How Zerorez trains over 1,000 technicians with TalentCards

Founded in 2001, Zerorez is a carpet cleaning franchisor with over 90 locations across the U.S., UK, and Canada. Its proprietary components make the company an industry leader in the carpet cleaning business, with over 1,000 technicians serving over 400,000 customers every year.

But training over 1,000 technicians who are spread out internationally, and are constantly on the job and on the move, requires an approach that’s more than classroom and laptop-based training. Vice President of Training & Operations, Porter Trepanier, and Learning & Technology Solutions Manager, Broc Hoggan, share how TalentCards has put training at their employees’ fingertips, eliminated the need to print paper manuals, and cut the cost of onboarding new hires.

The problem

Finding time to train in a packed workday

Zerorez’s 96+ locations across the U.S., U.K., and Canada rely on technicians, warehouse staff, and fleet operators who spend almost no time at desks. “We get an hour in the mornings, and then our techs are out cleaning carpet— no desk, no computer, no quiet time.”

“Before TalentCards, technicians ignored courses because they could see in our previous platform that the estimated time to take them was too long. The reaction was, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have 45 minutes right now.”

said Broc

Paper manuals are a high-cost, low-return training investment

Like many companies employing technicians and deskless staff, paper manuals were part of the traditional, established approach to training at Zerorez. But when they cost about $50 each to print, and the industry is subject to high turnover, this approach quickly becomes inefficient.

“Printing manuals was a substantial cost, especially in our industry, which has a high turnover rate.”

Porter TrepanierVP of Training and Operations

What’s more, the cost of printing manuals was carried by the individual franchises, adding one more thing that owner-operators had to be on top of.

Complex software slows adoption

Zerorez had been forward-thinking in its approach to training even before finding TalentCards. While similar companies were still entirely dependent on in-person and paper-based training materials, Zerorez had adopted training software to digitize and improve the process.

But when training software is complicated to use, it’s inevitable that people will fail to adopt it, and instead return to their traditional training methods.

“A lot of these very robust platforms, they do everything you could ever want in an LMS, except make the training engaging for learners, and the Admin smooth for managers. All of these bells and whistles, heavy reports— none of that matters if your employees don’t use it.”

said Broc

By moving away from paper manuals, Zerorez slashed printing costs and waste. “We don’t print physical manuals anymore,” Porter notes. Their 90-page binders have been transformed into concise card sets. Technicians enjoy bite-sized lessons, and franchises no longer shoulder the burden of constant reprints.

Getting learners into the app takes less than a minute, with employees simply downloading the app and logging in.