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  • You Need to Adapt – How the Technician Shortage Impacts how you Manage your Shop

    Posted by Site Administrator on November 7, 2019 at 11:32 am

    You Need to Adapt – How the Technician Shortage Impacts how you Manage your Shop

    I’m not sure if you’re aware or not but we’ve currently got a technician shortage on our hands. Of course, I’m being somewhat sarcastic because people are talking and writing about it everywhere. Trade publications, blogs and every other possible avenue that people in our industry can find to scream it from a mountain top. We, at Find A Wrench, are no different and it’s because the content seems to be really popular.

    I’m honestly surprised that it’s still so popular. We’ve been talking about this shortage for quite some time now. To me, it’s telling in that we continue to beat this dead horse, and there is still a great deal of pain out there for employers. Shops everywhere are well aware that there is a problem, and they are feeling it every single day. It almost feels like insult to injury because they are seeing it firsthand on top of hearing about it everywhere, like the rest of us.

    So, what truly stops us from making progress? Why are we continually putting ourselves through the pain of making last minute, desperate hires? What has continued to make this such a hot topic? The typical reason we see is that there simply isn’t enough time in the day. Between running the business and managing employees, when am I supposed to have time to do anything proactive?

    As a small business owner myself, I sympathize with this thought. Growing up in our family shop, I saw firsthand how much work goes into running an independent shop.. I’ve also had lots of experience running a variety of departments on the dealership side as well. It’s hard. How do I prioritize when it feels like everything is a priority?

    You need to either make more time or organize your schedule better.

    Start with a Time Analysis

    One of the most effective practices I used when coaching shops on management was to get a true understanding of where their day went. In one case, I had a service manager write down everything that he did in a day on a piece of paper. Once he finished that, we combed back through that list and I asked him how long each of those tasks takes. We found that his daily activities resulted in roughly 20 hours per day of work. How in the heck are you going to get 20 hours of work consistently taken care of without burning yourself out? I’ve used this exercise numerous times since and it’s always good at painting a clear picture.

    Prioritize Tasks

    Based on the list you created for your time analysis, you should have a pretty good idea of what your daily tasks are. If you’ve ever read any type of time management book, there are all kinds of different systems to use to prioritize those tasks. Something I recommend is finding what works best for you and then consistently doing it day in and day out. If you can, try some different things to see what works at first, but then stick to one system.

    Understand What’s on Your Schedule

    It’s really hard to know how to prioritize your schedule when you don’t actually know what’s on it. Sounds really simple, but this is something that I continually struggle with. The importance of having a place where you’re listing out your tasks and then putting some type of schedule in place after that is vitally important. I feel like each person does this differently, but the most important thing is to get everything listed out.

    To me, this is one of the more challenging things because of how many tools are available through technology. I’ve found that simple pen and paper (and using the same notebook) have worked best for me. On your list, what are the things that only you can do?

    Delegate the Rest

    If you’re one of those people I explained earlier that has to get 20 hours of work done in an 8 hour day, then something needs to change. Identifying what has to be done in a day and then deciding what items on it absolutely have to be done by you are critical. If there are items that only you can do, can you do some training to have somebody else on your team take them off of your plate?

    What often happens is that we, as managers and owners, devalue our time. We look at it as we’re paying somebody else good money to do jobs when we could do them ourselves. Have you ever thought about putting a dollar value on your time? If you’re a manager or owner, wouldn’t your time be better spent developing the business. One of my favorite books of all time is the E-Myth Revisited by John C. Maxwell. (If you haven’t read it, you need to) He covers a lot in the book, but the main point of the book is that you should be working ON your business, not IN your business.

    Hire Outside Help

    I’m a huge fan of getting smart people to help me out with my business, and I’d encourage you to do the same. Be honest with what your strengths are and even more honest about what your weaknesses are. If you know what your weaknesses are, you’re more likely to come to terms with the weakness and find help for it. This is where I think business coaches can truly help you out:

    For independent shops, you probably will have to go outside of your business to find them, but there are a number of great organizations to help you out that are specific to your business.
    For dealerships, make sure to utilize the abundance of resources that manufacturers make available to you.

    How this Impacts Staffing… Particularly, Technician Headcount

    On that list of priorities should really be a staffing plan. In shops, repair shops simply cannot run without folks actually doing the work in the shop. If that’s the case, then why do we seem to constantly wait until the last minute to deal with it? Most likely, it’s because you’re not feeling the real pain until you see empty bays.

    If this is truly the case, then you need to come to terms with the fact that this might be a weakness of yours or that you’re not truly prioritizing it. If your weakness is staffing, then you need help. Obviously, I’m biased toward what we do for our clients here at Find A Wrench but you can take steps to improve on your own.

    If your strength is being organized, organize a plan to execute. On the contrary, if your weakness is executing that plan, you need to put steps in place to hold yourself accountable.

    The bottom line is that a lot of your job is really tough to execute on. The importance of staying organized has never been more important and the first step in moving in the right direction is to understand that you can’t do everything yourself.

    Not only is that okay, it’s a critical step in managing your business… Especially as it gets increasingly more difficult to find mechanics.

    Jay Goninen

    CEO at Find A Wrench

     

    Site Administrator replied 4 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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