Working with local technical schools

Aug. 3, 2016
If we do not put automotive repair out there as a viable career option early, making training opportunities highly visible and available to young people graduating from high school today, we might find ourselves in an ever tightening staffing crunch.

Cars today are very complicated with systems and sub-systems that require in depth training, special equipment and skills way beyond anything we saw in the 1980s or 90s. The good news is that cars are much more reliable than they ever used to be. The bad news is that when they break you have to have specialized knowledge, skill and experience to fix them. The current shortage of qualified technicians is a critical issue facing repair shops in the U.S. and a significant risk to the automotive repair industry, particularly away from the dealership world.

One of the most consistent and pervasive challenges facing repair shop owners and service managers is keeping their shops fully staffed with technicians who are up to date on their training and capable of working on late model vehicles. Finding a technician at all can be a challenge in many parts of the country, but finding capable, productive, quality technicians in many cases is a near impossibility. The reasons for this are many and varied, but big factors in all of this are our lack of a game plan in training and recruiting, as well as negative perceptions of the industry. If we do not put automotive repair out there as a viable career option early, making training opportunities highly visible, attractive and available to young people graduating from high school today, we might find ourselves in an ever tightening staffing crunch that will begin to impact our business and our ability to compete or even survive. Come to think of it, this kind of sounds like where we are today.

I think all of us dream about that perfect tech, with that perfect combination of knowledge, skill and experience walking in off the street and rescuing our service operation. While we are waiting for that unlikely event to occur, I am going to suggest something a bit more constructive and have you contact an appropriate high school, technical school or community college in your area and see what they might have to offer. Get on their industry advisory board, donate some of your time or buy them a piece of equipment and take the time to meet some of the students. All of this is an investment in your future. Even though we still can hope and pray that perfect tech walks in and saves us somewhere along the way, beginning to partner with a local school gives us the opportunity to engage and interact with both students and teachers and gives us the very real opportunity to use that real world experience we have been gaining all these years and advise on curriculum and training priorities. Most important of all, we get to engage and interact with the technicians of tomorrow and get first crack at the training, knowledge and experience they represent. Identify promising students and set up internships for them — get to know them while they get to know you. Give them a career path while investing in your tomorrow. Begin to solve your staffing problem instead of waiting for that solution to walk in your door because that wait is likely to be a long one.

As I am sure is the case in your town, within 20 miles of my front door there are three high quality automotive technology programs (The Gudelsky Institute for Automotive Technology in Rockville Maryland, Northern Virginia Community College Automotive Department just outside Washington DC in Northern Virginia and Lincoln Tech: Automotive, with a couple of locations in the area) packed to the gills with young, highly motivated students who are learning the latest trends in automotive repair and technology but who need the time and opportunity to gain experience. Each of these programs reaches out to high schools. Each of these programs has at least one car manufacturer listed among their sponsors. Each one of these programs also has several new car dealers listed among their sponsors.

New car dealers, representing car manufacturers from all around the world, have long faced the challenge of staffing their service departments. Unlike the automotive aftermarket, which can refer a customer back to the dealer when they can’t or don’t want to work on a particular vehicle for a particular problem, dealerships have to be ready to handle whatever shows up at their doors. They have long aligned themselves with high school, technical school and community college automotive technology programs and have long had the benefit of well trained technicians graduating with career paths laid out.

There are automotive technology programs across the country that are dying for sponsors, and though forming these types of partnerships can be time consuming, we are talking about our viability and survival as an industry. Being a sponsor is not a marriage or financial obligation, but it is us getting involved in the direction the automotive repair industry goes in and doing something very constructive in shaping what that future industry would look like. That you would have access to an emerging generation of technicians in this effort would seem a great side benefit to your sacrificing a few hours of your time each month.

Why should the dealers have all that exposure and why should they have access to all of those new technicians? What do dealers know that we don’t?

The Auto Care Association (formerly the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association, or AAIA) knows that with a rapidly changing global economy, customer make-up, technology, legislation, environmental issues, and competition, there is an urgent need for education and training programs. ACA responds to this challenge by providing the industry with resources and opportunities to enhance continuous learning. ACA understands the value of education, training and professional development. An important goal of the association is to create an industry-wide, broad-based initiative to “recruit and retain the best and brightest to grow the industry.” Its purpose is to advance the ability of aftermarket companies and organizations to recruit young people, recent college graduates and returning veterans, among others. The Auto Care Association is an organization with a long history of leadership in the automotive world, working tirelessly to assure the strength and viability of the industry. Part of this effort includes training, education and scholarships to assure the core skills of the industry going forward and recruiting to attract the very best and brightest.

 Too often the automotive repair industry, and the automotive aftermarket in particular, lose out to other service and skills based industries because other industries have been much quicker to recognize the incredible and desperately needed resource represented by the young people registered in those high school, technical school or community college trade and technology programs. Other industries and new car dealerships know that human capital is limited and central to any industry with expectations of a sustainable future. Not willing to bet that future on the hope that knowledgeable, experienced and motivated staff members will walk in off the street, many industries are fostering those relationships early and providing viable paths toward the future and attracting the Technicians and Service Advisors of tomorrow. 

That young man or young woman looking for a career may have heard things about life as a technician in the automotive repair industry but they will not be working for the industry, they will be working for you. What view of the industry are you giving them?

Maybe it’s time we thought about our future. Maybe it’s time we thought about our industry. Maybe it’s time we became a sponsor.

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