Cultivating a Winning Shop Culture
Published in Texas Automotive – Thomas Greco Publishing
The collision repair industry’s workforce shortage keeps coming up again and again as shops struggle to staff their facilities with qualified help, but at the same time, stories abound of technicians leaving the industry for other fields – even for jobs at Amazon or McDonald’s! Many experts believe the industry’s problem isn’t recruitment but retention, and even with an unlimited supply of incoming technicians, it will never be enough if the work environment isn’t a place where people want to stay.
It’s all about developing a work culture that keeps employees happy and motivated and, in turn, results in higher customer satisfaction. Successful business owners have learned that if they take care of their team, their team will take care of their customers, and the business will thrive. Culture matters.
So, what is shop culture?
“Culture in a business is like the climate we experience when we walk outside: Is it hot, cold, storming, calm?” asks Tony Adams (AkzoNobel). “Every business has a culture, and it’s a living, breathing, fragile thing. Owners and leaders should be focused on the culture climate of their business as it drives profitability. Culture impacts everything!”
“Culture is the core of change; it’s nearly impossible to make successful changes in a business without a good, or at least neutral, culture,” adds Bob Kennedy (Wesco Group LLC). “I define culture as the attitude of a group of people. Individually, you can have a good or bad attitude, but when an entire group of people shares an attitude, it becomes the shop’s culture. For a shop to make effective changes, the entire team must be invested and dedicated to serving the business, and the owner or manager must be open to considering changes that their team suggests. But when a shop develops a positive culture, it improves retention because employees are happier, and that favorably affects the efficiency, productivity and profitability in the business.”
“Culture is the values, beliefs and behaviors of your organization within your company walls, and it’s important to realize that the values, beliefs and behaviors presented to the external world becomes your brand,” offers Shane Hollas (Maaco Rockwall). “Those two things are connected. Whatever your internal culture is, the outside world will eventually see it and identify it with your company. Defining your culture and building a team that lives it is imperative because it makes your brand stronger.
“It’s something you have to work at every day,” he cautions. “First, you have to decide what type of culture you want and be able to describe it. Then, as a shop owner, you have to live up to that expectation because if you aren’t living it, you cannot expect your people to buy into that culture. Once your team knows what that vision is and truly believes in it, they’ll help identify the hires that don’t fit in, so you’ll be able to bring on people who are attracted to and reinforce that culture you’re building.”
“Culture is a shop’s biggest competitive advantage,” is how Mike Anderson (Collision Advice) puts it, and he suggests an easy way to determine whether your culture makes employees feel valued: “If your shop was a sports team, would your employees want to wear your jersey and have your name as their favorite player?”
Unfortunately, many technicians would not wear their shop’s jersey, as evidenced by a lack of engagement.
“When you look at the Gallup surveys across America regarding employee engagement, 70 percent of the workforce is self-admittedly disengaged with almost 20 percent of that group classified as actively disengaged, meaning they’ve mentally quit but still come to work every day, which is causing most of your problems,” Adams shares. “I fear those disengagement numbers are much worse in the collision industry from my experience talking to people on the floor in lots of different shops. While studies indicate businesses with more engaged employees enjoy higher profitability, the converse is also true. In toxic organizations – where employees are treated poorly by management – disengagement leads to reduced productivity, decreased employee satisfaction and higher turnover, inhibiting profits. When it comes to the war for talent, do you want to be known as the shop with a revolving door or the one where people are lined up wanting to come work for you?”
“Shops should strive to be the employer of choice,” Kennedy agrees. “Many shop owners believe that money is the number one driver, but more employees care about feeling appreciated and having a voice in the business, and that’s why it’s so important to create this type of culture in your shop. Remember that many technicians know each other and will talk, so think about what your employees would say about your business while they’re having a beer with their peers in the industry. Collision centers with positive cultures rarely lose technicians, and they’ve always got a list of technicians interested in coming to work for them.”
Collision-instructor-turned-consultant Jannifer Stimmel-Watkins (AutiBody Texperience), who specializes in helping shops create a culture that will attract young technicians, insists, “The industry doesn’t have a recruitment problem; we have a retention problem. A shop can hire someone new every month, investing time and money in the hiring process, but getting them to stay is the problem. We all spend the majority of our time on the job, so it’s important that employers recognize the ability to do small things to keep technicians happy so they don’t want to leave you because they know they can’t find those perks anywhere else.”
Although offering competitive compensation and benefits (health insurance, a 401[k], retention bonuses and even team lunches) can improve how employees view their jobs, the most important factor in how most workers perceive a shop’s culture boils down to whether they feel valued.
“Are we treating people like people?” Adams queries. “Simple things like ‘thank you’ go a long way. We spend a lot of time catching people doing things wrong and correcting behaviors, but we need to spend more time recognizing people when they do something right. Culture isn’t something we work on once a month; we have to be aware of the culture we’re building in everything we do and say in the shop because that directly affects how people feel about the business.”
Communication is another large contributor to creating culture in a business. “When I ask employees to identify one thing they would change in the shop, half of the responses are linked to communication or information in some way,” Kennedy says. “Inaccurate information is the only thing worse than a lack of communication, so it’s important to develop an effective conduit of information throughout the shop so people aren’t acting on the wrong information.”
Providing ongoing training is an important aspect of shops with good culture, and part of that requires recognizing people’s strengths. Stimmel-Watkins recalls a former employer who “was good at evaluating each employee’s strengths and utilizing them in that respect. He recognized that I would excel at diagnostics, so he enrolled me in training and paid for my certifications. When someone showed interest in a certain area, he encouraged that growth, and most of his employees have worked for his shop for a long time because they enjoyed the job and knew he supported us. We had the skills to go anywhere, but we didn’t want to leave because we had a boss who invested in us.”
