LKQ Euro Car Parts Blog – December 2022: No train, no gain: why right now is the perfect time to review your teams’ development

Date: Wednesday 07 December 2022

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The MOT wave has subsided, and motorists are trying to avoid spending on anything beyond Christmas gifts – workloads will, for some garages and bodyshops at least, be beginning to ease in December.

In this relative period of quiet, focussing on the future and in particular the skills of you and your teams as an investment worth making.

But, with a recession looming, the industry will be watching its cashflows like a hawk. The training budget, as a discretionary spend, is any easy thing to control.

And so, we must face the age-old counter to my argument: ‘What if I train, then they leave?’.

Is there anything more galling than paying to improve a technician’s CV right before they join someone else?

Probably not. But how about, ‘What if I don’t train and they stay?’. As I’ll come onto shortly, refusing to invest risks leaving your business behind in the race to service modern vehicles.

In any case, with the battle for talent in the aftermarket still incredibly tight, you risk losing them to someone else that’s promising to invest in their future.

So, to the need to keep pace. You won’t need me to tell you that modern vehicles are as technologically sophisticated as any consumer appliance or piece of tech hardware.

I’m not just talking about EVs but ADAS, onboard computers and remote diagnostics, to name a few.

The first to upgrade their skills and then flaunt it are the franchised dealerships, which risks making the independent sector appear only fit to service the cars of yesteryear.

But as with every risk there’s also opportunity.

As I wrote last month, by touting their own technical expertise and quality assurances, independent garages and workshops have the chance to capture share of wallet from the dealerships as cash-strapped consumers consider ways to make savings.

One of the other arguments against training is that the return on investment can be fuzzy to calculate, or appear too distant to make a difference, especially if it’s in areas like servicing EVs.

This is why there is an easier case to make for spending on training that boosts key skills.

Productivity gains translate directly into profitability. If your team can now do what was a 90-minute job in 60 minutes, then in a seven-hour day you can do seven jobs instead of four or five.

In the UK, employer investment training has fallen steeply since 2015 and we now lag our international peers. It’s perhaps no surprise that in tandem we have a long-running productivity problem.

There are plenty of options out there to choose from. LKQ Euro Car Parts is the market’s biggest provider of training courses, while other factors and trade bodies all offer programmes too.

If you’re to treat your business to one gift this Christmas, make it training. (Well, after a night out maybe?)

Kevan Wooden, chief commercial officer, LKQ Euro Car Parts

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