Episode 199: The Truth About Fleet Tech Shortages That No One Wants to Admit

Hey, welcome back to the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley. And today we're going to talk about how your technician shortage may actually be getting exacerbated, but not from the sources you think, as we talk about competing against other trades for your technicians. Stay tuned. Let's get into the show. This is the Fleet Success Show dedicated to helping you and your fleet succeed using the experience of fleet professionals and Hall of Fame fleet legends. The show that explores how the pillars of stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management all combine to lead your fleet to success. We're glad you're here. Now let's get into the show. Hey, welcome back to the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley. Mark Canton back in studio.

Hey, Josh, good to see you again.

Hey, you too. So the other day I was scrolling through Facebook or Instagram or something like that. LinkedIn. It was on LinkedIn. Okay. See, I was on the— I was on the good platform, not the—

not the crappy ones that suck you into the vortex and turn you into robots.

Right. And I was watching, and I saw Jim Farley, who's the CEO of Ford Motor Company, was on Yahoo News or something like that, one of the finance things, talking about some of the struggles they're having in their dealerships. And I thought it was really refreshing to actually hear this from the CEO of one of the big three. And to see that we're bringing light to this across the board, that it's not just a problem we know about in fleet, but that the rest of the world's starting to pay attention to this. Sure. And he dropped his line, which was what impacted me. He says, you know, today I'm going to go, and if I look across our dealerships, we have 6,000 bays— 6,000— without a technician in them. Yeah, right. Blow my mind that they have a technician shortage of 6,000 techs. Now, that's a massive company. I don't even know how many technicians they have, right? Uh, but he cited some statistics about, hey, like, Ford has 6,000 empty open roles for technicians that if they could fill them, they would.

Yep.

There's probably something like 400,000 empty technician roles right now.

Yep.

But that it's— they have the parts, they have the supply chain, they're ready to repair vehicles. But if you want to get your vehicle repaired, you're 2 weeks out.

Yeah.

And I have seen that. I have felt that. It used to be a parts issue, and we blame the supply chain. But it's not that anymore. It's literally we just don't have enough good techs.

Yeah, that's why in New York we grease the service writers. Right. You do something because it's 2 weeks out. If you try to make an appointment, sometimes they're like, yeah, come call me, you know, how about next month at 4? Yeah. You know, it's like, what do you do? Are you kidding me?

And then hopefully you're not needing like a rental vehicle or something like that because they're not giving you spares, right? You know, sometimes you get lucky if you really know the dealer owner or, you know, somebody.

Yes, that's what I mean.

You know, they'll give you a little bit of a rental.

Yeah.

But if it's longer than 3 days, they won't do that. Usually they'll send you an Enterprise and say good luck. Yeah.

And car insurance won't cover that either, by the way, because it wasn't an accident.

No, not an accident. And so it's just literally a, you know, it's a failure of the vehicle itself.

And it's a little messed up too, because if it's a PM.

Yeah.

And you don't do it, well then you could hurt your warranty, especially with all the data they have now. Right. You know, so it's— and if it's not a PM and it's like, oh, my brakes don't work anymore, you know, like, what do I do?

My engine won't start. I mean, I had a guy that fouled his spark plugs, actually blew his engine while we were down in Baja, of all places. We got it back home, but that thing was in the shop for 3 weeks, right? Waiting for a motor, but mostly because they didn't have a tech who could go do the job.

Yeah.

And so, you know, the motor came in and then it sat for another week.

Yeah.

And that's just the fact of life. That's where they're at right now.

Yeah, it's a good— it's a good point.

So I know in fleet we talk about the technician shortage all the time, but it was kind of refreshing to hear that, hey, we're not alone in this, right? We often complain about the dealers because they, you know, steal our best talent because they can pay top dollar. And I'll tell you why they can pay top dollar. It's because they got 6,000 open positions. So what are they going to do? Well, I'll divvy up the money I would have spent on those guys and spread it across the rest of them. Yeah. So like, you're definitely in an arms race. And this is where I try to tell people all the time, right? Scarcity breeds strategy. You know, if we had an unlimited amount of resources, then we wouldn't have to be strategic about our time, about our money, anything like that.

Right.

But Because there's scarcity, it means that there's, you know, we end up in this arms race where you have to be really strategic and intentional about where the blood flow goes and how much time and money you're spending on these things. And when you have something that's a, you know, you see this in nations all the time. Like if there's a scarcity of gold, we're seeing it right now with lithium because everybody wants lithium for the batteries for EVs.

