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A Plan To Solve The Technician Shortage [RR 786]

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carmcapriotto Grand Master

carmcapriotto

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the technician shortage is the hottest topic and challenge in our industry. My guest Cecil Bullard from The Insitute has a plan to solve the technician shortage. It involves a $20 increase in your labor rate and how that money gets distributed. Sounds too good to be true? Good! Cecil Bullard, President of the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Listen to Cecil’s previous episodes HERE. Key Talking Points From Cecil's White Paper

  • Recent surveys and articles in the industry point to the fact that 73% of shops need to hire one or more employees in the next 12 months and that for 85% of those, it would be a technician
  • As much as 29% of the technicians are over 55 years old, and they are aging out of the industry
  • Only 15% of our industry is under 35 while 29% is over 55
  • Every Automotive Service and Repair Business in North America will move their labor rate up $20 per hour tomorrow. We use $10 of this to increase the pay of every technician and/or mechanic working in our shops immediately.   We make it financially appealing to come into our industry by moving the wages up substantially.  If every shop (or 90% of the shops) do this, it would change our industry for the better dramatically.   We start new technicians that are learning at $25 to $35 an hour or $50K to $70K per year (a real living wage where they can support themselves and buy tools), and we pay veteran A-technicians $45 to $65 per hour or $90K to $130K. We take $5 of the increase and make sure we have a full benefits package.  Medical, vacation, dental, a reasonable amount of sick days, a good retirement plan, all national holidays off with pay, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, as well as anything that other professional jobs offer.
  • We take the other $5 of the increase and join a non-profit organization that will market to the mothers and fathers out there (and potential technicians) and let them know that being a technician in a modern shop is a cool job, is financially viable and every bit as professional as becoming a lawyer, doctor, dentist, programmer or professor.
  • Lastly, every shop owner books an appointment at a college, auto tech school, or high school and ‘volunteers’ their time to talk to the students, teachers, and administrators about our incredible industry.
  • The Institute Summit


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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

    • Joe Marconi
      Want to End Your Technician Shortage? Focus on Retention!
      By Joe Marconi in Joe's Blog
         5 comments
      I recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
      Judging from personal experience as a shop owner and from what I know about the auto repair industry, I can tell you that other than a few exceptions, the turnover rate for technicians in our industry is too high. This makes me think, do we have a technician shortage or a retention problem? Have we done the best we can over the decades to provide great pay plans, benefits packages, great work environments, and the right culture to ensure that the techs we have stay with us?
      Finding and hiring qualified automotive technicians is not a new phenomenon. This problem has been around for as long as I can remember. While we do need to attract people to our industry and provide the necessary training and mentorship, we also need to focus on retention. Having a revolving door and needing to hire techs every few years or so costs your company money. Big money! And that revolving door may be a sign of an even bigger issue: poor leadership, and poor employee management skills.
      Here’s one more thing to consider, for the most part, technicians don’t leave one job to start a new career, they leave one shop as a technician to become a technician at another shop. The reasons why they leave can be debated, but there is one fact that we cannot deny, people don’t quit the company they work for, they usually leave because of the boss or manager they work for.
      Put yourselves in the shoes of your employees. Do you have a workplace that communicates, “We appreciate you and want you to stay!”

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