, several years into her HVAC journey, she is thankful to have applied her talents to a field that provides satisfying work and a good living. She is also eager to promote the occupation to other women through her work as co-chair of Women in HVACR Canada, her social media outreach and industry events like HRAI’s conference. “I want other women and girls to see me enjoying what I do. I also want parents to see me doing my job because there’s still a stigma that getting a job in the skilled trades after high school is taking the easy way out, when that’s not the case at all.”

Ultimately, she adds, “It's so important for people to realize that these careers are as challenging as they are rewarding.”

Darnell Epps is equally keen on promoting careers in the trades. His experience comes from attending a technical college in Connecticut, U.S., while studying at Yale Law School’s Law and Racial Justice Center. “I wanted to get an understanding of the particular skills that employers were looking for because a lot of the clinical work I was doing with the Law and Racial Justice Center brought me face to face with low-income communities in the greater New Haven area, where residents were looking to non-retail and non-food service sector jobs that paid a living wage. At the same time, there were so many employers in the state of Connecticut looking to fill vacancies.”

While training, Darnell split his days between reading case law and learning the tools of various trades. Finding the time wasn’t easy, he recalls, but the experience confirmed his desire to create and launch Thurgood, a trades career platform, and help connect people to advantageous employment opportunities.

“[A career in the trades] provides the opportunity to earn a living wage fresh out of high school, or a job that offsets some of the expense of college,” he says. “It’s a chance to have a dignified and worthwhile career that is just as intellectually stimulating and rewarding as other career tracks.”

Both Bannister and Epps continue to promote the upsides of life in the trades from both sides of the border. In Canada, they are joined by advocates across the HVAC community who are working to attract more professionals to the field.

“There's just not enough people coming into the trades to satisfy the demand for workers, and it’s even tougher for HVAC since it can be a bit of an obscure trade relative to some of the better-known ones,” says Martin Luymes, vice president, government and stakeholder relations with HRAI.

The HVAC talent shortage isn’t new by any stretch. Since starting with HRAI nearly 30 years ago, Luymes and his colleagues at HRAI have been approaching the labour gap from various angles. Today, however, increased sector demand and complexities related to a shifting marketplace have turned up the pressure.

“BuildForce Canada has studied the problem, and their modelling shows that the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, mainly in the residential retrofit business, will need to see a 400-per-cent increase in skilled talent just to meet new product demands and to help in the transformation to low-carbon (electric) solutions,” he explains.

That demand for HVAC talent cannot be met by new recruits alone, he continues. There is a pressing need to upskill existing technicians to ensure they are equipped and ready to lead in the coming age of heat pumps and electric heating alternatives. 

To that end, HRAI is conducting a large-scale study of existing gas technicians to identify and address these skill gaps. The study is funded in part by Natural Resources Canada and by Environment and Climate Change Canada. Through it, technicians are paid to undergo an assessment to determine how confident and competent they are regarding the skills needed to install and service heat pumps.

“There are about 52,000 gas technicians in Ontario alone, most of whom are working in the residential heating and cooling sector, and most of them lacking key skills to work with heat pumps,” says Luymes. “So, we thought, why don't we assess those gas technicians to determine how much they know, how much they don't know and what training they need to upskill in a reasonable period of time, and without necessarily sending them back to restart in a new trade school program.”

HRAI’s study has completed its first stage, and its plans are to take what comes out of the report and share it across the country, and possibly perform additional gap analyses where needed in other regions where the results might be different.

In addition to defining the issue and advocating for solutions, HRAI is working on securing $15 million in funding from the federal government’s Sustainable Jobs Training Fund to help support HVAC retraining for a large number of technicians. It is also encouraging employers to upskill their workforce through initiatives like its Heat Pump Champions program that recognizes and promotes contractors who have made the investment in training, while also creating resources to help smaller HVAC employers navigate and make better use of the existing apprenticeship system.

These are among the workforce-enhancing strategies on HRAI’s agenda, and with support from trades advocates like Bannister and Epps, HRAI hopes to raise the HVAC industry’s profile among potential recruits.

“This is a chance to be part of an industry that's making a difference in reducing carbon emissions – where workers can actually take action to help the planet and reduce global warming by delivering tangible solutions,” says Luymes. “We are seeing that this has become a real point of attraction for young people who want to make money, have a successful career and enjoy a work-life balance while also doing meaningful work.”

Certainly, the more that is done to highlight the advantages of a career in the trades, the better. As such, there is value in sharing stories from individuals who have experienced these benefits for themselves, and industry insiders who work behind the scenes to bridge the talent gaps.

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