Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Jackson Services in LaGrange was enduring a labor strain before the pandemic, and it’s only gotten worse. Now, the company is offering a unique incentive that it hopes will bring in plenty of prospective workers. 

Jackson Services is offering a $200 a month referral bonus to the person who refers an employee to the company. The person who referred the employee will receive the bonus as long as the employee is with the company. 

While Jackson Services has a need for many different positions, but it has a dire need for service technicians, which involve specific training for a variety of mechanical diagnostic and repair situations.

“It takes so long to create a service technician … you can’t just create one in six months,” said Dale Jackson, owner of Jackson Services.

For the bonus to be approved, the employee must be hired and pass an aptitude test. Jackson said he wants everyone to pass — he’s in need of workers.

“We may still hire them, but if they can’t prove that they have the skillset then they won’t qualify for the $200,” Jackson said.

Jackson said he got the idea of offering a bonus from other companies but decided to add his own twist to the idea.

“They were only opening the bonus up to the employees … but what I thought is why not extend this to people outside of the company like aunts and uncles and parents?” Jackson said.

The incentive, Jackson said, will hopefully persuade employees to stay with the company as long as they can for the benefit of the person who referred them. The bonus will end whenever an employee leaves the company, Jackson said.

“It hopefully will make [an employee] think twice before they make a rash decision,” Jackson said. “I can make thousands of dollars more per month for every one person I’m paying $200 a month for.”

The need for service technicians is an issue affecting many HVAC companies, he said. Jackson Services alone is in need of 10 to 15 service technicians, Jackson said.

Overall, the extra expense is worth the quality of good employees, Jackson said.