Yeah, that's a big one now, yeah.

That's how wars get started, right?

Yeah, it's freaky.

And why is that? Well, it's because we need the resources.

Right.

You're in a war. You're in a war for talent.

Yeah.

And so that's like the way to be thinking about this, right? Because you're going up against, you know, there's a scarcity of resources which creates war, right? It's really this fun little thing. It's an economic war.

Football.

Football.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So, but it's an interesting little world that we're about to enter into as well because we've, we've been pushing everybody for years, right? Been pushing the glamor of a 4-year degree, been pushing the glamor of you shouldn't be working with your hands, you need to go get a white-collar job.

Yeah.

Right, we've been demonizing and dehumanizing even the idea of blue-collar work.

Yeah, that's the worst part of it.

It is the worst part of it.

You will amount to nothing if you don't go to college.

Well, this is the ironic twist though, because now we've got AI coming onto the scene. And I say this as a white-collar worker who does blue-collar stuff on the weekends, right? Okay. So like I say this with tongue in cheek, But it's ironic is that, you know, white-collar workers invented AI, AI destroys white-collar workers, blue-collar workers inherit the earth, right? And so we go through this fun little cycle.

So true until robots get created with AI who can replace the blue-collar.

You know, I talked about that at FleetCon.

Oh yeah.

Right. And I would be more afraid of that because it absolutely will happen. I'll just tell you right now.

Yeah, it's a matter of when.

It is a matter of when, not if. Like it will happen that robots will replace our factory workers, they'll replace our farms. They're already doing it, right?

Definitely.

They will replace, you know, our pilots. They will replace all the, like, any blue-collar trade. If it's, you can do work with your hands, a robot can do that job at some point.

Yeah.

They build the cars.

Already.

Already.

Yeah.

Right. They're, one day they're going to fix the cars too.

Yes.

Right. So just like the day is coming that we won't need automotive technicians anymore. But here's the beauty of that. We all know how long it takes to get a building approved from city council. You know how long it's gonna take them to retrofit for robots? It's gonna be 50 years. Y'all, like, we're gonna be fine. I will be, I'll either be dead. No, in 50 years I'll probably be dead.

No, you won't. No, I don't know.

Unless they come up with some kind of crazy medical advances. Well, that's the assumption.

Well, let's assume that they come up with something.

Let's assume that they come up with something and now I can live to 120. I'll still have 30 years left in my life.

Now whether or not the FDA has approved that medical— Oh, okay. That's something else. Okay, I'm sorry. Open.

I don't know, lately it depends on which administration's in office.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

So we go through and like, just know that that's going to happen, but it's going to be a long time off, right? So it's interesting to me, the irony of this is that AI is coming for the white-collar jobs first.

Yes.

So I think we're seeing this shift already. I've talked about this, Gen Z is the tool belt generation, and they are the ones that are coming into blue-collar work.

Yeah.

Now, as you and I talked about this though, what's interesting is that they're not coming into the automotive technician work.

Not mostly.

Right, and there's a few trades that they are gravitating towards.

Yeah.

And I think there's a couple reasons for this, but the 3 trades that I typically see most trade schools, you know, most people going into the trades for, plumbers, electricians, and HVAC.

Yep.

Right, like those 3 are the big 3. And it makes sense because you think about target addressable market, how big is the market for plumbers and HVAC? Yeah, it's massive. 'Cause every home in America—

Every building.

Needs all three of those things, right? Every corporate building, every that. The other thing that you're seeing a lot of is these data centers that are getting built for AI. What do they need?

Yeah, that's interesting.

They need a lot of power. They need a lot of cooling, which is all plumbing. And they need a lot of HVAC, right? Like all three of those things are huge for AEI and data centers.

Oh, that's fascinating.

Right? So—

Blue collar are building the buildings that are gonna put the white collar out of business. I'm loving it.

Isn't it just like this massive twist of irony? But I've been saying for years that because of the shortage, right, it's supply and demand, simple economics, that at some point those people are gonna be able to print their own paychecks, right? They're gonna be able to print their own money, write whatever number they want, and that's what they're gonna get paid.

Yes. And you're already kind of trending that way.

