A New Approach to Hiring Service Techs
The statistics speak for themselves. A recent Harris poll, sponsored by Automotive Retailing Today, found that nearly 109,000 positions are available at U.S. 
dealerships today, more than 36,000 of them in the service department. On top of that, many dealers are finding it more difficult to keep the employees they have. One study estimated the industry-average turnover rate for entry-level service technicians is about 60 percent.
So why do dealers continue to cannibalize each other’s employees? The answer is they haven’t yet seen the benefits of training their own service technicians with Automotive Youth Educational Systems (AYES).
The AYES program combines hands-on internships and post-secondary education for high school students who are serious about a career in repairing cars. Studies have shown AYES interns who move on to full-time jobs in the service department are loyal to the dealerships in which they work and often improve efficiency and profitability.
Return on Your Investment
Some of the country’s most successful dealers gave up long ago on hiring service technicians off the street. Carroll Smith, owner of Monument Chevrolet, Pasadena, Tex., says he stopped accepting walk-in applicants when he realized he could find much more qualified employees through AYES. “Our participation in the AYES program is because it helps the bottom line,” says Smith, who has hired six AYES interns in six years. “The reason to do it is because there is a return on investment.”
AYES interns who are trained to the dealership’s specific way of operating will be able to do more than lend a helping hand. They will soon begin to clock labor hours in the service department like other full-time technicians. But because interns are paid less, there’s a greater chance for the dealer to make a profit. (To find out how your business can improve with AYES interns, fill out the “Intern Advantage Calculator” on the AYES Website.)
Culture of Training
There is another important byproduct of AYES internships: They create an environment of learning in dealership service departments. Dealers find having talented interns around often fosters greater training for the rest of their staff, especially service and fixed-operations managers, who act as mentors to AYES interns.
In addition to hands-on experience in the dealership, AYES interns also receive post-secondary education at a local community or technical college – an important second step in the process of securing a full-time job, says Bob Slovey, national AYES manager for GM. “When you combine those two, you end up with the best technicians that this industry has ever seen,” Slovey says. “That’s a combination you can’t beat.”
Taming Turnover
Perhaps the most positive impact of AYES internships is their effect on retention rates. As stated, dealerships often have a hard time holding onto service technicians for a variety of reasons. And when technicians leave one service job for another, “chances are … they’re not happy,” says Henry Primeaux, owner of Crown Bristow in Bristow, Okla. “And they probably won’t be loyal employees,” Primeaux adds.
But AYES interns have proven time and again that they stick with the dealerships that support them early on. More than half of AYES interns surveyed by the Pennsylvania Automotive Association in 2006 are still working in dealerships making an average of $21,908 a year. Another survey showed that AYES interns are 40 percent more likely to stay with a dealership than technicians hired the old-fashioned way.