Hire Once, Hire Right | David Roman | May 2020
What is your hiring process like? What do you do when you need someone fast? And how do you best prepare your shop, staff (and self) when the crucial moment arrives to bring someone new onto the team?
David Roman is a MWACA member, owner of Done With Care Auto Repair (Merriam, Kan.) and is a renowned thought leader in repair shop hiring and onboarding practice.
What is the No. 1 mistake when considering new talent in the hiring and onboarding process?
Not being crystal clear about what you’re looking for is the best way to hire the wrong person. When you ask most owners, “What are you looking for?”, their knee-jerk reaction, every time, is, “I need an A-level tech.” That’s just industry lingo for someone who can do everything. If we go by what a dealership defines as an A-level tech, they’re diagnosticians, and that’s what they do all day long. They tackle very difficult problems on brand-new vehicles and have very little direction on how to solve the problem.
A new technician at a shop is not going to have that kind of work—they’re looking at vehicles that are often five to seven years old or more and often out of warranty. What the shop really needs is someone who can competently handle almost everything thrown at them. You don’t really need an A-level technician—you just need an experienced technician who takes pride in their work and who can do profitable work in an efficient manner. Define that; be hyper-specific.
What about personality, then?
That’s another thing to define. Most shops don’t define the behavioral characteristics of the person they want to hire. Much of my staff is a reflection of me; their personalities match my personality. You tend to hire people you like, and you have to be strategic about it. A little self-awareness today will take care of any issues tomorrow. Owners need to understand and identify what they’re looking for, write it down and be specific.
Right—learning new skills and procedures is less innate than most anticipate.
Exactly, though many of the best shops put very little effort into onboarding.
Part of the onboarding process is making sure the new hire understands the shop’s systems and processes. I would say 99 percent of independently owned shops, however, have no written processes in place. Everyone just knows. Everyone knows where to put the keys. Part of the onboarding process is to eliminate unspoken rules—eliminate them! Define everything. Where do we put keys? And why? New people will be completely ignorant of every unspoken nuance you’ve established in the shop, from procedures to culture.
I advocate having written, formal offers, outlined expectations about what we expect out of each other. This is what I expect of you and this is what you should expect of me. Let’s be crystal clear.
It sounds like you’re describing linking the how with the why. One isn’t necessarily very useful without the other.
That’s absolutely right. And the first step is putting a process in place.
The bare minimum requirement is being able to fix cars. That shouldn’t be in question.
Yes. If you’ve vetted them and properly hired them, they can most likely do the work. What they can’t do is anticipate anything not set in stone. Owners shouldn’t expect employees to just come to them, either, unless it’s written down. Many people need (and deserve) the right to ask for help.
Imagine not only getting paid but being highly desired as a technician with fifteen different offers. If you don’t know what’s going on, you’re going to bounce! If you picked a place that doesn’t bother to tell you how to best use your skill set and how to succeed, you’re going to leave. And the shop is going to say, “Can’t find good help these days,” when the problem isn’t the technician.
What are a few onboarding best practices?
First, eliminate unspoken rules. Next, review policies and paperwork on day 1. We’re our own worst enemies sometimes—new and younger employees need direction. You need to make the transition as smooth as possible, so don’t overlook the smallest details.
Can your new hire fill out a W4? No? Fill it out for them. Don’t assume everyone knows how to fill out paperwork. It’s intimidating for many people. Hiring is a lot like courting—put your best foot forward. Clean up, wear decent clothes, be prompt. You can maybe look like a slob later.
What other onboarding or hiring resources are available?
There are endless resources for sound onboarding processes. Indeed.com is a good one—they have simple resources to establish or refine your process. Shop owners should also reach out to their coaching company; any decent coaching company will help you with the onboarding process. If those don’t work or don’t suit you, reach out to a 20 Group or shop owners in your area that you admire (or compete against). Someone will help you.
An onboarding process is really just making sure you go down a checklist. Just break it down to its simplest elements. It becomes hyper unique to every shop—the way I do things is not the way you’ll do things. Copy the best core elements from other shops and then personalize it more to your shop. Something is better than nothing.