George Arrants, vice president of the ASE Education Foundation, doesn’t think the collision repair tech shortage is based on a lack of interest in the trades by young people nor too few students entering collision repair training.
“The number of students in a program this year is higher than ever before,” said Arrants, whose organization evaluates and accredits entry-level automotive technology education programs against industry standards. “We see that most of our programs are at capacity or higher. But then for some reason, once we get them in the programs, we think our job is done.”
The problem, he said, is the follow-through during those students’ time in the program and into their first job in the industry. Arrants estimates 1 in 5 graduates of automotive training programs never enter the industry, and about an equal number leave the industry within two years.
I-CAR research has produced even more stark findings: Only 15% of students who enter the industry stay for more than 18 months.
“We’re eating our young,” Arrants said. “These people are interested in our industry. But we bring them into our shops and expect them to be productive. There’s not one of us who was productive our first day on the job. There’s no on-boarding, there’s no mentoring.”
Waiting to employ students only once they finish a program is also an issue, he said.
“If you don’t hire them until after they graduate, the only thing they know is the program they were in,” Arrants said. “That means when they come to you, it’s a whole new experience. And that’s why we lose a lot of them. But we have found that for those students who work in your shops while they’re in school, it’s a more seamless transition. And they stay for decades.”
He said there’s another sad truth about those entry-level technicians leaving the collision industry: “They’re not leaving skilled trades,” he said. “They’re staying in the skilled trades. They’re just not staying with us.”
Help Foundation Support Schools, Students
What else can shops and vendors in the industry do to help collision repair training programs and the students they are training to help stem the flow of potential technicians out of the industry?
Supporting the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) is one good step. CREF provided $136,000 in scholarships to collision repair students last year, and another $678,000 in grants to 110 schools to benefit their collision repair training program. CREF also donated more than $18 million in product donations to the programs, including 78 current model Audi and Volkswagen vehicles to schools.
Brandon Eckenrode, executive director of CREF, said any organization within the industry can sponsor uniforms for students at their local school.
“We’ve heard from instructors that when the students have brand new uniforms rather than just wearing street clothes, that has made the biggest impact of all that we've given out,” Eckenrode said. “It’s a way for you to connect with the students as it’s you, the sponsoring company, that’s helping distribute the uniforms, and talking to these students, helping make sure that these students look professional while they’re learning. The sponsoring company’s logo is on the front of all the uniforms, so it’s almost a walking billboard for your company.”
CREF can also assist with parts donations.
“Instructors have told us their No. 1 need is donated scrap and spare parts,” Eckenrode said. “We literally have instructors rummaging through the Dumpsters of body shops and dealerships looking for spare parts that they can bring back for their students to work on. I think we can agree that with the number of damaged and slightly used parts that are taken off of customers’ cars, there’s absolutely no reason why instructors should be rummaging through the trash to get these parts.”
He said most schools are looking for more participants in their program advisory committees.
“One of instructors’ biggest pet peeves is an employer, who they’ve never heard from or seen, coming in at the end of the spring semester and saying, ‘I want your best students,’” Eckenrode said. “The instructors look at them thinking, ‘Where have you been for the past school year? I’m going to help those employers and local businesses that are committed throughout the entire year, not just coming in and trying to cherry pick those best students when they are graduating.’”
Eckenrode noted that in-kind donations made up the bulk of the assistance the foundation provided to schools last year.
“Tools, equipment, supplies, parts, everything that your companies may have, we can find homes for those in local schools,” Eckenrode said. “There are some schools that have 150 students and their total program budget is $3,000, and that is the state of what they have. So it’s an opportunity for us to make sure that they have the items they need to provide a quality technical education.”
He said CREF also continues to hold career fairs around the country.
“These help showcase to these students all the different companies that are interested in them, Eckenrode said. “And what’s great about these events is it’s not just repair facilities. It’s tool and equipment companies, paint vendors, insurance, rental car. Everybody is there to showcase, ‘Hey, we need you.’
“We’ve heard from instructors who say, ‘I’ve had students who are kind of trying out collision repair and they’re not quite sure if they like it, but they come to these career fair events, they see all the different companies that are waiting for them to graduate, and it’s that that motivates them to stay in the collision industry and that program,’” Eckenrode said. “They walk out of those events with a stack of business cards. Some of them walk out with multiple job offers.”
For more information about working with CREF to help a school’s collision repair program, check the foundation’s website.
Entry-Level Training Program for In-Shop Use
Shops can also help relieve the industry’s technician shortage by training new entry-level workers in-house. I-CAR is now making its new I-CAR Academy program available to collision repair facilities, after launching it for schools earlier this year. The I-CAR Academy program is an early career program to educate and recognize new technicians starting a career in the industry.
I-CAR’s Jeff Peevy said the program is in part a response to what he heard from shops about entry-level technicians they were seeing from school collision repair training programs.
“There was a lot of feedback saying a young person coming out of a school had experienced an inch-deep and a mile-wide training experience,” Peevy said. “And when they were put into the shop environment, they really did not have a high level of proficiency in anything. They had experienced a lot of things, but they could not be put on something to do without having a lot of oversight.”
The new program focuses instead on “what would you have an entry-level technician do that would make them valuable to your operation from day one, what would make them feel valued from day one,” he said.
I-CAR Academy’s curriculum covers collision repair fundamentals such as safety and tool skills, plastic repair, small dent repair, disassembly and reassembly, and supports a shop using it by including resources on selecting and training a mentor. A badging system recognizes a new technician’s progress.
“Our industry is in dire need of technicians,” I-CAR CEO John Van Alstyne said. “For some, the right starting point is a school, while others excel beginning their career in a shop. Regardless of where a technician enters the industry, they can count on I-CAR Academy to give them a solid and relevant foundation from which to build their future.”
John Yoswick