When you’re running a busy garage, training can easily become something you deal with when the need arises.
You need another MOT Tester, so you book the training. You’re seeing more electric and hybrid vehicles, so someone goes on an EV course. You invest in ADAS equipment and need a technician qualified to use it.
There’s nothing wrong with responding to an immediate need, but with vehicle technology changing, recruitment becoming increasingly difficult and workshops needing a broader range of skills, there’s a strong argument for looking further ahead.
For garage owners and managers, the question shouldn’t just be “What training do we need now?”
It should also be “What skills will our workshop need next?”
From one-off courses to continuous development
The automotive industry doesn’t stand still and neither can the skills within your workshop. Vehicles are changing. Technology is changing. Customer expectations are changing. The work you’re doing today may look very different in a few years’ time. Waiting until you desperately need a particular skill can leave you playing catch-up.
Instead, take a regular look at your workshop and ask:
- What skills do we already have?
- Where are we too reliant on one person?
- What work are we currently turning away or outsourcing?
- What types of vehicles and technology are we seeing more frequently?
- What services do we want to offer in the future?
This starts to move training away from being a reaction to an immediate problem and towards becoming part of how you plan the future of the garage.
Create a plan around your workshop
A training plan doesn’t need to be complicated. Start with the people you already have. Look at their existing skills and qualifications, where there are gaps and where individual technicians could develop next. Then consider what you want the business to look like over the next 12, 24 or 36 months.
That might mean:
- Training another MOT Tester so you aren’t reliant on one person
- Developing your EV capability as more electric and hybrid vehicles come through the doors
- Preparing to offer ADAS calibration
- Strengthening diagnostic skills
- Developing technicians towards more senior or specialist roles
Once you know where you want to go, you can start putting the right training in place before it becomes urgent.
Keeping skills current
Completing a course or gaining a qualification shouldn’t be the end of the process. Technicians need opportunities to use what they’ve learned and keep their knowledge current as vehicles, systems and requirements continue to develop.
That could mean sharing technical updates within the workshop, discussing difficult or unusual jobs, refreshing existing knowledge and identifying when further training would be beneficial. This is particularly important in fast-moving areas such as EV and ADAS, where the vehicles and systems arriving in workshops continue to evolve.
A training culture isn’t about constantly sending people away on courses. It’s about making learning and development part of the way the workshop operates.
Developing the technicians you already have
Finding experienced technicians with exactly the skills you need isn’t always easy. Sometimes the answer is already in your workshop. The technician who knows your customers, understands your standards and fits well within your team could, with the right training and support, become your next MOT Tester, EV technician, ADAS specialist or diagnostic technician.
Developing people internally can also give you greater resilience. If only one person can carry out a particular type of work, what happens when they’re on holiday, off sick or decide to leave?
Building skills across the team reduces that dependency and gives you more flexibility when planning work.
Training can help you keep good people
There’s another important reason to think longer term about development: retention.
Good technicians want to progress.
If someone can see that you’re prepared to invest in them, help them build new skills and give them opportunities to take on more responsibility, there’s a stronger reason for them to build their career with you.
That doesn’t mean putting everyone on every available course.
Talk to your technicians about:
- What they enjoy
- Where they’d like to develop
- What additional responsibility they’d like to take on
- How their development could support the future needs of the garage
When the development of your people supports the development of your business, training becomes much more than a cost.
Is your workshop planning ahead?
Take a look at your team today. If your workload changed, could you cope? If a key technician left, where would the gaps be? If customers started asking for more EV, ADAS or diagnostic work, could you take it on?
And perhaps most importantly:
Do you know what skills you want your team to have this time next year?
You don’t need a complicated five-year training strategy, but having a clear idea of where the gaps are and what you want to develop gives you the opportunity to act before those gaps start costing you work.
How Pro-Tech Can Help
At Pro-Tech, we work with garages and automotive businesses every day, so we understand that taking technicians out of the workshop costs both time and money. That’s why we believe training should have a clear purpose. Whether you need to solve an immediate skills gap or want to start planning how your team develops over the next few years, we can help you identify the right training route.
Our training covers a wide range of areas including:
- MOT Tester and MOT Manager training
- MOT Annual Training
- Electric and hybrid vehicle training
- ADAS awareness and calibration
- Vehicle inspection
- Advanced diagnostics and technical development
- New and developing automotive technologies
You may need one technician trained now. You may want to build skills across a whole team. Or you may simply want to talk through where the gaps are and what you should prioritise. Whatever stage you’re at, we’re happy to have that conversation because building a training culture isn’t about sending people on more courses.
It’s about making sure your workshop has the right skills, in the right people, at the right time.
Speak to the Pro-Tech team to discuss your training requirements and how we can help you plan for what comes next.
Call: 01283 734427
Email: info@pro-techacademy.co.uk
Visit: www.pro-techacademy.co.uk
Skill up. Stand out. Succeed.
