Hello.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0Victor\u00a0Cummings.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0vice\u00a0president\u00a0of\u00a0service operations\u00a0for\u00a0Rush\u00a0Enterprises.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0your\u00a0view,\u00a0what\u00a0makes\u00a0a\u00a0good\u00a0technician?<\/p>\n
In my view, it\u2019s attitude and aptitude. Now first, you know, we look for folks that really have the desire to be a technician. They have a certain DNA, you know, wanting to learn, grow, and develop their technical expertise. And really, that\u2019s where it starts. Of course, work ethic and commitment. There are a number of things that, you know, come into play, but really, it all starts with attitude and aptitude.<\/p>\n
How\u00a0long\u00a0does\u00a0it\u00a0take\u00a0for a\u00a0good\u00a0tech\u00a0to\u00a0become\u00a0a\u00a0really\u00a0good\u00a0tech?<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, in in my experience, at Rush, we have technicians level one through five. Level one is where they start, of course, And most often, they progress on an annual basis, so it takes at least five years for most techs to become a level five. I would say there are a few that have made it prior to that, there are some that take a little longer. But generally speaking, it\u2019s it\u2019s about a five year road trip.<\/p>\n
Would\u00a0you\u00a0know\u00a0how\u00a0many\u00a0techs\u00a0are\u00a0employed\u00a0by\u00a0Rush?<\/p>\n
Close to three thousand. Three thousand. That\u2019s all encompassing. It\u2019s it\u2019s our Rush Truck\u00a0 Center technicians, body shop technicians, Rush truck leasing, technicians. So all in, we got just around, 3,000 technicians.<\/p>\n
How\u00a0difficult\u00a0it\u00a0is\u00a0to\u00a0retain\u00a0these\u00a0people\u00a0who\u00a0you\u00a0have\u00a0trained\u00a0over\u00a0a\u00a0period\u00a0of\u00a0time?\u00a0How\u00a0do\u00a0you\u00a0keep\u00a0a\u00a0hold\u00a0of\u00a0them?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a that\u2019s a great question. It\u2019s a challenging dynamic. You know, the whole industry struggles with that. Twenty, thirty years ago, there were there were more technicians than there were quality jobs, and and it\u2019s, you know, an inverse order now. You you have more job openings than you do qualified techs, and and it\u2019s very easy for a technician to to jump ship, you know, leave for more money or what have you. Sometimes, you know, with the less experienced techs, the decision to leave can be more emotional.<\/p>\n
We find with our level four and five, we have very, very low turnover. Once they get past that, you know, midpoint threshold, they they seem to stick. So it really requires a great emphasis on our part to stay highly engaged with the lower level technicians. That\u2019s probably the the single most important component.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0you\u00a0say\u00a0in\u00a0engage,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0in\u00a0training\u00a0or\u00a0it\u00a0is\u00a0in,\u00a0let\u2019s\u00a0say,\u00a0communication?<\/p>\n
It simple things like walking the shop and having conversation with the technician. It\u2019s getting to know them, having meetings with the new hires to understand what are their obstacles, what are their frustrations. There\u2019s no silver bullet. There\u2019s no one recipe we found that is the secret sauce to tech retention with the lower level techs, but we can tell you that the common denominator is engagement. If you\u2019re having those conversations, if you\u2019re ensuring they\u2019re getting the support, the guidance, the mentorship, etcetera, then, you know, the turnover rate is much lower with the with the technicians when you have that level of engagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0Victor\u00a0Cummings.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0vice\u00a0president\u00a0of\u00a0service operations\u00a0for\u00a0Rush\u00a0Enterprises. In\u00a0your\u00a0view,\u00a0what\u00a0makes\u00a0a\u00a0good\u00a0technician? In my view, it\u2019s attitude and aptitude. Now first, you know, we look for folks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-466662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}