How to Train and Retain Top Talent in Your Auto Repair Shop

By Tristan Corrin
| April 10, 2023
| Business Advice, Tips

Your team is THE most important asset for keeping your customers happy, delivering the best possible service, and retaining customers. But to have the best and the most reliable team, you should hire the best and encourage regular auto repair training.

Recommended: Free Checklist to Help Set Up Your Auto Repair Shop [Download Now]

Before we get into auto repair training and retaining top talent, let’s take a step back. It all begins with hiring the right mechanics and people for your team.

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How do you hire your mechanics and technicians? What does the process look like? And what should you look for when hiring your ideal candidate?

Let’s find answers!

How to hire for your auto repair shop

Before we get down to training and retaining employees, let’s quickly see what the process looks like for hiring mechanics.

Know where to look

It all starts with looking for your ideal candidate. But do you know where to start? If you’re just placing an ad in the newspaper (like you would in the old days) or putting out a flyer, you’re not exploring the right avenues.

Exhaust all possible platforms such as Craigslist, Indeed, or LinkedIn. You never know how many talented candidates you’ll find.

Invite people to apply instead of waiting for them. If you see a potential candidate on a hiring platform, contact them! Start a conversation instead of waiting for them to discover you.

Even after you find your perfect match, keep taking resumes. You never know when you might want to hire new people.

Invite them for an interview

The interview will help you assess if the candidate has the requisite knowledge, skills, and experience to work at your auto repair shop. You can also determine whether they are a good fit for your company.

Asking questions that help you understand their personality is just as important as asking questions that will give you a good understanding of their experience and education. So it’s always good to ask about what they do for fun or what their hobbies are.

It helps the candidate get comfortable and lets you get off on the right foot with them. Plus, having a fun and relaxed conversation also gives you an idea of how they would approach and solve a problem.

The interview is also about communicating honest expectations to them. This conversation involves covering what the job entails and what they’re getting themselves into. Share the job description so they know how to manage the work and succeed at your auto repair shop.

Top 5 skills of an auto mechanic

Although you will conduct auto repair training for your new hires, here is a list of skills they should have before becoming an auto mechanic:

In your interview, you can assess these skills and then decide who to move forward with.

Set them up for success

Welcoming a new hire into the team begins right when they accept the offer. Give them a tour of the entire working space. Take them out for lunch on their first day. Provide information that will help them in their journey as they get accustomed to the new work environment.

However, there’s a lot more to your hiring process. You will have to place employment ads, complete pre-interview assessments, prepare their employment offer, and much more! Hiring may seem straightforward, but a lot rides on selecting the right candidate for your auto repair shop.

After your hiring process comes the training part. Once you have the ideal mechanic working at your auto repair shop, you spend time and energy on auto repair training. How will you do that? Let’s see.

How to train your auto repair shop employees

Training is an inherent part of any job. Without training, there’s no professional development, no growth. Your employees and your business will become obsolete without this progression.

Your employees need regular auto repair training to keep learning and evolving. Here is how you can add auto repair training for your employees:

Include basic training at orientation

When you’re bringing new hires on board, make basic auto repair training mandatory. This will only set them up for success. Even if your auto shop desperately needs someone to take on new jobs, always give enough room to train them.

Having them deep-dive into work will overwhelm them, leading them to underperform. Whether this includes learning new equipment, operating your software, or learning how to deal with customers, it will all help your auto repair shop at the end of the day.

Conduct on-site training sessions

You can invite industry professionals for on-site training sessions and workshops. This training can cover any topic, from new tools to the latest safety procedures you introduce.

You can even conduct workshops on developing soft skills for your employees. Working with equipment and vehicles all day can limit human interaction which could affect communication skills. This will help them provide better customer service by developing a rapport with their customers.

Encourage online auto repair training

In today’s online world, training and certifications exist for any profession. Encourage your auto shop technicians to acquire relevant certifications online. This adds credibility and gives your shop more authority on multiple fronts.

