How fleets can recruit, retain qualified diesel techs

Matt Cole:
How the diesel technician shortage is affecting the trucking industry and what fleets can do to help solve the problem.

Jason Cannon:
Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm Jason Cannon and my co-host is Matt Cole. There's been a lot of ink spill and conversations had about whether or not there's a truck driver shortage, but we don't hear near as much about another population of transportation workers that also impact trucking as diesel technicians. According to New American Transportation Research Institute reports, nearly two thirds of diesel shops report that their locations are understaffed this year.

Matt Cole:
ATRI's research found that 65 and a half percent of surveyed diesel shops reported being understaffed. This year due to difficulty in recruiting and retaining techs, the new report dives into the causes of the shortage and what can be done to help attract and retain talent.

Alex Leslie:
This is an issue that folks in shops will tell you about. It's a shortage of qualified diesel technicians. The job to work as a diesel tech, it's a skilled job. It involves a lot of particular knowledge, and so it's tricky to make sure that you have the personnel that you need to run a shop successfully and efficiently. Trucking employees, almost 60,000 techs. But what we found is that almost two thirds of all shops are understaffed right now actually, and part of that is turnover, 16.5% annual turnover. It's not horrible. We'd like it to be lower, but it's not to say that people are just leaving the industry in droves because of existing issues, interiorly, but we're struggling to actually get people in to begin with. The vacancy rate is almost 20%. So it's really again, that challenge of making sure techs are equipped to be able to enter the industry and then to actually thrive there.

Jason Cannon:
One issue that's a challenge for trucking is that diesel techs are needed in other industries like agriculture and construction, that increases competition for qualified techs.

Alex Leslie:
For one thing, trucking is growing, right? So in the last 10 years, 30% increase in the number of drivers employed, but just a 23% increase in the number of techs employed. So again, that sort of speaks to the shortage side of it. The other industries that we're looking at, a lot of them are also trying to grow, right? Construction, automotive, bus and passenger transit, even agriculture. Those are really the key industries that we see as competing for tech talent. And even though each of those industries has different equipment, different protocols, different requirements, the skillset of a diesel tech is quite transferrable across them. So there may be some additional training involved, but once a tech has those skills, they're able to sort of move across those industries, some of which offer different benefits, pros and cons, different perks compared to the other. They really are four or five unique employment opportunities. All competing for techs.

Matt Cole:
Formal training or lack thereof is also an issue for diesel shops. Actually found many diesel techs enter the trade without completing a tech training program, which often results in unqualified techs who need on-the-job training.

Alex Leslie:
For one thing, again, about two thirds of all techs don't have any formal training prior to entering. Part of that is maybe there isn't the finances, maybe there isn't the time to be able to go into a trade school. Maybe the trade schools don't even have the openings, right? Depending on where a tech lives. Some parts of the country have great trade programs that are pumping out a large number of diesel techs and other areas are more of a training desert, if you will. So that's certainly a challenge for individuals who want to become techs, especially because one thing that we hear from training programs is a lot of students who want to be techs, they come in without prior knowledge that maybe 50 years ago you were working under the hood of a car with your dad or something. A lot of that kind of general knowledge isn't around as much anymore, and so training programs find that more often. They have to start from zero basically, and that can even include issues like reading and basic math comprehension. So it's partly a training at the high school level and then partly a text trying to enter the career, but not always having the opportunity to do that. Secondary training,

Jason Cannon:
Just like with truck drivers, there are some barriers to entry for diesel techs as well as issues that can keep people from entering the industry.

Alex Leslie:
One of the big ones is the cost of tools. This is when you hear from techs all the time, tools are expensive. You can easily spend five to $10,000 on a set of tools. Another big barrier is just mentioned the training aspect. That's a challenge for techs too because they know that they aren't qualified if they're coming in with no training, right? They feel that stress and it weighs on them, and that's one of the reasons why we lose techs right away. They may be take the job a couple of weeks are overwhelmed, and another one that's related to that is a lack of mentorship or support structures in shops that can help pair new techs with more experienced ones to help develop not only the techs skills, but also the kind of workplace community that we found. When shops do have good relationships among their techs, those techs are much more likely to stay at that employer.

