Not Investing In Employees

During the ongoing recession we were made privy to the numbers of the technicians lost due to the economic downturn. The number was high coming in at almost thirty percent. It didn’t speak to us so about the economy as it asked about the quality of those positions, after all unemployment officially didn’t get to half that number, and the less reported but probably real unemployment figure didn’t come close either. Just what sort of technician jobs were those that were eliminated, and how skilled were the workers that filled them?

We here at TLM certainly suffered through some shrinkage as well, losing in my estimation about half the number being reported, suffering modestly because of it. Which takes me back to my opening point, almost thirty percent is a very large number, and we can only assume that the percentage reflects to some degree the expandability of the investment that was made in those “technicians”. It’s my position that it probably wasn’t much.

We have made internal changes to help us limit the expense invested in new hires. Not the amount that will be spent, but more to the point who it will be spent on. Pre-employment testing and multiple interviews are now part of our hiring process. Keeping the dealership strong in order to be able to render quality service is a primary goal, determining that an employment prospect isn’t worth the investment in time and training “prior” to hiring him or her is now a part of that effort.

Whether the position is a Customer Service Representative, Parts technician or a repair Technician each position at Toyota Lift of Minnesota represents a large commitment of time and effort. In order to mold that individual into someone who has the skill sets to be an aid to our customer base a lot has to be done on his or her behalf. Regardless of their position each employee at TLM will at one time or another will be “the” face of our company in the eyes of our customer. Certainly we’re not going to put out just any old “tool” to do that. Having an expendable workforce equal to almost thirty percent? No that just says someone wasn’t making that investment.

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