How to retain top talent

Once training wraps up and they’re set to take on the role, you focus on retaining them. After all, going through the hiring and training part was an extensive process. Something you won’t have time for every few months.

There are steps that shop owners can take for your newly hired mechanics, technicians, and other work staff to ensure you retain that talent at your workplace.

Create a positive work environment

Culture is a building block for any workplace. And as the leader, the onus is on you to create a positive company culture. Creating this space will involve thoughtful planning that eventually leads to an environment your employees thrive in.

Check in with team members

With the increased workload, fatigue, external pressures of the economy, and other mental health-related concerns employees might face, it’s good to check in with them. Kindness and empathy go a long way in showing your employees you care for them. Make them feel valued and part of the company. This genuine appreciation will help you retain your top talent.

Include them in decisions

Your technicians, mechanics, and other staff members will 100% feel more involved when you include them in key decisions. This includes new marketing campaigns you want to run, a new sales strategy you’re adopting, or simply if you need to purchase equipment.

Sit them down once or twice a month and brainstorm with them. Get their opinion on how they want to see the company grow. Ask them what practices the company should let go of and what practices you should adopt.

Having that clear communication with them will keep them motivated. Plus, if they feel engaged and valued for their thoughts, they will perform better and give it their all.

Recognize your employees

Acknowledging your employees is all about appreciating them for their inherent value. While recognition is about giving, people feedback based on performance or effort. Your employees want to feel like the work they’re doing matters. They want to be seen and heard for their effort.

Some of the ways you can acknowledge and recognize are:

Look for opportunities to praise
Celebrate timely wins
Recognize career milestones
Conduct regular team meetings and 1:1 check-ins
Celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries

Understand what employees value

Creating a positive working culture also means understanding what modern employees look for in a workspace. They want:

Transparency
To do meaningful work
Flexibility
To use technology
Training and instant coaching
Feedback and recognition
Acknowledgment of their ideas
To prioritize safety

All the above reflects what we discussed earlier. Your team wants to feel valued, included in key decisions, recognized and acknowledged for their work. These major contributors reinforce positive company culture and help you retain top talent.

Time to ask yourself, is your auto repair shop providing your employees with this support?

Facilitate professional growth

Another important consideration for your employees is growth. Do they see themselves achieving professional growth at your company? Will they stagnate after a while? Or will they be able to move up the ladder?

Have a clear career path outlined for them right from the beginning. This way, they will know where they can progress in their career. The uncertainty of not knowing where they’re heading might cause frustration and disengagement.

Regular auto repair training

This also means you conduct and encourage auto repair training. Share courses/certifications with your techs that aid them in their professional development. Provide insights based on your experience in the industry. Your employees should spend designated hours every quarter on professional development.

You also want to ensure that your employees’ goals align with the shop’s goals. So the earlier you have this conversation, the better it will be.

Lay out your vision

Do your employees know where the company wants to be in a few years? What are your aims? The mission and vision statement are essential in bringing all your employees together under one collective purpose.

This might seem like a small task, but it’s an essential part of giving your employees direction.

Introduce them to technology

As we previously discussed, your technicians want the right tools and technology. These resources will make them efficient and more productive.

Instead of having them do manual labor, provide them with the requisite shop management software that makes their job easier, creates faster processes, and allows them to finish more with less. This is you investing in their future and your auto shops’ future.

Promote your industry

Promoting the automotive industry and the highlights of a shop role will help you attract top talent. It will also retain that talent since they will see the value in working in the automotive industry.

Talk about the benefits, perks, and learning opportunities on social media. Go for a session at your local high school. The objective is to encourage and excite people to work with you.

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Final recommendations

Employees need a leader, someone who can help them grow, nurture their talent, and set them up for success.

Your relationship with your employees will define your ability to retain top talent. Make them feel valued, get their recommendations, listen to what they say, and lay out a solid career path for them. You will have no problem keeping your team with you for a long time!

Auto Repair Shop Management Software

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