Speaker 1 00:00:04 Welcome
Speaker 2 00:00:05 To the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by pg t I University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
Speaker 0 00:00:16 Good
Speaker 1 00:00:17 Morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast <laugh>, and today in our executive update series we have two guys that I really appreciate working with and that is Rob Molds and Jim Shank. Thank you guys for making time and coming over with me this morning so we can chat about what we're doing. It's great
Speaker 3 00:00:35 To be here. Yeah, thanks Sherry.
Speaker 1 00:00:36 I know it was um, not necessarily your favorite thing to do, but I felt like our team has a lot of things to keep people abreast of and what's happening and you know, they get their information either from social media or the sales teams or by osmosis, but I wanted to make an official podcast about what we're up to. So Rob, there have been some shifts within our team and specifically a role change for you. So can you share a little bit about what prompted that and what your visions are for our team? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:01:08 It's pretty exciting. So over the last several years, the sales team, the sales leaders have become incredible, very strong team. And after 30 years of being in sales, I had a tremendous opportunity and that opportunity lives in human resources, not sales, but it still maintains influence over sales effectiveness, you know, both the top line and the bottom line. So officially now I'm in HR and I'm the VP of talent and Strategic learning and this lines up better with my formal education. Still love the sales team, but this is something new and I think it's a great opportunity.
Speaker 1 00:01:40 And so I understand that learning is valuable for the individual, but how does that contribute to the bottom line? Well,
Speaker 3 00:01:47 It's pretty interesting. So we had incredible success with training externally with our dealers, code enforcement officials, architects. And that was mainly focused on product knowledge and installation. But post covid, post the Great resignation, we're seeing a very competitive job market. So we saw the success that we had in our PG t I university with our dealer and outside partners. We're like, why don't we turn that tool that we have that we're having such great success with and turn it inward. So by doing that, we're addressing the talent opportunity that many of ourselves are, all of our locations and our dealer partners are facing. There's a competition for talent and we need to get people to see that talent is our most valuable resource and if we invest in that, if we can get our team members to invest in themselves, the result for everybody is gonna be better.
Speaker 1 00:02:38 Right. So that trickles down into our dealer audience in that same way. Right. Maybe not to the scale that we can offer because we're a very large organization now, but for our dealers, like if they only have 10 or 15 employees, like for them to invest in their team members like that helps them too, right?
Speaker 3 00:02:57 Yeah, I think it's even more critical cuz when you look at the percentage of people, if one person leaves, when you have 15 people, that's huge. So we're all competing for talent. We need to, you know, look at our people and the opportunity that they have to invest and to represent our company and to really provide revenue for our company and invest in them. We need them to see their positions as careers, not jobs. They need to have long term vision as to what the company can provide to them. As a business owner, I would want to have bench strength where I knew that there was, you know, a little bit of redundancy or that I had somebody coming up to support a manager or a leader. We want them job satisfaction. We find that when people have satisfaction in their job that they work better, they work smarter, they work harder, uh, and you decrease turnover,
Speaker 1 00:03:43 Right? Cuz turnover is expensive.
Speaker 3 00:03:45 Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:03:46 Like there's a difference between hiring someone because you're expanding and hiring someone because somebody got mad and left and now you've got a hole.
Speaker 3 00:03:54 Yeah, I don't remember the statistics, but it's dependent on the, the industry's five or $10,000 just to hire somebody and get them trained. That doesn't count all the lost knowledge that whoever left took with them. That's just to get them up to the bare minimum. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:04:08 That's expensive can be And training, I mean especially if it's through us for our dealers, I mean, yes, it's the time for that employee to absorb that knowledge and put it into practice, but it's not like we're charging an enrollment fee for PT t I University. Yeah. I mean, at least not yet. <laugh>. Just kidding.
Speaker 3 00:04:27 No, it's a win-win for everybody and we don't need to charge for it, but it's incredible that we can provide this free and have people invest in themselves.
Speaker 1 00:04:36 So Jim,
Speaker 4 00:04:38 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:04:39 You instigated this whole thing a couple of years ago and then brought me on and said, Hey Sherry, can you help figure out how to make this happen? And so we did. Please.
Speaker 3 00:04:49 I think you did not,
Speaker 1 00:04:50 Not we. No,
Speaker 4 00:04:51 Please make it happen. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:04:54 So we're talking about the certification program that we launched last year. So that kicked off in like mid-January of 22. And since then we have put in place 33 different certifications. So a lot of those are around product, but a lot of them are also around services and installation. And so can you talk about any specific numbers regarding how many have been awarded or anything like that?
