New Fixed Ops Journal tackles tech shortage

New Fixed Ops Journal tackles tech shortage

Learn more about filling your tech shortage during Repairer Driven Education

Seeking insight on personnel? Learn more during the SEMA Show in Las Vegas at “2025 The Millennial Takeover – How to find, train & pay qualified people”with Mike Lanza of Sherwin-Williams. The session is part of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists Repairer Driven Education Series Oct. 29-Nov. 2. Register here for individual RDE classes or the series pass package deal.

Solutions: Fixed Ops Journal reports what dealerships are doing or can do to obtain or develop techs as well as OEM efforts to help turn out techs for their affiliated dealerships.

Bonus articles: The issue takes an interesting look at certifying the techs a dealership has managed to find and employ, and that coverage also examines individual staff certification in the collision repair industry.

The magazine provided the results of a poll of 17,221 DealerRater comment-writing customers. The study found that 47 percent knew or were told of a technician’s certification, and that designated mattered to them. Only 11 percent said certification “doesn’t particularly matter to me,” and 42 percent said they didn’t know the tech’s status.

Of the brands with at least 125 comments, Ram truck owners cared the most about tech certification, with 53 percent who were both served by a certified tech and called certification “important to me.”

It’d be interesting to see if these consumer sentiments would apply to the technicians taking vehicle-specific I-CAR or actual OEM training or other industry credentials such as ASE or I-CAR Platinum certification.

Even if customers didn’t care, techs certainly did. Another article quoted Carlisle & Co. senior associate Mattia Janigro as stating, “We hear time and time again how important it is for technicians to see that the shop is invested in them.”