A lighting dispatcher sends install crews and service technicians out each morning with routes, lift bookings and job notes. In holiday season they put installs and takedowns in route order, and they rework the board when wind, rain or a long retrofit changes the day.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, electrical contractors · BLS, May 2025
You'll schedule and route our install crews and service technicians. You build daily routes for holiday installs and takedowns, fit in service calls, book lift rentals for commercial jobs, and rework the board when weather, wind or a long job changes the day.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Build daily routes for install crews and technicians by area, job length and crew skills.
Schedule holiday installs and takedowns in route order and keep the customer service team updated.
Book scissor and boom lift rentals for commercial jobs and confirm delivery and pickup times.
Rank service calls by urgency and assign each to a technician with the right skills.
Hold or move lift and roof work with the Operations Manager when wind, rain or ice exceed your safety limits.
Keep job status, notes and time current in [your field service software].
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Check the weather and crew attendance before crews leave the shop.
Send crews their routes, addresses, access notes and material lists.
Track progress and move jobs when a crew runs long.
Arrange after-hours work windows at stores and offices for commercial retrofits.
Tell customers and the customer service team about arrival changes.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Jobs completed on the scheduled day: [your target].
Drive time per crew: [your target].
Time from service request to dispatch: [your target].
Lift rentals on site when crews arrive: [your target].
Return trips caused by scheduling errors: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[2+] years of dispatch or scheduling for field crews.
Knowledge of local roads and your service area, or the ability to learn them quickly.
Calm decisions when weather and jobs change the plan.
Experience with field service or dispatch software.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience scheduling lighting, electrical, landscape or construction crews.
Experience booking equipment rentals.
Experience with route planning tools.
7. Physical Requirements
Sit at a computer and on the phone or radio for most of the day.
Long screen time across several monitors.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Works at the dispatch desk in [main office location].
Early starts to send crews out: [your start time].
[Six]-day weeks during holiday install and takedown [if your company runs them].
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 dispatcher 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.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
Dispatchers everywhere match jobs to people. This board also holds lift deliveries, night retrofits, landscape repairs and a holiday route the crews run twice, once to hang and once to take down.
Long holiday days can end the logbook exception
Trucks that count as commercial motor vehicles, which the fleet manager tracks, put their drivers under federal hours rules. Under the short-haul exception, those drivers can skip the logbook or ELD if they work inside 150 air miles of the shop and are released there no more than 14 consecutive hours after reporting, with 10 or more consecutive hours off between shifts. The company keeps time records for them instead. Build holiday routes that end inside that window. Source: eCFR: 49 CFR 395.1(e), short-haul operations.
Pole work by the street needs traffic control
Parking lot and street pole retrofits can put a bucket truck in a traffic lane or a busy drive aisle. When flaggers are used, OSHA's construction rule says flagging and the flaggers' warning garments must follow Part 6 of the federal MUTCD. Ask the estimator whether a job needs cones, signs or flaggers, and book them, plus any city lane permit, before you book the lift. Source: eCFR: 29 CFR 1926.201, signaling and flaggers.
Last year's crew knows the house
A crew that hung a display last season knows where the clips go, which outlet trips, and where the dog stays. Send the same crew back when routes allow, and send them for takedown too. When you can't, keep the crew's notes and photos on the customer record so a new crew isn't starting cold.
Order lifts for the ground, not just the height
Sales notes give a mounting height, but the rental desk also needs the surface. A slab scissor lift may not suit a gravel lot, and a heavy boom can crack pavers or sink into a wet lawn. Ask the estimator for the surface, gate widths and overhead obstacles, and pass them along when you book the machine.
A tree lighting date can't move
Towns, malls and hotels plan public events around their displays. Put those installs on the board first, with a spare weather day before the event, and rank a dark display before an event above routine service. A homeowner's install date can flex a little. A ceremony with a crowd can't.