Speaker 4 00:05:22 Well, yes I can. You know, it's an interesting situation because when we launched this as you know, we didn't know how popular it was gonna be. Everybody's busy in their work days and so we just didn't know how much time people would put towards a certification program. However, since we launched the program as of this morning, we have provided 844 certifications since the program launched. Wow. Which is just astounding to me and I'm very happy about it. And you get all the credit you've, you've done the majority of the hard lift, so
Speaker 1 00:05:54 Nah, I just do my job. You're the one that came up with it. I think it's awesome.
Speaker 4 00:05:58 You do it well,
Speaker 1 00:05:58 Thank you.
Speaker 4 00:05:59 Yeah, we enjoy having you.
Speaker 1 00:06:01 So have we gotten any feedback from dealers on this? I know we did create some incentives around that for some of our mm-hmm. <affirmative>, other dealers, but have we gotten any feedback around that?
Speaker 4 00:06:11 We do. We receive feedback quite often actually. And it comes from places that we didn't necessarily expect, which I love. We've gotten a lot of conversation from dealers that have, you know, staff that have gone through some of the certification programs and they've seen increase in productivity because of it. Not only from a sales standpoint but also from an installation standpoint. Fewer errors during the install and so forth. And even some of our retail partners have been talking to us about the certification program and what that means to their organization on a national basis. So, um, we're very excited about it and we're gonna continue to grow it. There's many more things coming up.
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Speaker 1 00:07:06 Nice. I know I'm never gonna run out of things to do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 4 00:07:09 That's right. Job security.
Speaker 1 00:07:12 Right. Well and I like that it gives the credential to the learner and so as people maybe make job changes or things like that, there's a way of verifying that they know what they're doing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And even if you've been around for a while and you already know everything, it's just nice validation that you know everything. Or at least what we're asking you to know, maybe not everything.
Speaker 4 00:07:33 Yeah, I completely agree with that. You know, it's interesting because the P G T innovation certification that we provide as P G T I university, I see it rapidly becoming an industry certification. It's being recognized not only by dealers but also other manufacturers and things like that. They understand that it has meaning because there's a lot of work behind it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we don't just give it away. Right.
Speaker 3 00:07:54 Yeah. The college communities have noticed too. Yes,
Speaker 4 00:07:56 Absolutely. We've
Speaker 3 00:07:57 Been, we've been contacted by half a dozen universities mm-hmm <affirmative> to adopt some of our content. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's pretty exciting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 1 00:08:03 Oh, nice. Yeah. Well I know we have a little pilot going with a couple of the technical schools in our area. Do you wanna talk about that?
Speaker 4 00:08:10 Well, we've been talking with them and then this kind of leans to what Rob was discussing the workforce of tomorrow. We've got a pilot program working with Suncoast Technical College as well as Manatee Tech to local technical colleges to our geography here. And we have opened up some of our certification programs to them as graduating seniors so that they can actually graduate with some certification from pg t I university with regard to not only product, but how to install product industry knowledge, things like that, so that they can leverage that information, that certification into perhaps, you know, position with one of our dealers. So another way that we as a university, as PGT I innovations are trying to help our dealers be successful. That's what we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1 00:08:53 That's amazing. I love that. Anything else we can share with our audience?
Speaker 4 00:08:57 Uh, with regard to the certification program
Speaker 1 00:08:59 Or with whatever?
Speaker 4 00:09:00 Yeah. Well we've got a lot of things going on. We continue to actively expand our learning management e-learning initiatives to include our Western United States brands, so Western Windows Systems and Lynn Martin garage doors. So we're continuing to add additional content to the L M S and eventually we'll put certification programs around some of that. We're expanding our installation video course content to support all of our brands nationwide. And we're now beginning to include multi-language support. So that's a huge initiative from our standpoint. Depending upon the geography in the US that we're talking about, we continue, this is kind of my side of things. We continue to investigate AI mixed reality and how we can take mixed reality learning and integrate that into our current offerings. So there's a lot of different things that are happening now from a technology standpoint that everyone's well aware of.
Speaker 4 00:09:48 And so we wanna integrate that. We wanna stay on top, we want to innovate. It's in our name. We're also, uh, finding customers now, and this is post covid, so we're now finding customers are starting to aggressively ask for additional instructor-led training courses or classes. So pre covid everything was, for the most part instructor-led face-to-face, come to a class and do whatever it is that we're talking about as far as content. We're now seeing that turn back around. So our customers are asking for more installation training from an instructor-led standpoint. So we're looking to bring that back into our scheduling. Uh, it's gonna take us a couple months to do so, but that is certainly in the works. We're working on that and that plays well here in Venice because we now have our new product showroom. So folks that are coming in for training can see the products take advantage of that new asset that's available to them.
