Although not receiving as much attention as the decades-long driver shortage, fleets have been struggling to hire and retain qualified technicians for quite some time now.
In 2020, a survey conducted by the Associated Equipment Distributors Foundation estimated that more than 70,000 new heavy equipment technicians would be needed by 2050 in the US and Canada.
Talk with maintenance managers, and you’ll quickly discover that fleets will have to survive with far fewer technicians than in the past.
With new blood so hard to find, organizations must retain their existing technicians to ensure their maintenance operations remain productive.
By offering some new employee benefits and reevaluating their overall maintenance strategy, organizations should be able to inspire technicians to stick around for the long haul.
Cover Tool-Related Expenses
Who doesn’t like free? Technicians have been expected to provide most of their own tools for work for as long as anyone can remember.
From the perspective of a fleet, deferring tool expenses to technicians offers several advantages, such as minimizing theft-related risk, avoiding unnecessary wear and tear on company assets, etc.
However, this long-standing status quo can create obstacles for technicians, especially those who are newcomers to the industry.
For that reason, organizations should consider taking a new approach to tools that can result in improved technician retention.
Imagine yourself as a recently-hired technician straight out of a vocational program or technical school. What you lack in money, you make up for in enthusiasm about starting your first job in the field you’ve spent years training for. But before you can walk into that service bay, where you’ll be spending at least 40 hours every week, you’ll need to have invested in a proper set of tools.
Even if you already have some on hand, you’ll need about $1,000 more over the first year on the job. While an experienced mechanic knows how much of their paycheck to allocate towards tools, you don’t. As a result, your first couple of months on the job could be soured by these unexpected expenses. You might even start to wonder if becoming a technician was the right choice or if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence with the competition.
By lending new hires a startup toolbox on their first day, organizations can spare technicians from experiences like these. Even a modest collection of tools can go a long way for someone new to a job or industry.
Maintenance managers can consult with their most experienced technicians to determine what tools are must-haves for these starter toolboxes. And upon reaching a pre-established milestone, such as two years on the job or attaining a specified number of certifications, for example, fleets can reward proven technicians by giving them full ownership of these toolboxes.
And because why should only the newbies get a break? To help offset tool costs for more established technicians, organizations can provide their technicians with a recurring tool allowance.
Specifically designated for tool expenses only, this benefit can alleviate the financial burden technicians face when replacing worn-out tools. While ensuring these tool stipends are spent properly does require some monitoring on the part of managers, such efforts are well worth it if morale among technicians is improved as a result.
Outsourcing Maintenance or Repair Tasks
Many organizations take an all-or-nothing approach to maintaining their vehicles. They either handle every tune-up, oil change, and tire rotation themselves, or they outsource 100 percent of their maintenance work to third-party repair shops.
Both setups offer unique advantages and work well for all sorts of fleets. That being said, a hybrid model that leverages both in-house technicians and external providers can help organizations achieve higher levels of employee satisfaction in their service bays.
By strategically delegating maintenance tasks between internal and external resources, organizations can make their technicians’ workloads far more manageable. When technicians have fewer total assignments, they feel less under the gun at work, resulting in reduced stress and fewer anxiety-caused mistakes.
Furthermore, having more time to complete each of their tasks provides technicians with more breathing room to consistently perform the high-quality work you demand. Ideally, the hybrid maintenance approach ensures technicians won’t ever have to compromise attention to detail for the sake of churning through a backlog.
Additionally, outsourcing some maintenance work to a third party can allow technicians with specialized skill sets to truly shine.
Instead of having to be jacks of all trades, under the hybrid model, technicians can focus on a few maintenance disciplines and become highly adept at them over time.
Maintenance work outside the wheelhouses of these in-house specialists can be delegated to external repair shops as needed. This arrangement results in technicians spending more time on work they enjoy performing and less time on menial tasks they find uninteresting.
The result is a happier employee.
The autonomous vehicle (AV) technology company Kodiak Robotics exemplifies the benefits of the hybrid maintenance approach. Aside from when a truck breaks down, their technicians spend almost all their time on AV-related matters.
According to Matt Cearnal, the company’s Hardware Manager, "Here at Kodiak, we have the opportunity to pick and choose what we want to do, not due to capability—because we have the capacity in-house to do whatever level of repair we want to do—but it’s by priority. [...] That’s how we kind of dictate our current maintenance program. We would rather our technicians focus more on the AV side of things than doing maintenance and repairs on the truck platform."
For organizations with specialized needs like Kodiak Robotics, the hybrid maintenance model results in a win-win for organizations and technicians alike. Fleets benefit from their vehicles’ most pressing needs being addressed by skilled personnel who truly know their stuff. At the same time, technicians get to consistently work on tasks they have a passion for, resulting in greater satisfaction with their job.
Use a Fleet Management System
If you ask technicians what they find to be the most rewarding aspect of their profession, many will tell you that they simply enjoy working on vehicles. These passionate folk are at their happiest at work with a wrench in hand and often make for the best technicians.
By implementing a fleet management system (FMS), organizations can eliminate paper shuffling that distracts technicians from the most satisfying part of their job.
Simply put, less time spent printing, filling out, and searching for paper documents leaves more time for quality wrenching.
An FMS also streamlines communication between technicians, their managers, and co-workers on different teams. This results in fewer miscommunications and, subsequently, more harmonious and stress-free maintenance operations.
On top of those benefits, an FMS will allow managers to measure the performance of their mechanics more effectively. With the right reports, managers can easily identify technicians who might benefit from mentorship or additional training.
When it comes to improving technician retention, organizations have a multitude of approaches to choose from. By making the job more rewarding, streamlined, and focused on wrenching, fleets can attract exceptional talent and have them stick around for the long haul.
Alex Borg started writing about technicians and vehicle maintenance as a content marketer for an equipment rental software provider. After four years of focusing on the enterprise side of the industry, he joined Fleetio, a fleet management software company that helps organizations track, analyze, and improve their fleet operations. For more information, visit www.fleetio.com.