From the United States to Australia, collision repair shops worldwide can benefit from industry insights in retaining staff and maintaining a positive workforce.
According to Repairer Driven News, three collision repair shop owners have revealed new strategies in a panel discussion held in North Carolina earlier this month.
The panelists shared how they’ve implemented employee role segmentation and its positive impacts on workforce skills development, productivity, repair quality, and overall operations efficiency.
The panelists were:
- Kris Burton, Rosslyn Auto Body owner/operator in Alexandria, Virginia.
- Michael Bradshaw, vice president of K&M Collision in Hickory, North Carolina.
- Barry Dorn, vice president of Dorn’s Body & Paint in Mechanicsville, Virginia.
Bradshaw highlighted how segmentation optimises resource use by each individual and the company as a whole as well as reduces errors. Bradshaw attributed the decrease in errors he’s seen at his shop to his employees focusing on the same tasks repetitively, improving along the way.
“Role segmentation is the strategic division of tasks within any organisation in the specialised roles, and this ensures that individuals can focus on specific tasks and functions,” Bradshaw says.
The panel compared the business operation to that of the aerospace industry with quality control processes, OEM repair procedures, cross-functional teams, and individuals with certain expertise handling the corresponding repair processes from engineers to technicians.
Both industries are also built on constantly learning, honing skills, and enriching expertise, according to the panel.
Dorn emphasised the importance of consistency for safe repairs.
“There’s a lot of things that we have to do that we keep consistently seeing is very similar to what they have to do,” Dorn says.
“When it comes down to the procedures, you can’t ignore that.”
“Things are only going to become more complex so the further we put off specialisation and segmentation within the industry, the further behind the eight ball we’re going to be,” Bradshaw says.
“Our technicians train a lot. I sometimes feel like we’re paying them to train more than we are to work on cars.”
“We understand that’s part of the deal; that it’s an investment that we have to make to ensure the technicians are going to be skilled and equipped to repair the vehicles properly.”
“We encourage our technicians to contribute ideas to improve our processes,” Bradshaw says.
“We literally will tear something up because somebody has a better idea and we will go through pain for 30 or 45 or 60 days because we know it’s eventually going to be better. That’s something that you really have to keep an open mind to, to innovate… and grow your team.”
For Dorn’s workshop, the blueprinter writes the repair plan and the repair planner sells that plan to the third-party payer or the customer.
“We segregate our blueprint team from the carrier so blueprint only deals with the technician and the car,” Dorn says.
Burton’s shop recently began changing up operations.
“After 30 to 60 days, we’re processing vehicles quicker, the quality is up, and overall it’s been good for everybody,” Burton says.
The panel agreed that implementing these role and operations changes won’t necessarily cost more because the goal is to look for opportunities to improve efficiency with what and who shops already have. They’ve been working on honing their processes over the last five to 10 years.