Speaker 4 00:10:38 So it all works well from a timing standpoint. And then lastly, I think we're always in this, again as something that I'm always, uh, cognizant of. I'm looking for gaps in our learning, things that we're currently not doing but should be doing. We just don't see it. So I have a lot of conversations with engineers, with architects, with our dealers, with dealer owners about what more can we do for you? That's my favorite question to ask. And we're finding that there are some gaps and so we're working to fill those. Uh, one thing that we just recently worked on, you were working on this project was the title 24 in California. We didn't have any learning, um, with regard to Title 24. It was mentioned. We looked into it, investigated it, took some time. Title 24 is not an easy topic, but we have finally finished the course and we've now launched it so it's available to those audiences.
Speaker 1 00:11:25 Right. And it's certified. Absolutely. And just to be clear, my role in that was connecting the experts with each other, <laugh> and staying out of their way <laugh>, that's
Speaker 4 00:11:35 Called management.
Speaker 1 00:11:36 Yeah. Just, uh, lining up the various subject matter experts so that they could create a course that would work. So Jim heis is gonna be coming in to talk about that. Kevin vi Hower and Brian Laitz were very helpful because that's their domain. And so Jim knows a lot about codes in general and educating around codes as one of our instructors. But Title 24 was a whole new challenge for him. And he was actually very excited to have something challenging to work on after he sort of retired.
Speaker 4 00:12:06 Sort of, sort of,
Speaker 1 00:12:07 Yeah,
Speaker 4 00:12:08 <laugh>. Yeah, exactly. Nice.
Speaker 3 00:12:09 Yeah. I love the flexibility and the nimbleness that the university has been able to take on, you know, you mentioned the pivot to mm-hmm. <affirmative> E-learning versus, you know, the instructor led training and now we're pivoting back, but there's room for both and, you know, where we dedicate resources as our customers demand is fantastic. You didn't mention also just the other ways that we try to educate our team. We educate the sales team, which in turn then goes and visits the dealers all the time. We're doing road shows, which is pretty exciting that we can take training on the run mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, take our trailer out and meet with the community and then also the training camps that we're doing. So really when you look at all the different ways or modalities that we're training, I know you're, you're in 2050 where I'm still in 2020 <laugh>, but, um, we're hitting a lot of different modalities and making sure that we meet people where they are in their preferred way of learning. So pretty exciting. Well,
Speaker 4 00:13:03 Yeah, and thank you for that. I think that speaks to active learning or being aggressive with learning philosophy. The one thing that I don't want to become is reactive. I wanna stay in front of it. I want to anticipate what the needs are. That's kind of my goal. I want to hear from folks is what they need, but I'd rather tell them about what we're doing and then fill that gap before it becomes known as a gap. So that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1 00:13:27 Well, and I love the fact that, I mean, our YouTube channel is getting like 11,000 views a month.
Speaker 4 00:13:34 Yeah, that's incredible. That's crazy. Which is
Speaker 1 00:13:36 Insane <laugh>. And another thing too, I mean this is post 100 episodes, credit to you on the podcast, but now what's happening with that is that people from within the organization are approaching me and saying, Hey, here's something our dealers need to know about. So instead of me having to invent or try to forecast what people are gonna wanna know, I mean, I'm still doing that too. But, but now I have things that I may not have been aware of that people are saying, Hey, we need to make sure Sherry knows about this. We need to make sure the Clear Impact podcast has an episode about that. So I really love being able to partner more effectively with the leadership here. Just like this morning I had a conversation with one of the executives and he's like, yeah, I have all kinds of things we could talk about. I'm like, great, I'm working you into the lineup. So <laugh>, uh, the executive update series is probably gonna last forever. <laugh>
Speaker 4 00:14:26 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:14:26 No, not forever. I've got other things up my sleeve for the summer and, and the fall. But this is a good topic. And I think there have been so many studies and so many successful people in their careers that credit education, that credit learning, that credit, always having the mindset of I don't know everything. I still need to learn something. And I love that about this organization.
Speaker 4 00:14:47 Yeah, that's that's a great place to be.
Speaker 1 00:14:48 Yeah. And this team is the best, so, Aw, thanks.
Speaker 2 00:14:50 Thanks guys. Great seeing you. Thank you. Thanks for letting me do this. This is fun. Absolutely. All right. Have a good day. See you. Bye. PG t i University is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original Easy Breeze, porch, and closure line, then became P G t, America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added cgi, C G I C window, Western Windows Systems, new South Windows, echo windows, and doors and limb, windows and doors, and our latest acquisition, Martin Garage doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. PPG t i University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window and door products.
