2025 Jan-Feb RETA Breeze

This slide emphasizes the importance of rewarding your team with toys when applicable. Small rewards that benefit the employees at little or no costs. In our industry, handing out tools with the company logo on it is always a great reward. I can’t tell you how many tools I have in the garage right now that have a refrigeration contractor’s logo on it. I used to work in a building where it was a big deal if you had an office with a window. When an office with one would come available, I would always ask for one. Eventually I was able to get one, and I thought it was the coolest thing! Sometimes, little things like this can motivate employees or reward them. The presenter said that you should provide three times as much positive feedback as negative. Never assume that excellence is just part of the job, always take time to congratulate your team and teammates on a job well done. As a parent, this slide really hit home. We discipline to teach not to punish. We should never punish our co-workers. Work to improve the team. Punishment will build resentment and may lead to reprisals. Neither of which is conducive to a good team atmosphere. This slide is a great reminder for all of us. Pay is important. Pay isn’t the only factor in building and keeping your team together, but it is an element to it. Communication is key. I love the “fair does not always mean equal” comment. We must always treat our team fair, we do not have to treat them equal. The presenter was very pro-training. If you have someone who you are thinking of moving into a new role, take advantage of training opportunities to train them. The thought of training people for non-job related things scares me a little. I would be concerned that they would leave when they were trained. So, I think the presenter is right, use caution. The discussion on contractors was great. Most people don’t think about how invested contractors are at a facility. After working at the facility on projects, they have a tremendous amount of ownership. I appreciated the comment that contractors are normally specialists in their fields. I have built relationships with all of my customers, there are several facilities that are home away from home for me. This was a great slide. Operator ownership is the ultimate goal, once achieved we have reached refrigeration operator utopia. I recommend the presentation. I think it’s a great reminder of what we all knew, and some may have forgotten.

Sarah Selzer is a Compliance Specialist for APSM. Her opinions are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her teammates at APSM. She has the distinction of having held a RETA chapter office as a teenager, the privilege of growing up in a refrigeration contracting firm, and the curse of thinking about refrigeration compliance all the time.

26 RETA.com