Pub. 3 Issue 1

27 SPRING 2015 welding. Schools cut or dropped vocational classes because they weren’t a good source of federal funding. What many ed- ucators and parents may not realize, however, is the amount of technical knowledge required by a technician today, how much a technician can earn, or how strong the demand is. High schools are often not as up-to-date as they need to be when it comes to teaching those who are interested in learning the necessary skills. As cars have become more sophisticated, they’ve also gotten harder for an amateur to fix. Nobody can just walk up to a car with a bag of tools anymore and expect to be able to do much. You need the right tools. It turns out those tools are expensive and, possibly, out of financial reach for many schools. The price tag for an Integrated Diagnostic System (IDS) such as a dealership’s repair shop might have is $4,000. In addition, there is a monthly software license fee to pay. Many schools can’t afford that. Cars for students to work on are sometimes older model cars. Add in the space require- ments for a shop where students can train, and it becomes even more difficult for a school to keep its programs going when enrollment goes down or teachers retire. The result is inadequate programs that don’t lay a good foundation even if some students have a strong interest. A lot of dealerships don’t hire any technician who is less than 18 years of age. This is usually because of insurance issues. According to Damon Friend, who is a transportation instruc- tor at Oakland Schools Technical Campus Southwest, which is located in Wixom, Michigan, lowering the minimum age by as little as six months would go a long way toward helping dealerships find new mechanics. By the time the prospective mechanics are 18, they’ve often found something else to do instead. Faced with potential shortages, and the negative impact that has on any dealership, what can dealers do to turn the situa- tion around? • Understand the millennial mindset so you can work more effectively with them. • Be advocates within the school system for your future employees. • Create relationships with mentors. Understanding the Millennial Mindset Millennials are those who were born between 1982 and 2005. In generally, they’ve received praise since their earliest child- hood for doing anything that could be classified as creative or innovative. Most of them were playing video games when they were still only seven or eight years old. If they played team sports, everyone got a chance to play, and if there were trophies to be handed out, everybody got one. They’ve been taught to stand up for themselves, to express their opinions, and to do everything the smart way, not the hard way. They want shortcuts, simplifications, and efficiency. Unfortunately, many millennials have much less interest in cars and driving than previous generations. They don’t need to drive to see their friends; they can text or Skype instead. Getting a driver’s license used to be a common rite of passage; 87 percent of all 19-year-olds had them in 1980. Seventy per- cent could say the same thing in 2010. Working on your own car under the tree in the front yard isn’t realistic anymore. Many millennials might find the idea of becoming a master technician an appealing one. New powertrain technologies are making this a fast-changing, interesting job involving IT’S NO WONDER DEALERSHIPS DON’T APPRECIATE THESE SORTS OF BUSINESS PRACTICES. BUT DESPITE EXISTING FEDERAL LEGISLATION, THE LOGICAL PLACE FOR RESTRAINT IS REALLY ON A STATE LEVEL. WHY? DEALERSHIPS ARE LOCAL, NOT NATIONAL, IN NATURE.  Young Technicians — continued on page 24