A lighting company COO runs the work after the sale: material orders, crew schedules, installs, inspections and closeout for retrofits, service calls, yard lighting and holiday displays. They staff up for the fall rush, own the safety program for lift and roof work, and fix the job types that run over budget.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, electrical contractors · BLS, May 2025
You'll run field operations across commercial retrofits, service calls, landscape lighting and the holiday install and takedown season. You set how jobs move from sale to install to closeout, keep crews safe on lifts, ladders and roofs, and lead the Operations Manager, Project Manager, Office Manager and HR Manager. The General Manager owns sales, marketing and key accounts; you own how the work gets done.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Set the job workflow from signed contract to material order, scheduling, install, inspection and closeout.
Plan seasonal staffing with the HR Manager: when to hire holiday crews, how to train them, and when takedown ends.
Own the safety program with the Safety Officer: aerial lift training, fall protection, ladder use and electrical safety.
Lead the Operations Manager, Project Manager, Office Manager and HR Manager.
Set the utility rebate process with the Office Manager so applications, photos and closeout paperwork are complete.
Decide on lift rentals versus purchases, vehicles and storage space with the Fleet / Equipment Manager.
Track job costs and fix the crews or job types that run over.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review today's schedule, crew assignments and the weather forecast for lift and roof work.
Check labor hours and job cost on active commercial projects.
Visit job sites to check safety and quality.
Meet with the Operations Manager and Project Manager on schedule conflicts.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Jobs completed on schedule: [your target].
Labor hours against estimate: [your target].
Callbacks and warranty visits: [your target].
Lost-time injuries: [your target].
Holiday installs completed by the promised date: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[7+] years in field operations at an electrical, lighting or specialty contractor.
Experience running seasonal crews through large swings in headcount.
Working knowledge of OSHA rules for aerial lifts, ladders, fall protection and electrical work.
Experience with job costing and scheduling software.
6. Preferred Experience
[State] electrical license or a background as an electrician.
OSHA 30 for construction.
Experience with utility rebate programs and commercial retrofit projects.
7. Physical Requirements
Office work combined with walking job sites, warehouses and rooftops.
Climb ladders and wear fall protection on site visits.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Based at [main office location], with job site visits most days.
Long days and some weekends during holiday install and takedown.
On call for safety incidents and urgent commercial jobs.
Night visits to commercial retrofits that run after business hours.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new chief operating officer gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
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One set of crews works ceilings, yards and rooftops, and headcount can jump within a few weeks each fall. That changes the systems a COO has to build.
Agency temps go on your injury log
Many lighting companies fill holiday crews through a staffing agency. OSHA's recordkeeping rule covers everyone on your payroll, seasonal workers included. It also covers agency temps you supervise day to day, so their injuries go on your log, not the agency's. Agree in writing how the agency hears about an injury and who trains each temp on ladders and lifts before the first install. Source: OSHA: Covered employees for injury recordkeeping (29 CFR 1904.31).
Holiday hiring can trigger an OSHA filing
For OSHA's electronic filing rule, each person employed at any time during the year counts as one employee. Construction establishments with 20 to 249 employees must file their yearly injury summary, the Form 300A, with OSHA by March 2 following the year it covers. A fall crew can push a smaller shop over that line, so check the count each January. Source: OSHA: Annual electronic submission of injury and illness records (29 CFR 1904.41).
Weather decides lift and roof days
Wind, ice and rain stop boom and roofline work long before they stop an indoor retrofit. Set one rule for who calls off a day, how early crews hear about it, and what they do instead, such as testing strands in the shop or moving up an indoor job. Hold crews to each lift maker's wind limit, not to a crew lead's gut feel.
Estimates need the right yardstick
Count retrofit labor per fixture, holiday labor per house or per run of roofline, and yard lighting per fixture plus the trench. When estimates and timesheets use the same yardstick, the COO can see whether a crew, a job type or the estimate itself is the problem, and fix that one thing.
How much lighting company COOs make
The closest BLS group for lighting company COOs is chief executives. Chief executives who work for electrical contractors earned a median of $172,410 a year ($82.89 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $213,990 median for chief executives in all industries. About 630 of the 204,350 chief executives in that survey work for electrical contractors.
Expect a base salary and a bonus. Tie the bonus to numbers the COO runs, such as labor hours against estimate and on-time holiday installs, rather than to sales.
