Pub. 6 2016 Issue 4

21 they can text or Skype instead. Getting a driver’s license used to be a common rite of passage; 87 percent of all 19-year-olds had them in 1980. Seventy percent could say the same thing in 2010. Working on your own car under the tree in the front yard isn’t realistic anymore. Many millennials might find the idea of becoming a mas- ter technician an appealing one. New powertrain technologies are making this a fast-changing, interesting job involving everything from hybrids to advanced clean-diesel engines. The job requires solving sophisticated problems in complex systems. These cars are sometimes controlled by thousands of lines of code running on 20 microprocessors or more. Someone who is already inclined toward technology might be very interested in work that is much more than just read- ing a diagnostic screen. Hiring millennials means understanding the way their minds generally work, and persuading them that your deal- ership can provide them with a good future. The fact that auto repair is actually going high-tech is in your favor; so is the fact that this is one job that is securely and permanently located on U.S. shores. Demand is growing, too; the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects 17 percent growth between 2010 and 2020, which means 848,200 mechanics and 124,800 new jobs. Someone who is qualified and knows how to trouble- shoot is basically guaranteed a job. The key word, of course, is “qualified.” The highest demand (and the highest pay) is for master technicians. Advocating within the School System High school students are your future employees. That means you have every reason in the world to take an interest in their education. Get involved. If there are local programs or advisory committees, participate in them. Sponsor career days. Provide students with opportunities to job shadow or to work as interns. Talk to school administrators — prefer- ably, as part of a group. People are more likely to take groups seriously, and to hear what they have to say, than they are to listen to one person, especially when that one person is talking about an expensive program. Math and science skills are vital for potential technicians, but so are seats in auto repair and specialized courses. Any- thing you can do to recruit students and to strengthen existing programs is good. What you especially want to encourage is the development of crucial troubleshooting skills. Creating Relationships with Mentors Repair shops can be competitive places. After all, each repair shop a limited number of cars to fix, and a lot of people who want to bring home a good paycheck. You want to make sure that a young technician is treated well. One way to do that is by giving the young technician a mentor. If you have one or more seasoned senior technicians who are beginning to think about retirement, they might be the right people to choose. Done right, the older technicians will pass along hard-earned wisdom to the younger technicians. Done wrong, you will have a disaster. What’s the right way to set up a mentoring relationship? • Talk to the senior technician early in the process. If the senior technician does not intend to retire yet, for example, you have a problem. Training a replacement is only a happy occasion when someone plans to leave anyway. If that isn’t the plan, no benefit is going to compensate for being asked to train a subordinate rival. The repair shop could end up being turned into a war zone. • Set up a short-term arrangement that is a win for everybody involved. It probably shouldn’t last less than a year or more than two years; 18 months might be a good intermediate choice. Use generated sales to pay for the rewards. You could give part of the young technician’s billed hours to the senior technician. In addition, you could give bonuses if the young technician exceeds production goals and gains ASE certifications. • Make sure the senior technician does not turn the young technician into a glorified errand boy. The senior technician has to actually follow through and pass on all those lessons acquired through years of work. Make sure that is what happens. By the end of the mentoring relationship, you should have another senior technician. Better yet, that new senior technician will be young. Then do your best to convince the new senior technician that your dealership can keep life interesting, high-tech, and well-paid. That, combined with your efforts to strengthen technical training in the school system, may be enough to keep your dealership repair shop going for a long time to come. 