The Game has Changed. So should the way you find Technicians - The "R" in GARAGE Plan.

I recently did a presentation for a group of Dealerships that I started with a question. That question was, "How different are Techs today as compared to Technicians from 20 years ago?". Quite a few people chimed in on how different the job is from even the recent past. After a brief discussion of the differences and advancements, I then posed another question to the group. "How many of you are still trying to find Techs the same way you were 20 years ago?". Not surprisingly, almost every hand in the room went up. 

What I said next surprised them. I shifted the conversation to be focus about how big of an opportunity there is for shops that fully embrace the changing climate. Because most shops haven't changed, there is still a huge opportunity for those that change. Followed by something a bit more somber that I didn't get much push back from. Shops that don't adapt the way they look for quality talent are going to be left behind…and quite frankly, they deserve to be. 

The next letter in our GARAGE Plan is the letter R and it stands for Recruit Consistently. This may be the most important piece to our GARAGE Plan and should be taken as seriously as anything else in your business. No, seriously. Times have changed and the need for shops to adapt is more apparent than ever. Why, you may ask?

Let's walk through the typical recruiting process of a typical shop. You may recognize that I used the word typical in that last sentence twice and I did that for a reason…because most shops are typical, if we're being honest. From our experience, the process for a typical shop starts the day that a Technician puts in their resignation or 2 week notice that they are leaving the company. The Management team immediately kicks themselves for not acting on their gut feeling that they should be more proactive with their recruiting efforts, followed by a brief period of self loathing. Don't lie to yourself.

After your brief bout with the self loathing, it hits you that you've got a pile of work in the shop and suddenly nobody to work on what you promised your customers. This then triggers your anxiety about how you're going to get all of this done and what you're going to tell your customers and how much they are going to hate you now and how the shop is going to fail and how you're going to be broke and how you're going to feed your family. Ok, that may be a bit of an embellishment but I've been in that spot and I don't know that my thoughts were too far off of that.

There's a better way. I promise you. But it takes a complete shift in the way you think about your staffing needs. We've repeated over and over that this Technician shortage probably isn't going to get better, so it's probably best that you listen to what we're about to say.

Basically, as a Shop Owner or Manager, you have to start being intentional about this. I know, easy to say when you've got 5 million things going on in the shop, right? This is exactly why I say that you need to start being intentional about it. If you do not make time for proactively looking for talent on a consistent basis, it's not going to happen.

So, what are you going to do to make time for it? There are a number of things that can be helpful but the number one thing should be getting a consistent time down on a calendar. We recommend that you continually use the same time and find an accountability partner that's going to hold you to your new commitment. Sounds corny but it works.

From there, follow the first steps of the GARAGE Plan to get started. Getting organized is a very key portion to this plan and you can read about it here.  The biggest key is consistency and in doing it on a regular, consistent basis. It takes time and you need to be organized when focusing on a new change. We've also got lots of other content on the FindAWrench.com website. 

Consequently, we've also launched a new service focused around this. I've made it a point to not make any sales pitches to our valuable readers of our blogs but this is too relevant to leave out. We've developed something called the ASR Program. ASR stands for Assisted Self Recruiting and we developed it based on feedback from our great customers. Basically, this is a subscription based program aimed at continually trying to drive eyes to your job postings and put resumes in front of you. We've had really great feedback on the ASR Program so far and it's somewhat shifted the way that we do business. 

As far as a quick overview of the package, we do all of the normal advertising and back end work that we do to generate interest in our full service recruiting package. The biggest change is that instead of putting our Recruiting team on it immediately to start outreach, we send an ongoing stream of qualified resumes for your review. The intent of this program is to use our resources for identifying skilled talent and put those people in front of our Shop Owners and Managers. From there, you're able to review the resumes and decide what you'd like to do with them. Want to call them and schedule an interview directly? Go right ahead…you'll have their contact information. Find yourself buried and in need of help reaching out to these folks? Great. Let us know and we can get you going on our Full Service program. Sorry for the small sales pitch here but it did seem like a good opportunity to share that. If you find yourself interested in the new ASR Program, feel free to let us know and we can explain in it in more detail.

Somewhat important to note is that we also changed based on feedback. In writing these blogs, we're trying to drive value to not only our customers but to the industry in general. Part of that is taking our own advice and adapting to a constantly changing industry. We love the fact that we're able to have candid conversations with our clients and this new program is a result of that.

Regardless if you use our program or develop something on your own, the fact that your shop needs to change is becoming more apparent by the day. Let us know if we can help you…regardless if you're a client of ours or not. Be proactive with your recruit and retainment plan and it could be a game-changer for your shop.

Want more information on our GARAGE Plan? Check out the blog page at FindAWrench.com!

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