Stimmel-Watkins recognizes that many shop owners fear investing in employees only to have them find other employment, and she suggests the industry start offering contract models. “My employer paid for my I-CAR certifications and put me on a six-month contract. If I had left before that time period, I would have been required to pay him back for his investment. Other industries have contracts, so why don’t we?”
Hollas agrees. “We are a highly certified shop, and I invest a lot in training and bringing in specialists. I also make sure our team has the best equipment money can buy because I want them to walk in and know they have the tools and support to do the job.”
“Making sure technicians have the tools they need makes a huge difference,” Stimmel-Watkins inputs. “A lot of shops make their team buy their own factory-recommended tools, and that gets expensive, especially if they aren’t getting paid as well as they deserve.”
Many other factors impact a shop’s culture. Simple things like holding regular meetings where the team can discuss challenges or hosting group lunches to show appreciation for employees can also improve morale. Kennedy suggests posting the shop’s billable hours at the end of each month to demonstrate the facility’s shop-wide labor efficiency because “it gets the entire center thinking as a group instead of as individuals. Collision centers tend to be very individualistic, which causes poor culture.”
Hollas uses monthly team lunches to celebrate birthdays, and he also treats his team to a fun outing when they achieve a goal. His team’s favorite activity is visiting a local go-kart track where they get to bond outside the workplace. He also hosts regular “family” meetings with his team “where we get in a circle and discuss things that are going sideways so we can work things out. It’s not just about positive reinforcement; when something isn’t working, we brainstorm together to find a solution.”
Something as simple as offering flexibility in someone’s schedule can be incredibly meaningful, whether that’s allowing someone to leave early for their child’s school play or promoting a four-day workweek.
As Adams pointed out, culture is intrinsically tied to the environment, and Kennedy points out that sights and sounds within a shop also impact the business culture. “Your brain constantly processes sight and sound, and if everyone is playing different music or there’s a bunch of clutter, these cultural drivers become distractions and cause fatigue. Making decisions about the shop atmosphere as a group plays a huge role in culture.”
Having the right culture is imperative in any business, but as the older generation nears retirement and shops strive to introduce younger technicians into the workforce, it takes on new meaning and requires additional considerations.
“We need to understand that each generation is different – not right or wrong, just different,” Adams suggests. “The baby boomer generation has a different point of view and expectations for work than Generation Z. We have to shift our point of view sometimes and not be so locked into our own way of thinking. If we don’t, it gets in the way of creating a healthy culture, creating friction because our expectations don’t match theirs.”
“Age differences in a well-cultured collision center is beneficial,” Kennedy believes. “Often, when younger people are brought onboard, older technicians may feel frustrated or threatened; they don’t realize it, but the last thing they really want is for the shop to hire another A-tech who takes all the work. Shops have a lot of C-grade work, so bringing in someone less experienced and training them up actually benefits everyone.”
Again, this requires investing in employees, and Stimmel-Watkins points out that providing training is more important for this generation than any that has come before. “A new technician needs good mentors who can assess their strengths and help them advance. So often, young techs leave the industry – is it too hard, or did no one give them a chance? We need to do a better job of recognizing and promoting all the roles in this industry: diagnostics, mechanical, floor production management…the list goes on and on, and we could do a better job of engaging the younger generation by identifying these potential career paths and helping them understand how they can achieve them.
“Shop owners need to recognize that no one is going to be great at everything, so taking the time to work with them and figure out what they’re good at will help develop that relationship,” she continues. “While this generation does not have all the same values as older folks, they do understand loyalty to those who helped them get where they are. If you help them grow, they’ll stick around and excel in this field.”
Of course, people will make mistakes, and shop owners have to accept that, according to Hollas. “Mistakes are going to happen, but if someone’s heart is in the right place and they’re trying to do the right thing, when they mess up, you can’t be mad at the person. Figure out how to fix it, but let them know they’re supported and ensure they have every opportunity for success.”
Shops that refuse to create a team atmosphere destroy their culture. “You have to make sure everyone understands their role and does their job,” Stimmel-Watkins counsels. “Find people who work well together, and don’t be afraid to get rid of any bad apples. I’ve seen shops lose five dedicated employees because they’re too afraid to fire a bad one. One person having a negative attitude can ruin the entire shop’s culture!”
Hollas offers a shop owner’s viewpoint: “A lot of cultures break down because the owner or manager is a hypocrite. I cannot expect my employees to work hard if I don’t do the same. I need to be willing to roll my sleeves up and do the hard stuff; we succeed or fail together, as a team. Culture is difficult, but it pays dividends.”
“Productivity is a byproduct,” Kennedy offers. “You can’t force people to work faster; that’s a result of other changes you’ve made to improve efficiency, and that all comes down to culture. It comes down to training, recognizing individuals’ strengths and creating a better internal experience which then translates to a better experience for your customers. But in order to make those types of changes, a shop has to have the right culture. Without it, functional changes cannot happen.”
“The customer experience will never rise higher than the level of the employee experience,” Adams shares a quote from famed restaurateur Danny Meyer. He adds his thoughts, “If a shop has customer service index (CSI) issues, I can guarantee they have employee service index (ESI) issues. At the end of the day, if I can achieve something with two people when it takes another shop four people to do the exact same job, you can’t compete against me. This goes back to employee engagement. People will show up and give you their hands, but are you getting their hearts and minds? The path to profit is really pretty simple: ESI + CSI = Profit. And it must come in that order, with employees first.”
