Last month I wrote about an online panel discussion I participated in concerning a pending shortage of technicians. The discussion is archived here.
My take on the topic is that our challenge lies in the shortage of folks with the right skills to perform the diagnostic and advanced maintenance operations that this generation of cars requires. So how do we attract young talent to fill this looming need? I wish I had all the answers to that but I don’t. I think the point to start is putting us in the shoes of potential employees as they choose a career path.
My oldest son is whip smart and a few days from his 16th birthday. He wants to develop video games for a living. He has no interest in cars. I asked him one day when he was 15 how he planned to get around when his mother and I decided we were not his personal chauffeurs anymore.
He suggested that he would come up with a way to tele-transport himself. Maybe it’s because I keep telling him that he is going to have to walk the mile to school, maybe it has something to do with his recent awareness of the opposite sex or maybe the Seyfer car gene is coming out of dormancy, but lately he has moved his interest up to lukewarm.
For my generation and a couple before that, vehicle ownership and a driver’s license meant freedom and was a rite of passage that put us on the path to adulthood. We became responsible for getting ourselves to school or work on time, maintaining our prized possession and for generating the income to support it.
In case you have no exposure to young people and think my son is unusual, I am sad to report that a recent survey I read found that young men of driving age had more interest in buying the latest smart phone or video game than buying or driving a car. In fact there are a large number of twenty-somethings who have no interest in vehicle ownership and do not have a driver’s license. This is not just in cities with excellent public transportation.
It is realistic to think that until many of these folks have children and require a means to transport them that this will be their norm. So I ask you, if a large cross section of potential candidates for our sector of the economy can’t operate a car, how do we attract them?
For most of the driving and non-driving public the work of maintaining and repairing automobiles brings up images of dirty, low IQ people who by some miracle manage to hook up a magical computer that tells us what part is bad so we can charge way too much to replace it. To attract the creative problem solvers that are needed to repair these cars we have to eliminate that perception and replace it with an understanding of the skill sets that are really needed.
The truth is we need very smart kids and there are a number of them that I think we are overlooking. I am speaking of those in gifted and talented programs. Not all of these kids are Einsteins, but they are almost all several notches above average.
Since my son is in one of these programs I can describe to you commonalities that just might make them the next super techs. First and foremost they have something they are very passionate about and it is not living and breathing. They are very into technology and they can quote the specs of their computers, which they often build themselves. They also enjoy high-performance cars, most every firearm or military vehicle built. Who knew? When the boys, and don’t overlook the girls, are over for one of their famous geek fests (no they would not be offended by that) there are 20 questions or more about what I am working on at the shop.
Does this sound like the making of a technician? Perhaps, but there are downsides to consider.
Many of these kids are ADD or ADHD so they require and crave a support system, processes and structure, even though they appear to live in chaos. Those who do not have off-the-chart IQs can fall through the cracks due to their weak people skills. I am sure you know someone very smart who underachieves for some of these reasons.
Many who are ADHD have a tough time keeping track of the passing of time so as diagnosticians they would need help with that. They also have a tendency to have super fine motor skill issues if you don’t keep them doing that type of work. A kid who appears to be all thumbs just needs repetition to wire his or her brain into that function. Penmanship is generally a problem too. Considering the need for a repair shop to have a consistent culture that supports creative work. It seems like a match because while these young people don’t like lifestyle changes, they fully embrace tech change and that is something I think we can guarantee them in the future.
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