By Mike Davey
Hamilton, Ontario — June 13, 2017 — Planning to hire in the next few months? You’re not alone. Collision Repair magazine’s latest survey asked our readers a variety of questions related to increasing and decreasing staffing levels. The majority of respondents (72 percent) indicated they intended to hire at least one additional staff member in the next quarter.
Collision Repair magazine runs new surveys every week. Our next survey asks you to let us know which item of new equipment you would most like to have, assuming price was no object.
We’ve all heard that facilities need more experienced technicians, so it’s not surprising that 72 percent of surveyed shops said they were planning to add more staff. We also asked those shop owners and managers how many staff they would like to add to the team.
The single largest group (52 percent) said they would like to add two to three new staff members. The next largest group (33 percent) indicated they were only planning to hire one new team member, with only 4 percent saying they would like to hire four to five new staff. However, 11 percent of respondents indicated they were planning on adding six or more staff to their operations in the next quarter.
Finally, we asked survey respondents if they were planning to let anyone go in the same period. The majority (79 percent) had no plans to dismiss employees, but that leaves 21 percent who say they plan to do exactly that. Some of the comments left on this question may find resonance with readers also considering terminating an employee. As always, these comments are presented anonymously, with only minimal editing from us.
“Poor communication with customers and staff members.”
“The individual is not reliable and isn’t really picking up on procedures very well.”
“Lacking essential employability skills: self-direction, judgment, thoroughness.”
