The overall success of your auto repair shop directly depends on the quality of your team. You need to keep every bay and counter occupied by the best players possible, so you can keep your shop growing and thriving through the years. But if you’re always turning people away whenever you’re not actively hiring employees, you’re skipping out on key chances to build a winning team. Instead, follow these steps to building your team to fill your bench with the top talent.
Always Be Recruiting and Open to Hiring for Your Auto Shop
To be able to build a strong team for your auto repair shop, you need to keep your mind open to the possibilities when it comes to hiring employees. As people walk through your doors, don’t turn them away just because you don’t have an opening at that moment.
Otherwise, you could end up missing opportunities to welcome game-changing players to your team. Then, before you know it, you’ll see those individuals excelling at other local shops, leaving you wondering what could have been.
Learn About Everyone Who Walks Through the Door
To avoid missing out, commit to learning about every applicant who comes through your doors. Ask them about their experience, accomplishments, and career goals, and then get their resume and keep it on file.
If their experience is impressive enough, you might want to find them a spot on your roster. If not, you can always refer back to their resume as a position opens up. You cannot make those decisions unless you get an idea of what each applicant is all about and what they can offer your auto repair shop.
Inform Them on the Hiring Process and What to Expect
As you process the decision to bring them on or just save their resume, don’t leave your applicants hanging. Let them know about your shop philosophies and goals, inform them about the hiring process, and tell them what to potentially expect.
Although you might not have all the details at that moment, you can give them a pretty good idea about your initial thoughts on the matter. Just give it to them straight if you’re not hiring at that moment but let them know that you’re going to consider them in the future when a position becomes available.
Assess Current Team to Find Potential Areas of Improvement
After meeting with each applicant, it’s time to assess your current team and see if there’s any way they could improve your sales figures, efficiency rate, or other metrics. Look at any past successes on their resume and use that info to determine if they bring something new to the table. Then, compare their skills and experience to other teammates to see if they’d be a viable replacement for anyone.
If you have any problematic teammates onboard, this decision will be quite easy. But if you are just comparing existing metrics to potential performance, it could be a tossup. If you absolutely can’t pass up the opportunity to add an individual to your team, but also cannot lose any current employees, see if you can make room on your roster.
While you want to take your time in making this decision, don’t wait too long. As they search high and low for their perfect fit, the applicant could land a position elsewhere in the coming days or weeks.
Commit to Doing the Hard Work to Best Optimize Your Team
No one likes having to fire employees and clean house, but it’s necessary if you want to truly optimize the performance of your shop. You can only get the great results you seek by purposefully building your team with the top talent.
As the shop owner, it’s your job to let people go and bring on new recruits, so don’t shy away from that task just because it’s uncomfortable. Simply take a professional approach and be matter of fact while following all the best practices in firing employees.
Need Support in Firing and Hiring Employees? Your Auto Repair Coach Can Help
While it may be your job to do the tough work in hiring and firing employees, that doesn’t mean you have to go at it alone. If you’d like support in improving the success of your shop, consider partnering with an experienced auto repair coach, like Chris Cotton at AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching.
With a call to (940) 400-1008, you can sign up for coaching services that promise to help you reach all your goals for your shop. Whether you want to build a winning team or boost your average repair order, your auto repair coach can help you brainstorm to brilliance and achieve those goals.
