The collision repair industry has not been immune to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and panelists at the WIN Educational Conference on May 3 discussed the challenges they are facing, and how they are trying to overcome them.
“It seems the pandemic put a lot of pressure on an industry that was already feeling a lot of pressure, and when you think about trying to drive efficiencies, lower costs, this just kind of upended it all,” said Brenda Hewitt, claims unit manager at Liberty Mutual Insurance.
Getting parts
Many body shops are having cars sit on their lots for way too long due to the parts shortage.
"At Jerry's ABRA Auto Body & Glass in Mankato, Minn. any vehicles that are driveable are being pushed out, with the customer being told they will be notified when the part comes in, but for non-drive and supplemental parts, some cars have been on the lot since December," said Laura Kottschade, operations manager. "They can’t get a driveshaft because it’s a recall on a Ford F150. Then there’s the Hyundai you can’t get an absorber for. You can’t drive without those things. You’re running out of space in your parking lot. We have employees parking on our front lawn.”
Kottschade spends two to three hours some days calling stores and being constantly told they don’t have the part, or if she can find it, it’s half-way across the country — which comes with its own set of challenges.
“You’re taking that risk to get a bumper cover in, then you run into the whole tax portion and some of the dealers will say, ‘We will change your tax rate,’ but some won’t, and you get charged tax on it as well,” she explained.
After scouring the country for a part he needed, when Kottschade’s father (the shop owner) found out that the part was only a three hour drive away, he hopped in his car and drove a total of six hours to get the part for his customer.
When a long-delayed part finally comes it, it’s another challenge to make sure those affected cars get priority while others are pushed to the back burner.
“It’s kind of like a Jenga game, trying to figure out production,” Kottschade said. “You have a quarter panel on back order, we finally got both of them back at the same time, so the rest of those cars go on hold. These cars have been there longer, so it’s a pick and choose.”
Create partnerships
One way for shops to tackle this is to partner with suppliers. Angie Babin, vice-president of supply chain at Caliber Collision the company really relies on its partners in all of the supply chain to “make things happen.”
“It has gotten to a point where our partners will say, ‘Here is a critical item. I don’t know if I am going to be able to get that to you'…[And if they can’t] they help us find a competitive product to replace it in the meantime, so that we can keep production going as much as possible,” she said. “That’s unprecedented. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before.”
Babin noted that the collision repair industry has been extremely resilient in the face of supply chain challenges — especially the technicians. She noted that it is very difficult for them when they have to produce vehicles without a part coming in, especially since they get paid by how much work they do.
“If they are sitting there waiting for a part, it really disrupts the entire production cycle," she said. "When you have to take a vehicle out in the middle, and then try to figure out what do you do next…and where am I going to put all these vehicles because my lot’s full? The stress inside the shop has become very high. If technicians could make parts and materials and make them show up, they would do that in a heartbeat.”
People challenges
The technician shortage was already there before COVID, but the pandemic amplified it, the panelists said.
“We have more work than we can do. Where are we going to get the people?" Kottschade noted. "There’s a lot of pressure and a lot of stress on everybody."
At her parents' body shop, Kottschade said she used to get experienced technicians who wanted to come work for them because they were one of the bigger body shops in the area, but now experienced techs seem to be getting out of the industry. As a result, they are forced to hold on to some of her low-performing employees.
“We have employees that in a normal year we would not have them work for us any longer because they have the attitude of, ‘You need me. You don’t have people knocking down your doors to come work, so I am just going to do my job half the time, and somebody can cover for me,’” said Kottschade. “We get a lot of that attitude, too.”
While experienced techs seem to be leaving the industry, the openings they have left have opened up opportunities for young students who are working at the shop. Encouraging more students to enter the industry is key in eliminating the technician shortage, panelists said, and it’s important to work together as an industry to do this.
“One of the biggest things is marketing to the young people that this is a fantastic industry to work in, especially as a technician — there is such a great career opportunity,” said Babin. “Changing what parents see as the industry — collision shops are not grease monkey shops anymore; its the technology that they learn, it’s the career progression, it’s the money that they can make.”
Apprenticeship programs are a good way to get young people interested in the industry, she added.
It’s also important for shop owners to check in with their staff because the pandemic has put a lot of mental stress on workers, said Genevieve Dombrowski, senior vice-president of human resources at LKQ Corporation. Leaders need to have empathy and should ask their employees how they are feeling. ultimately, the goal is to try to reduce the stigma around mental health.
“Try to make people comfortable talking about it. I think that’s hard in our industry," she said. "We don’t often say, ‘I have a problem. What do I do about it?’ Make sure you’re building a culture that is worth people coming to.”