Matt Cole:
For the diesel shops, untrained or unqualified techs need a lot of time and require a lot of money to get them up to speed, which is a major challenge in recruiting new techs.

Alex Leslie:
Certainly shops are doing a lot of training right now actually, and that's part of the challenge, right? So an untrained tech, someone without formal education coming into the shop needs about 360 hours, eight to $200 in employee trainee wages alone to sort of get them up to speed. So certainly the shops are doing this, but the expense is really high. And the same thing goes for tools, right? A lot of folks will say, well, why don't the shops just pay for all the tools? Well, if you pay $5,000 towards the text tools, over 8,000 training, and then they decide, well, trucking's, okay, but actually I kind of want more of what construction has to offer and then they leave. That's a pretty big bill that accompanies footing. So finding ways to improve training programs where they exist and finding ways to get more techs into training programs is something that is really a top priority for addressing this.

Jason Cannon:
For fleets that do employ diesel techs, ATRI does outline some best practices for recruiting and retaining them.

Alex Leslie:
I think one of the biggest findings of this report really is understanding how trucking compares to some of these other industries and what makes trucking appealing. We did this great part of the research was we asked techs in trucking what they think about other industries in several key categories, and then we compared their assessment and for example, in an area like variety of work, trucking is probably never going to beat out agriculture and construction when it comes to the variety of different work that a tech sees. And variety of work, by the way, is one of the top priorities for techs in trucking or any other industry. But what trucking can do is it can offer things like clean and comfortable shops and better shifts than, for example, ag or construction. And if it can play up those strengths while still offering and giving a compelling reason why, Hey, you're going to get a good variety of work here. You're not just going to be stuck doing the standard oil change and basic maintenance for the next 30 years. Trucking companies who can do that play to the strengths of trucking compared to these other industries while still being able to say, Hey, we can offer you something in these other areas where you might think agriculture is the place to go. That's going to be the way that shops can position themselves to really bring in more techs and then hopefully hold onto them down the road.

Matt Cole:
ATRI also gauged the satisfaction of diesel techs already in the trucking industry and identified the areas that cause any dissatisfaction

Alex Leslie:

On the whole Texan trunking are generally pretty satisfied. Honestly, we broke this down by specific aspects of employment and there are some areas where they feel that trucking isn't living up to expectations. One of those big ones is pay. A lot of techs come into trucking thinking the pay is going to be one of the biggest factors, and then we tend to see that on a scale of one to five, that average rating actually comes in at about 2.4, so a little bit below the okay level. Another area where techs are not as satisfied as pay incentives for additional certification and training. That's a big part obviously of advancing not only in your skills and your opportunities, but in your pay. And so techs not fully satisfied in that area too. Both of those things. Pay and incentives for additional certs or training are two of the six areas that we identified are statistically significant when it comes to techs choosing to look for another job versus choosing to stay at their current job.

So if a tech is satisfied with their pay or if a tech is satisfied with their incentives for additional training, those techs are more likely to stick around a couple. Other of those big factors are variety of work. Again, I mentioned how interesting their work is, and then I also mentioned earlier interactions with colleagues. So in those key areas, if techs are feeling like the job just isn't living up to things, those are techs who are going to be looking for other jobs. There's lots of other aspects of employment that may be important, right up-to-date equipment, how close is it? How safe is the shop? A lot of these other aspects, but when it comes to where the rubber really hits the road, the make or break aspects, those are the ones that you really want to think about to keep that retention.

Jason Cannon:
That's it for this week's 10-44. You can read more on ccjdigital.com. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date on the latest in trucking industry news and trends. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell for notifications so you can catch us again next week.