Managing information overload
I enjoy the opportunities to work with the industry, and I love to share things I have learned with technicians and shop owners.
I recently participated in a panel discussion that was outside of the normal circles I travel. It focused on two subjects that I have been seeing as areas that the whole industry seems to be struggling with — the first is keeping up with what is going on outside the doors of our shops and the second is expectations of entry-level employees.
I doubt anyone would argue that running a repair shop requires considerably more information today than ever before. The dichotomy is that it seems that fewer technicians and shop owners are actively seeking out information that will make their jobs easier.
There is pretty solid evidence of this in several areas: the lower number of shops that are members of trade associations that specialize in collecting and filtering data, the disappointing number of hands that go up when I ask my classes how many of them are members of iATN, the extreme measures trade magazines are taking to expand or catch the attention of people who should be soaking up this information as soon as it hits their mail boxes, whether of the e or snail variety.
Instead, I sit in meetings where multiple organizations are struggling with members who complain that they get TOO MUCH information. It seems like this would be a red flag that there is a need for someone in every business to read, collect and store information that is useful to the business.
The time or money lost by missing some new policy or repair tip will pay for membership to all of these associations. It will also leave enough money to buy a scanner so you can collect useful magazine articles into a .PDF library, along with all the useful web links you think you can use. The drive I maintain for my personal use is over 20 Gigabytes. There are hundreds or articles and little pieces of information I save and very often use. Maybe I am a geek, but like it says in that famous book, “the geek shall inherit the earth,” right?
During the panel discussion, a shop owner asked what we are to do about kids coming out of trade schools expecting “$32 per hour when they can’t fix a car.” I felt just a little like Troy Tulowitzki when some poor pitcher drops a fastball in the zone — this one is out of here. Kids today are entering some great schools that are attempting an impossible mission: to make a technician that can successfully generate income for themselves and a repair shop in all eight of the ASE certification areas in two to four years. These kids come out of school with a huge debt load that includes student loans and a tool set that is no match for the work a $32-per-hour tech would need to perform. The problem is that they are forced, in most cases, to live with their parents and drive a crappy car. This generation of kids needs to feel that they are being successful sooner rather than later. We lose many of them within the first year to jobs that pay about the same but are not as difficult as what we do.
So what is the solution? Limit the scope of the education and then reduce the debt these kids are harnessed with. For most shop owners, a young man or woman who has a professional appearance and demeanor, who can perform an industry-standard maintenance inspection, brake job, fluid services and can find and utilize service information would make money for the shop and would not be looking for a more personally-rewarding environment in 6 months. As the young tech learns what areas interest them, it would then make sense to return to those great schools and get continuing education. They would learn faster and take it more seriously because they would have had the opportunity to see what the journeymen are doing in the shop where they work.
The industry is looking for this type of individual and approach, and I think if you watch the information coming in the next few months, you will see that the educational side of the industry will be working on this. When you are asked to take on young techs, be sure to consider it and see what they can bring to the table. If you have a young tech with some holes in the areas I have been talking about, consider visiting www.ase.com and see what they have for the maintenance and inspection tech to perfect their skills in that area. If we want better techs, we have to willing to work across the areas that influence, educate, hire and retain them to get what we need for the future.