Why you need to ‘always be recruiting’

Shop coach Rick White wants you to remember this acronym: ABR, which means always be recruiting.

The president of 180Biz wants shop owners to never stop trying to find talent for their shop. Just because you think you have enough techs or service advisors doesn’t mean you can stop finding new employees.

“You need to be running ads all the time. You need to be talking to people all the time,” he said at the Mid-West Auto Care Alliance’s Vision and Hi-Tech Training Expo in Kanas City.

Why? Maybe you’re not ready to hire a tech today. But say one leaves in a month unexpectedly. Who can you bring in to replace them?

Let’s say some months ago you met a good tech that you want to add to your roster. He’s on board with joining your shop. You’re both excited about the opportunity. You don’t have an open slot. No problem.

“Would it be okay if we get together once a month or once every other month have some lunch, kind of catch up, see how things are going?” is all you need to ask them to keep the lines of communication open, White said.

And you can take it one step further. Say you’re taking your team out for some training. Ask the prospective tech if they’d like to join as a guest. That sends the message that you want him to work for you and want him to be up to date on training for when the opportunity comes.

“You’ve got to nurture that bench all the time,” White said. “When you do that you are no longer afraid to hold a standard in your shop.”

That means being able to drop techs who don’t hold to your standard because you have someone who can step in.

And if your staff asks why you’re looking for help, it’s all about being proactive instead of reactive. You don’t have to tell them you’re looking to replace anyone. But in case someone leaves, there’s a replacement candidate waiting in the wings.

“I’m going to sit down my team and let them know, ‘Listen, as a business, we need to have a pipeline. Just like we need a pipeline for clients, we need to have a pipeline so that if somebody decides to move, or something happens to their family or something, the rest of us aren’t going to be all stressed out,’” White explained.