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Letter to the Editor
Friday May 19
CAA and Mentors At Work Partner with Techs for Tomorrow
To help Collision repair facilities be effective in attracting, training, and retaining the workforce of tomorrow, the California Autobody Association (CAA) has partnered with Mentors At Work, LLC, to create the “Techs for Tomorrow” apprenticeship system. Mentors At Work is helping shops nationwide address this issue head-on and its success rate with new apprentices is very high.Mentors At Work offers the following statistics:
- Annual industry turnover is 25.6 percent, and of that, 11.2 percent leave the industry entirely - that is 24,000 technicians - and that number is rising.
- 62 percent of techs have been with their current employer for less than five years
- The average age of techs is 36.3 years and rising. That number is higher than the national average for all occupational fields.
- While the average age of techs is rising, the percentages of younger workers in our industry has declined.
- 64.4 percent of techs have been hired away from another shop. This is the industry’s short-term answer to its technician needs: raiding” techs from each other’s shops, creating a domino affect in the local market. This short term approach adds to the long term challenge we are facing.
- Schools are not entirely the answer. They only provide between a quarter and a third of the industry's entry-level needs and these graduates are not anywhere near ready to do the kind of work they need to do straight out of school.
- This industry loses an estimated 7 out of 10 new hires before they work 18 months.
- The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that there will be 10 million more jobs than people to fill them by the year 2010. This prediction is even more serious for skilled trades like ours.
- The CAA/Mentors At Work Techs for Tomorrow apprenticeship system has all the necessary tools to help shops develop the workforce of tomorrow. After 18 months of research and development Mentors At Work found common denominators in successful mentoring and apprenticeship systems in various occupational fields around the world. The resulting system aims to attract, train, and retain new employees that will stay and grow within the body shop.
Mentors At Work clients typically enjoy a retention rate of 80-100 percent. In this industry, that loses 70 percent of its new people, this statistic is impressive. Mentors At Work clients have been able to cut the learning curve in half, too.
The CAA/Mentors At Work Techs for Tomorrow apprenticeship system includes the following elements:
- Structure
- Mentor selection criteria
- Mentor training
- Apprentice selection criteria
- Help identifying entry-level candidates
- Apprentice orientation
- Help selling the program to the techs in the shop
- Tool and equipment strategies
- An industry standard task list to follow and train to
- Accountability tools
- Suggested pay plans and return on investment tables
- Plans for working effectively with schools
- Retention strategies
- U.S. Department of Labor backing, including possible assistance in pre-screening entry-level candidates, aptitude testing, and even the opportunity to apply for potential funding to offset some of the up-front training costs. CAA members have the opportunity to apply for registration with the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training.
Mentors At Work is an active partner with its clients, providing upfront support and ongoing management of each mentor/apprentice pair. The result is a 400 percent increase in the rate of learning, high retention numbers, and apprenticeship system graduates who typically can produce 70-100+ hours of billable work a week within two to three years.
So far, Anderson-Behel Body Shop, in Santa Clara; TGIF Body Shop, in Fremont; Sturken Auto Body, in San Jose; Bodycraft Collision Centers/Alta Sierra in Roseville; and Bertolli’s Auto Body and F. Lofrano & Son in San Rafael have joined the CAA’s Techs for Tomorrow system.
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