How much lighting installation dispatchers make
Dispatchers who work for electrical contractors earned a median of $22.91 an hour ($47,660 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $50,340 median for dispatchers in all industries. About 1,850 of the 202,810 dispatchers in that survey work for electrical contractors.
Usually paid hourly. Six-day holiday weeks bring regular overtime for part of each year.
Electrical contractors
$47,660$47,660 median Middle half $39,990–$57,250 10th–90th $36,180–$69,620
All industries
$50,340$50,340 median Middle half $42,750–$62,450 10th–90th $36,030–$78,140
$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k$80k$90k
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
$36,180
$39,990
$47,660
$57,250
$69,620
All industries
$36,030
$42,750
$50,340
$62,450
$78,140
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
Building routes by area and job length from a map
Steady calls to crews and customers when the plan changes
Field service or dispatch software experience
Booking equipment rentals with delivery windows
Clear job notes a crew can read in the truck
Teach these on the job
Your service area and its traffic patterns
Lift types and what each one needs on site
Holiday install and takedown sequencing
Which technicians handle landscape, retrofit and controls calls
Your company's weather limits for lift and roof work
Lighting dispatchers work from a field service board such as ServiceTitan, Jobber or FieldEdge, a route planner, and the online portals of lift rental companies. A weather app with hourly wind forecasts and a radio or group text to the crews fill out the desk.
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 · Weather holds
At [6 a.m.], the forecast shows gusts above your lift and roof limits by mid-morning. Six crews are booked on holiday installs, plus one commercial lift job. What do you do?
A strong answer: Checks with the operations manager, moves roof and lift work, shifts crews to ground-level jobs or prep, calls customers and the rental company and updates customer service.
Behavioral · Recovering a broken day
Tell me about a time a holiday display took far longer than estimated and threw off the rest of the crew's day.
A strong answer: Reassigned work quickly, told customers early and kept the other crews on track.
The template's targets are only a first draft. Measure holiday weeks separately, since the work and the crew count both change.
Jobs completed on the scheduled day
Compare the day each job was scheduled with the day the crew closed it in the software. Count weather holds approved by operations apart from misses.
Drive time per crew
Use vehicle GPS or route software to total drive hours per crew each day, and compare holiday routes with retrofit and service days.
Time from service request to dispatch
Use the timestamps for request logged and technician assigned, with urgent commercial calls split from landscape and holiday repairs.
Lift rentals on site when crews arrive
For each job with a rental, check the delivery confirmation time against the crew's arrival time and count the jobs where the lift got there first.
Return trips caused by scheduling errors
Tag every return visit with a cause in the software. Count only those the board caused, such as a missing lift, the wrong crew skills or a wrong materials list.
What does a dispatcher need from sales before a retrofit is scheduled?
A fixture count by area, the mounting heights, and the lift the estimator planned on. Add the hours the building allows work, the name and number of whoever lets the crew in, and where materials will be delivered. Missing any one of these can mean a second trip, so build a handoff form that sales can't submit with blanks.
How much does a lighting installation dispatcher make?
Dispatchers who work for electrical contractors earned a median of $22.91 an hour ($47,660 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $39,990 and $57,250 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
How can I test a lighting dispatcher before hiring?
Give them a holiday weekday on paper: a stack of installs across town, a few crews with different ladder and lift skills, one lift delivery, and a wind warning after lunch. Give them a set time to build the routes and explain their choices. Then add a late call from a store whose pole lights went out and see what they move to fit it in.
A rented lift didn't show up. What should the dispatcher do?
Call the rental desk for a real arrival time and tell the crew lead right away. If the wait is long, move the crew to ground-level work on the same site or to the next stop on the route, and let the customer know. Log the miss against the rental company so the operations manager can compare vendors before next season.
Does a lighting dispatcher work nights when retrofits run after closing?
Not in this template, which calls for early starts. Book night retrofits during the day, and give the crew lead clear authority on site. Put a manager on call by phone for problems such as a locked door or a dead lift, and have the dispatcher read the crew's notes first thing the next morning.
