Investing in your employees

CCS Influencer Lisa Irby says it's imperative that all technicians are experienced and knowledgeable of the products they are installing.

One of CoatingsCoffeeShop's™ goals is to bring the industry together in one place to meet. And one way we do this is by creating a space for industry influencers to share the expertise and knowledge with others. To help foster conversations about relevant industry topics, we send each of our CCS Influencers a question or prompt to answer on a monthly basis. This month, we wanted to hear their thoughts and advice on setting up best practices for quality control with liquid-applied systems. Here's what Lisa Irby of Thomas Roofing had to say:

We have trained our employees and certified them to install liquid applied systems. We install coatings inhouse so for us it’s imperative that the technicians are all experienced and knowledgeable of the products they are installing. We prefer to work with the manufacturer on training and if possible, get an “approved applicator” certification. We also have a manager for this department that is very involved in each system being installed. If we’re doing a new system then we will train him and then he will be onsite with the crew. We also like to reward our technicians if they get a 100 on the warranty inspection. It encourages them to get this every time and really helps the moral of the team. We wrap our service body trucks and recently starting using the coating jobs as the wrap. That crew smiles every time they see their work riding down the road, it’s the best pat on the back you can provide. The bottom line is if you invest in your employees, they reward your investment by doing proper applications and having pride in their work.

About Lisa Irby

Lisa started at Thomas Roofing on April 11, 1991, as a data entry clerk, and was promoted to Service Department Manager in 2002. Lisa was promoted to vice president in January 2019. Thomas Roofing started with 1 service truck and a salesman. Currently, they have two salesmen, one coordinator, a superintendent and 9 service trucks. Lisa’s department handles repairs to all roof types and sheet metal-related repairs. They also handle and perform roof coatings. Thomas Roofing is a little over 4 million a year service department with a little over 1.5 in coatings.