Expecting an already overworked dealership service department to also find time to lay out a career path for its technicians “is a little unrealistic,” said Matrix Trade Institute CEO Dustin Peugeot. But in order to keep techs from leaving for another dealership or a different career, Peugeot said service managers must make them feel like they’re part of a larger growth plan.
Peugeot, who along with Richard Blum founded Matrix in 2019, talked during the fourth installment of the Fixed Ops Journal Forum about steps dealerships can take to keep techs happy and feel valued.
One way is to pay for them to get additional training and advanced certifications. And then let those techs practice what they just learned.
“You don’t have to convince employers that training makes people better,” Peugeot said. “But what you do have to convince employers about is they have as much to do with the return on investment as the trainee.”
He cited an example of a young lube tech who received some training on suspensions. But once he returned to the service department, he was back at the lube rack and not working on alignments.
As a result, money was wasted “and they’ve actually done more harm to that employee’s confidence and belief that the employer is serious about growing them,” he said.
Dealership service departments need to “sell a career path” to those interested in becoming a tech.
Said Peugeot: “We need a dialogue that says, ‘Oh, you want to get into this industry? I’ve got an employer who has a full-blown plan based on hands-on training that will accelerate you to that six-figure job or that NASCAR pit crew’ — or all those things we imagine in our minds when we think turning wrenches is a really cool way to make a living.”