For trades and field services
Managing field crews without an HR department
You own or run an HVAC, plumbing, electrical, construction or landscaping company with ten to a hundred and fifty people: technicians and installers, apprentices, lead techs and foremen, drivers, a dispatcher, and someone on payroll and billing. The owner or the office manager is HR, and most of the people they manage are in a truck.
The moments where people work goes wrong
A driver's CDL or medical card expires mid-season
A CDL renews on the state's schedule and the DOT medical card on its own. The notices go to the driver. The company finds out when a truck needs to move and the one driver licensed for it is not cleared to drive.
Crews you cannot watch
The owner sees a tech for ten minutes at the shop in the morning and reads about the rest of the day in the job notes. Whether the tech was good with the customer, safe on the ladder or good at teaching the apprentice is a guess.
The third no-show, with nothing written down
An installer does not show up and does not call. It is the third time. The first two were handled with a word in the yard and nothing on paper, and now the company wants to act with no record behind it.
The lead tech who should be foreman
The best lead tech knows every system and every repeat customer. The company needs a foreman and she is the obvious pick. Nobody has seen whether she can run a crew, and nobody has asked whether she wants to.
The apprentice who leaves after one summer
An apprentice starts in spring, rides with whoever has room and hears nothing about his progress. By autumn he takes a job with a contractor who described a path to journeyman.
What it costs the company
An expired card parks a truck
A lapsed CDL, medical card or trade license is a paperwork fix that costs a day of jobs. The exposure belongs to the company as much as to the driver or the tech.
Discipline with no dates and no notes
When repeated no-shows finally end in a termination, the company has memory and nothing else. That is a weak position if the decision is challenged.
Foremen picked by seniority and gut
A foreman is chosen because he has been around longest or because the owner likes him. A crew that did not see a reason for the choice is slow to follow the new foreman.
How LVL Up helps
Licenses, cards and certifications with a reminder you set
A journeyman or master license, a CDL, a DOT medical card, an EPA or manufacturer certification and an OSHA card each sit on the person's record with the document, and an expiry date where there is one. The holder and the office are emailed ahead of the date, and one view lists what expires next across the company.
Feedback and recognition from a phone
A foreman or the office manager can write feedback or recognize a tech from a phone on the day it happens, including what a customer said. Each person's timeline keeps it, so a review is built from the season and not from the last week.
A dated note on the record the day it happens
Write down the no-show conversation as feedback on the person's record the same day: what happened and what was said. If it happens again, the history is there, written at the time instead of reconstructed.
1:1s and goals that test the next foreman
Put a monthly 1:1 on the calendar with each lead tech, with a shared agenda either of you can add to from the truck. Set goals for the person you are considering for foreman, such as running a small crew for a month, and review how it went before you decide.
Where we are the wrong answer
LVL Up has no time clock, GPS, job scheduling or dispatch, and it does not connect to your field-service software; keep that for jobs, crews and hours. It does not run payroll, certified payroll or prevailing-wage reports. It does not verify a license with the state or check a driving record, and it does not track continuing-education hours for license renewal; it tracks the dates you enter. It has no formal disciplinary or improvement-plan workflow. It holds employment records for your staff, not client or customer records, and it does not replace your practice-management, matter-management or job-management software. When a termination gets complicated, it does not replace an employment lawyer.
Which plan, and what it costs
Scale — 150 people included
$149/month
Contractors with several crews often outgrow Growth's people limit. Scale includes room for the whole company, department management so field and office or each trade can be its own department, and offboarding tools for the turnover field work brings. A company under 25 people fits Team, and a mid-size one fits Growth.
- • Everything in Growth
- • Custom branding
- • Department management
- • Advanced reporting
- • LVL Proof™ certificates
- • Offboarding tools
- • Founder-led email support
- • $2 per additional person above 150
No credit card. The trial runs on Growth so you can see everything; pick Scale when it ends.
Getting set up
- Start the trial and import field and office staff from a spreadsheet with each person's foreman or manager.
- Add every CDL, DOT medical card, trade license and certification with a copy and its expiry date. Set a long reminder for anything that takes weeks to renew.
- Show your foremen how to write feedback and recognition from a phone, and ask each one to write one this week.
- Put a monthly 1:1 on the calendar with each lead tech, and set a goal for the one you are considering for foreman.
Common questions
Does LVL Up have a time clock or job scheduling?
No. It has no time clock, GPS, scheduling or dispatch. Keep your field-service software for jobs, crews and hours. LVL Up handles the people side: records, credentials, feedback, reviews and time off.
Can it track CDLs, medical cards and OSHA cards?
Yes, as credentials on each person's record with the document attached. Anything with an expiry date gets a reminder to the holder and the office ahead of the date. An OSHA 10 or 30 card has no federal expiry, so store it with no date, or with the renewal date your company or state sets.
Can technicians use it from a phone?
Yes. LVL Up works in a phone browser and can be installed as a home-screen app. A tech can request time off, add to a 1:1 agenda or see a recognition from the truck.
How should we document a no-show?
The same day, with the date, what happened and what was said, as feedback on the person's record so the history is written at the time. If it keeps happening, LVL Up can hold an improvement plan with expectations, dated check-ins and an outcome; it has no disciplinary or warning-letter workflow. When a termination is close, talk to an employment lawyer.
Does LVL Up connect to ServiceTitan, Jobber or Housecall Pro?
No. LVL Up is a staff-side system and does not read from or write to field-service, scheduling or payroll software. It has CSV import for staff data and a read-only API on Growth and Scale.
What happens when the trial ends?
The trial is 14 days, no credit card, then read-only until a plan is chosen. Nothing you entered is deleted while it is read-only.
Related:
Start with your own staff list
Import your crews and office, add the trade licenses, CDLs and medical cards that renew next, and see the expiring-next view with your own names on it. Scale comes with 150 people included.