By all accounts, the technician shortage has left a sour taste in the commercial vehicle industry’s mouth. I’ll spare you the grim government and non-profit projections and offer up what your peers have experienced. According to Fullbay’s latest State of Heavy-Duty Repair Industry Report, two out of every three of the 900 maintenance stakeholders surveyed found it difficult to hire technicians. More than half called it their top challenge.
Cue the optimists chiming in with “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Maintenance folks like a good challenge, but the current situation goes beyond that platitude. It requires tangible solutions.
Finding those won’t be easy. For starters, there aren’t that many lemons anymore. Fleet Maintenance contributor George Arrants, VP of the ASE Education Foundation, revealed his organization’s internal data found about 40% of auto/diesel tech school graduates leave the trade within two years. ASE’s strategy is for high schools and trade schools to partner with industry mentors, who can nurture students’ interest so one rotten experience as an entry-level tech doesn’t sour them. It’s a good plan but only in the seedling phase.
Along with the lack of labor, shops can’t reliably get the parts needed to make repairs. In the Fullbay report, 82% of respondents reported disruptions due to the parts shortage. Getting ahead of problems with data and telematics and streamlining DVIR reporting and work order approvals can help squeeze out more efficiency.
Those digital solutions may be just enough to achieve stability. Shops also must find time to prepare for the impending forced conversion to zero-emission trucks while currently juggling a rising complexity of truck technology, such as with advanced driver assistance systems. To advance beyond muddling through day to day and to attract more technicians to the trade, shops must sweeten the pot.
Fullbay’s data indicate this is happening, according to Jacob Findlay, founder and chairman of the maintenance management software provider. He said last year 73% of independent shops did provide a wage increase, to the average tune of $13.80/hour.
“You would think it would be 100%, given the period of price inflation that we’re going through,” Findlay reasoned in March at American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council 2022 Annual Meeting & Transportation Technology Exhibition. “So, over a quarter of the shops surveyed [reported] zero increase in technician wages last year. And I’m fairly confident that those shops are increasing turnover and decreasing their proficiency and recruitment capabilities.”
Not being compensated after being asked to do so much may be a reason many entry-level technicians leave within two years. That could also drive experienced techs away as well. Findlay advised that for every $0.50 increase in technician wages, shops should increase labor rates by $1.
“You do need to pay the technicians what they are worth in the market as a shop, and the fleets need to be willing to pay a higher labor rate to keep that shop in business,” he said. “The fleets will be okay paying those higher rates because their trucks will be operational more consistently, and they will make more money with the trucks. We all cooperate together and it’s a true win-win.”
Findlay, a numbers guy who left an accounting professor track for the commercial vehicle maintenance sector, argued that paying higher wages as the labor quantity goes down “will create new entrants into the diesel technician market—it’s classic supply and demand.”
That’s a start, but with such a stiff job market, shops need to set themselves apart by heaping in even more sugar via incentives. The Fullbay report found 44% of shops offer bonus/incentive programs and 40% recognize individual achievements, while one-third provide lunch and about one-quarter give out gift cards and other gifts. Shop management data measuring repair times and bay throughput will come in handy to decide who deserves what.
Fullbay CEO Patrick McKittrick also intimated that shops may be getting even more creative by reinventing the workweek, instituting three 12-hour days and then having four days off. “That’s flexibility that money can’t buy, so there will be things beyond just pay,” he concluded.
I would advise to take it a step further and figure out a way to gamify the shop. From what my sources tell me, that’s not too common right now, but it could be done with existing data and third-party API.
