PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Running a Porta Potty Business

Training a New Porta Potty Service Tech in the First Two Weeks

A new tech who is thrown on a route alone on day two will learn, but your customers will pay for the lessons. Two weeks of structured training costs less than one lost construction account. Here is a plan that works for most small portable toilet companies.

Before Day One

Training starts with who you hire. If you have not read it yet, Hiring Service Techs for a Porta Potty Business covers what to look for.

Before the new tech shows up, set them up as an employee with a personal PIN and a truck assignment, and check that their first week's sites have good notes: site contacts, gate codes, unit types, quantities, unit numbers and placement notes. The notes are part of the training. If they are thin, the new tech will learn from you instead of the system, and they will call you every time you are not there.

Days 1 to 3: Ride Along

For the first few days, the new tech rides with you or your most reliable tech. Their job is to watch, ask questions, and do the work under supervision. Cover the basics:

• Safety on the truck: hoses, vacuum, lifting, traffic on job sites
• Pumping, cleaning and restocking a standard unit the way your company does it
• Hand wash stations, ADA units and any deluxe or trailer units you run
• Where you dump, what paperwork that takes, and how to keep the truck clean
• How to talk to a site super or an event coordinator

At the end of each day, ask what was confusing. The answers tell you what your notes are missing.

Days 4 to 7: Driving With a Coach

In the second half of the first week, the new tech drives and runs the driver app while the trainer rides along. They log in with the company login and their PIN, look at the day's jobs in route order, and tap the Map button to navigate. On each card they read the unit type, quantity, unit numbers and placement notes before they pull up.

Have them tap Start when they begin a stop and Complete when they finish, and Skip with a reason if they cannot get in. The customer gets automatic on-the-way and arrived texts, so explain why that matters: customers watch for the truck, and an accurate Start keeps those alerts honest.

Photos and Notes

Teach the new tech when to take photos: a unit that was tipped over, a site where the units had to go somewhere new, damage they found on arrival, a blocked gate on a skipped stop. Photos stay with the job and answer the questions that come up a week later. Teach them to write short, useful notes too. "Units moved to east side of lot by super" helps the next tech. "Done" does not.

Week Two: Solo With Backup

In the second week, give the new tech a shorter route of sites they have already seen. Watch the office map, where crew GPS from the driver app shows where they are. Do not call every hour. Check in at lunch and at the end of the day, look at what was completed and what was skipped, and talk through anything that went sideways.

By the end of week two, most techs can handle a normal weekly service route. Deliveries with tight placements, crane jobs and restroom trailers usually take longer to learn, so keep those with experienced techs for a while.

Service Standards

Tell new techs exactly what a finished service looks like at your company. Pumped, washed down inside, restocked with paper and sanitizer, fresh chemical in the tank, door closes and latches, unit is level and in the right place. Write it down. A standard that only lives in your head will drift. Standard Procedures for a Portable Toilet Business: Writing Down How the Work Gets Done covers how to write these.

After Training

Check back at 30 days. Look at their completed and skipped jobs, any customer complaints or compliments, and their time clock hours. Good habits set in the first month tend to stick for years. Bad habits do too, which is why the 30-day check is worth the half hour.

Mistakes Trainers Make

The most common training mistake is rushing. A short-handed owner puts the new tech on a solo route on day three because a truck needs to go out. It feels like it saves time. It usually costs more: missed sites, units placed in the wrong spot, and a new tech who decides the job is chaos and quits.

The second mistake is training by memory. "You'll figure out the gate at the school" is not training. If the trainer has to explain a site out loud, that explanation belongs in the site's notes. Every question the new tech asks is a note that should have been written already.

The third is never asking for feedback. New techs see things old techs stopped noticing years ago. Ask them what was confusing, and fix it.

For more on the driver app and how the office and field connect, visit the Porta Potty Business Software page.