What you will learn:
• Training should be part of each technician's growth
• Fundamental knowledge attained drives a thorough and accurate diagnosis
• Training isn't an expense, it's an investment
I won’t be the one to say, “We are out of the woods,” regarding the COVID-19 situation. But I will say that it’s nice to start the spring season with a series of tremendous training events across the country. It does my heart good to see the dedicated professionals investing time in themselves to further their depth of understanding, as we are all well-aware, technology is growing at an exponential rate.
I know all too well that there exists a sense of underachievement among many technicians and shop owners in our wonderful industry. I can tell you that much of it stems from a lack of confidence. It’s fear of failure, as we see and hear of so many around us achieving great success. It begs the question “What am I (…are we) doing wrong?” I’ll be blunt: Come to training and find out!
As many of us have decades of experience, it's natural to develop an attitude that further training isn't necessary. I can tell you that I've stepped out of the shop (at least on a full-time basis) about three years ago. The level of understanding regarding current technologies dwindles very rapidly if one doesn't choose to keep up.
Let me tell you a quick story about a fellow technician I worked closely with for a few years (we’ll just call him Pat). Pat was a phenomenal technician/diagnostician but stopped attending training years ago and was comfortable with the technologies that surfaces in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, his level and depth of understanding wasn’t up to par for model years newer than that.
As a result, although his performance as a parts replacer was still adequate, his rate of pay (because of his previous “A-tech” capabilities) didn’t yield him much opportunity to capitalize on those service repairs. It was simply more cost-effective to have a B or C-level technician perform those repairs.
Pat’s hands were tied, and his day consisted of seemingly impossible diagnostic tasks. Not only were his diagnostic capabilities lacking because he no longer possessed the skills, but he also didn’t own the necessary tools to perform the analyses anyway.
Daily, I was sad to have him approach me requiring assistance on almost every diagnostic job he encountered. He not only required help capturing data properly, but he also had to borrow my very expensive (but necessary) tooling.
Many times, due to embarrassment, he would only reach out for help after extensive misdiagnoses occurred. I was in a difficult position, stuck between assisting a friend in need, or being a responsible shop foreman and reporting the deficiency to upper management.
Of course, I discussed it with Pat first, but he didn't feel he needed training. He instead felt he was simply experiencing a bout of unfortunate and unavoidable circumstances. There were times I wasn’t available to aid and instead had to play “clean-up Man.” The shop required me to fix the mistakes and damage caused because of his lack of understanding. In the end, resentment and frustration stemmed. The shop was in a terrible predicament because our profits were hurting as well.
Training is everyone’s responsibility. From the shop owner to the individual technicians. If you ask my opinion, a team member should not only be offered training (and be willing to train), but the shop should pay for the training/accrued expenses and compensate the tech for the time invested (if the training occurs during normal work hours). Often the response I get is:
“What if I invest all the costs of training in my team members and they leave?”
Great question, but I believe this is a more important question to ask:
“What if you don’t invest, and they stay?”
