New Study Offers Blueprint for Dealership Fixed Ops Staffing Success

Automotive News, Aug. 19, 2019 — The shortage of talented auto service technicians is acute and growing. The turnover of service advisers at new-vehicle dealerships has come to resemble a revolving door. Workers younger than baby boomers aren’t especially interested in dealership jobs, including those in the service department, parts desk and body shop.

Even as franchised dealerships must rely on service revenue for an ever-greater share of their profits, such dreary workplace realities may seem permanent facts of life for dealers and fixed ops managers. A new report, though, offers cause for hope — but only if dealerships are prepared to change the way they treat their employees.

Cox Automotive’s 2019 Dealership Staffing Study notes that nearly one-third of the members of Generation Z and younger millennials — roughly, people from ages 22 to 28 — who were surveyed for the report express interest in working for a dealership. That rate is 10 percentage points higher than it is among older millennials and members of Generation X (ages 29 to 54). And these younger employees are at least as attracted to technician jobs as they are to sales and administrative positions, the study says.

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