Maintenance work and upkeep is a job that should be fulfilled by a dedicated person who’s always ready to troubleshoot problems. Similarly, a maintenance worker job description includes many responsibilities that require manual dexterity, excellent communication skills, a professional attitude, and other qualities.
Considering that, you need to be extra careful when hiring someone for this position – irrespective of your industry or nature of work.
This article will explain everything that you should look for in a maintenance worker while hiring one.
Let’s dive right in.
What Does a Maintenance Worker Do?
A maintenance worker (also known as a repair worker or maintenance man) handles all the general maintenance tasks and cleaning activities at a building and/or on different assets.
This could entail maintaining mechanical equipment and machinery, electrical systems, safety systems, heating and air conditioning system maintenance, plumbing work, carpentry, wall painting, furniture maintenance, and repair work like floor repairing, machinery repairing, and more.
Maintenance Worker Job Description – Roles and Responsibilities
Here is a complete breakdown of a maintenance worker’s typical responsibilities:
- Perform basic cleaning activities in a building, such as sweeping and mopping the floors, cleaning bathrooms, dusting windows, doors, furniture, appliances, etc.
- Install and align electrical or electronic units and pipes systems in a building.
- Inspect and maintain electronic appliances and equipment, including air conditioners, kitchen appliances, TV sets, refrigerators, etc.
- Perform routine maintenance like fixing light bulbs, keeping house wiring and circuits functional, checking fluid levels, and other related duties.
- Check the functionality of a building’s ventilation and safety systems like fire alarms, smoke detectors, burglar alarms, etc.
- Maintain assets used in offices, hospitals, and schools, like printers, projecting devices, and other electronic components of different machines.
- Apply varnish or polish to the furniture.
- Maintain gardens, yards, lawns of the building by watering plants, mowing, spraying plant disinfectants, bug sprays, etc.
- Provide groundskeeping services like snow removal, landscaping, etc.
- Facilitate other workers during building renovations.
- Report to the maintenance manager whenever an unforeseeable issue occurs.
- Provide training to new staff, utilize their strengths efficiently, and report to the manager.
- Maintain all the paperwork, including the preventive maintenance checklist and reports.
- Respect policies, adhere to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements, and safely handle equipment.
The job summary mentioned above is suitable for a general maintenance worker. You can tweak it based on your special needs and requirements.
Maintenance Worker Job Description – Skills
In addition to adding the roles and responsibilities to your maintenance worker job description, you should also mention the mix of technical and soft skills an ideal profile should possess.
Here’s a list of skills a person should develop before applying for the job of a maintenance worker:
- Basic knowledge of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning), plumbing, electrical systems, and other electronic equipment.
- Must be competent at using hand tools, power tools, hoists, saws, wrenches, cranes, etc.
- Should be able to read technical repair manuals, blueprints, parts catalogs, etc.
- They should exhibit excellent interpersonal skills when dealing with customers, employers, or any other third party. They must have good communication and negotiation skills that might come in handy while ordering parts, supplies, or equipment from the suppliers.
- Time management skills are strongly required from a maintenance worker, and they must know how to juggle with different tasks in the required time frame.
- Must know how to align the quality of work they’re providing with the associated party’s requirements.
- The physical demands of a maintenance job are higher than most jobs. Therefore, they should be in optimal health.
- Ability to stay focused on the work and the willpower to complete all the tasks efficiently.
- Must be a team player. When working in a team, a maintenance worker is expected to divide tasks with team members according to their strengths and skillset.
- They should be comfortable adapting to their environment and other unforeseen circumstances.
- Strong organizational skills are preferred. They must lead their team and hold their subordinates accountable in case of negligence of duties.
It may be unrealistic to expect to find someone who ticks all of those boxes, but it’s a good place to start. As with everything else, you may narrow down the list according to your requirements.
Maintenance Worker Job Description – Required Qualification
Anyone can perform basic repairing tasks and building maintenance duties.
However, to turn an average Joe into a skilled maintenance worker, certain training and education are required. This will help them adhere to all the responsibilities expected of them.
Maintenance workers at a beginner level must have a high school diploma or a general education degree (GED) in hand to handle routine tasks.
Furthermore, as they move forward, gaining years of experience as a professional maintenance worker, they must sharpen their skills and improve their work delivery.
They may also attain any advanced related degree such as maintenance engineering, maintenance technology studies, etc. to excel in their career, but it’s usually not a requirement. That usually helps them advance to positions like the maintenance technician or maintenance engineer.
Finding the Best Maintenance Worker
Posting an appropriately crafted maintenance worker job description on relevant job boards can help you find the right fit.
Ensure to perform background checks on a candidate’s resume and experience before hiring them.
And lastly, if you’re a firm that provides maintenance services to your clients, give proper job training and coaching classes to the workers before sending them off to work.
Josh is a partner at Maintenance Manager HQ.