Electrical contractors
$172,410$172,410 median Middle half $118,510–$266,910 10th–90th $90,720–$403,030
All industries
$213,990$213,990 median Middle half $129,540–$356,200 10th–90th $75,700–$507,730
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Electrical contractors
$90,720
$118,510
$172,410
$266,910
$403,030
All industries
$75,700
$129,540
$213,990
$356,200
$507,730
BLS doesn’t publish pay for lighting installers on their own. These figures cover electrical contractors, which include them. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has run crews through a big seasonal swing in headcount
Knows OSHA's lift, ladder and fall protection rules well enough to spot a problem on a walk-through
Spots a job running over budget and acts within the week
Writes workflows a new manager can follow without help
Stays calm with a lift down and a store opening in the morning
Teach these on the job
Utility rebate steps and closeout photos
Holiday install methods, clips and storage tagging
Your scheduling and job costing software
LED retrofit types and lighting controls basics
The COO lives in scheduling or field service software for crews and lifts, cost-by-job reports from accounting, and wind and weather forecasts checked before every lift and roof day. A shared rebate tracker lets the office and crews close jobs out together.
Lighting company COO interview questions
Two of the 6 questions we'd ask, and what a strong answer sounds like. Ask every candidate the same questions, and rate each answer on your own before you compare notes.
Situational · Rent or buy equipment
Crews rented boom lifts for more than [100] days last year. How would you decide whether to buy one?
A strong answer: Compares rental cost with purchase, financing, inspections, maintenance, insurance, transport and storage, and checks year-round use and the sizes needed.
Behavioral · Seasonal staffing
Tell me about a holiday or other peak season when you ramped crews up and back down.
A strong answer: Describes hiring timing, training (ladders, roofs, lifts), rehiring returning workers and what they'd change next time.
The template leaves each KPI target open. Pick numbers from last season's results, and set holiday targets apart from the rest of the year.
Jobs completed on schedule
Match each job's actual finish against the date the customer was given at signing. Report retrofits, service calls and yard work on separate lines so one can't hide another.
Labor hours against estimate
Pull clocked hours from timesheets against estimated hours on each closed job. Sort by crew and job type to find where estimates or training fall short.
Callbacks and warranty visits
Count return trips for work your crews did, tagged by cause: failed product, install error or a customer change. Fix the cause that repeats.
Lost-time injuries
Use the days-away cases on your OSHA injury log. Sit down with the safety officer the same week as each one and write down what changes.
Holiday installs completed by the promised date
Check each signed holiday client against the date in their contract. Track it weekly from the first install so late homes get crews in time.
Career path
Installation crew leadLeads an install crew and learns lift, roof and retrofit work firsthand.
Operations managerRuns the daily schedule, the crew leads and the quality checks.
Chief operating officerSets how every job moves from contract to closeout and owns safety and job costs.
The template mentions rooftops and ladders. How much of the COO's week is in the field?
Most days include a site visit. On a retrofit that can mean walking a store floor at night and riding a lift up to look at a finished fixture. On holiday jobs it can mean going up a ladder to the gutter line in a harness to check clips and cord runs. Describe the job this way in the ad, as tasks, and keep the template's line about reasonable accommodation.
How much does a lighting company COO make?
Chief executives who work for electrical contractors earned a median of $172,410 a year ($82.89 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $118,510 and $266,910 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
How do the COO and the general manager split the work at a lighting company?
This template draws the line: sales, marketing and key accounts belong to the general manager, and how the work gets done belongs to the COO. They meet on capacity. The GM shouldn't sell holiday installs or a retrofit start date the crews can't hit, and the COO should tell sales early when a season is full.
Who owns the utility rebate paperwork, operations or the office?
The COO sets the process and the office manager runs it. Crews take the before and after photos and count the fixtures they remove. The office checks the forms and files them. Write down who signs off at each step, since one missing photo can hold up money on a job that's already finished.
How can I tell if a COO candidate can handle the holiday swing?
Ask for the busiest and slowest headcount at their most recent employer and how they moved between them: where hires came from, how they were trained before their first roof, and how many came back the next year. Then ask what broke during the peak and what they changed afterward.
How do I check a COO candidate's safety record?
Ask them to walk you through the worst injury on their watch: what happened, what they changed, and how they knew the change worked. Listen for specifics about lifts, ladders and live circuits. If nothing serious happened, ask about the closest call and what changed after it.
