Technicians - Our Most Valuable Asset

Across the country, dealers are finding that turnover - especially on the service side - is one of their biggest problems. A shortage of good, qualified talent has dealers and automakers scratching their heads on how to keep the service technicians they have while attracting new, younger blood into the industry.  It's the perfect storm, a rebounding auto industry means more and increasingly sophisticated vehicles are sold each year. Pair that with greater numbers of baby boomers looking to retire, and the shortage isn't a problem that will go away soon.

It's a technician's world at the end of the day, They can leave your place in the morning and have a new job in the afternoon. That's how in demand a good technician is.

As veteran mechanics and technicians retire, more than 237,000 jobs are expected to open up between 2014-24, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But millennials apparently haven't received the memo. Despite the expected demand for auto technicians, enrollment at for-profit operations such as Universal Technical Institute has declined. 

So what can the industry do? 

Eventually dealers are just going to have to pay more. The average salary for an auto technician in the U.S. is $56,000, according to a 2014 Carlisle survey. But real change goes beyond that. Dealers are always looking for the silver bullet and it's not always out there. We need to look beyond higher pay. In an industry in which a flat-rate pay plan is the norm, that techs need a clear understanding of their career path and how to get to each step along the way. 

The most satisfied employees in the industry are those who chose their jobs because of the management or supervisors overseeing their work, the Carlisle survey found. Just a third of those surveyed were satisfied with their career progression. Not surprisingly, the least happy are more inclined to leave the industry, worsening the shortage. 

This dovetails with millennials avoiding the industry. Millennials want mentorship, they want to know they have a career path and on boarding mentorship. 

Creative dealers have retained employees by using some of the incentives Universal Technical Institute recommends all dealers adopt. These include perks such as tuition reimbursement, sponsored tool packages, sign-on bonuses and relocation assistance.

A transparent pay and promotion structure is also crucial. The last thing a technician ever wants to do is to go into a manager's office and ask for a raise. It's not in their DNA. Also crucial is training. The Carlisle survey showed plenty of unhappy techs whose dealerships wouldn't send them for training. Reasons varied from dealers not wanting to pay for training only to have techs defect to a rival, or dealers looking to avoid having an empty bay for a day or two. 

Training - as expensive as it may be - is a useful perk for keeping techs. Not only do they like getting out of the service bay for a day or two and the simple luxury of a meal at a restaurant and a night in a hotel, but they come back better at their jobs. The little things go a long way. You just do what you've got to do. But, that helps retention, not recruitment: They're still not coming out of the woodwork.

PerforMAX has developed a tiered tech pay structure that allows your top techs to be highly compensated for the type of work that they are doing while allowing the recruitment of B & C technicians to fill in the gaps while training to get to the top level. We also have many other concepts that can help you retain your techs while achieving higher gross profit and customer retention.

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