Totally. What's interesting to me is that they're not jumping into the mechanic world, right? They're not becoming technicians. We're not seeing this influx of talent yet. So I'm curious about that. Like, what do we think is, causing them not to come into that industry, you know, because people are still driving cars, they still need cars repaired. The dealerships can't even find enough people, which that was like probably the eye-opener for me. I knew we had a problem in fleet. And, you know, oftentimes the thing is, well, we can't pay enough, we can't compete with the dealers. It's like, it doesn't even matter because the dealers can't even compete with themselves.

Yeah.

So until we fix that problem, this problem is not going away anytime soon.

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There's some fleets out there who have flipped that on their head, by the way, right? Like they poach from dealers. Yeah, go ahead, go to the dealer, get your training. And as you're going up and you're waiting for that promotion, I'm gonna grab you and maybe I can give you a couple bucks more, entice you with HD. You know, which is a great idea. But your point stands, right? Like, what's going on there, right? Why aren't we doing it? So continue.

I'd love to hear your theory. Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts as we think about what's keeping the kids from getting into, you know, becoming automotive technicians? What can we do as a fleet industry and maybe even bring this home a little bit? Like, what can— if, you know, fleet manager, you're listening to this podcast, this, you know, the show, What could you do? Right? Like, what's something that the individual could do at their level for their organization to really help, you know, bring some of these kids into the trades, coach them up, mentor them, get them in? Yeah. You know, and not lose them to HVAC, electrical, and plumbing, because that's now— we're not just competing against white-collar jobs now. We're also competing against the other blue-collar jobs.

Exactly.

Comes into the trade, you know, the tool belt generation.

Right. I think it's a few things, Josh, and, and I don't know which one of these is the biggest, but I think they all kind of play a role. Um, you know, for one, I don't think we're— I don't think we're the best of that group of going out and recruiting and attracting talent, right? You've seen some movement in this area, but it's very localized. It's not organized at an industry level per se. I know Bill and Nafa, the guys, are trying to move that, but what they're doing is they're kind of embedding, hey, you, you have a fleet that needs help, yeah, we'll help you. We'll get involved with the local trade shows, trade schools and high schools and so forth. But, you know, and you're seeing, um, uh, what Mike Rowe's doing and that sort of a thing. That's more generalized for any, you know, but there's nothing, there's nothing out there right now that is like creating the, um, the, you know, the, the funnel and the flywheel to, to steal, right? Like, there's no, hey, let's go out, let's recruit. There's no, this is the type of maybe high school student that might be interested in, or, or person profile, a personality profile. None of that, none of that exists exists to this day, at, at least at a macro level that's looking at the industry. And so there's no clear recruiting methodology or plan or, you know, anything of that nature, right? So I think that's a, a, a really big factor. And you hear the things that get talked about all the time. There's no more shop class and there's no, so there's much lower exposure to it. But to your point, why then are they going to the others? And I think, and I do think that those industries, generally speaking, are doing a better job of that. Especially the utilities, right? You know, they came in already now 10 years ago recognizing, for example, learning differences amongst generations.

Yeah.

You know, and they started saying, okay, well, when we hire a boomer who's moving over from the utility next door, we're going to orient them and train them a completely different way than at the time 10 years ago when— how we're going to bring in this millennial, right? And they're going to have video training and everything's going to be on an app and so forth and so on. Oh, we can't get linesmen to go up and inspect the lines. You know, the boomers used to go up there and climb it and use their own eyes, take pictures on little old school cameras. Now it's like, well, hey, fly this drone and, yeah, and get a good, you know.

So we changed the nature of the work.

We changed it, right?

Yeah.

So they did a great job, in my opinion, of getting way out in front of it. So I think that's a piece. We talked about what we're not doing. I also think just in general, this greater exposure, right? Like, you're just a kid and you're going to get exposed to something in your house around plumbing or electricity or HVAC.

You've probably met an electrician or a plumber or an air conditioning tech.

Yeah.

Whereas you may not have met a mechanic.

Yeah.

Because your mom takes the car into the shop, you know, and they're behind the glass, right? Behind the glass. Service writer or the guy up front. Yes. Yeah.

The mechanic is completely behind the glass. So unless you have, you know, a parent or an uncle or whoever who's like super into it and they're like, come on, let's get under the car. You just don't get exposed to it. So it's still this like alien thing to you, you know, this alien language, right? Um, and so I, I think that's a factor. And I think— and this is really sad to me, um, because if you've dabbled in any of this stuff, and I don't mean any offense to the other trades, I think being a mechanic is a lot more difficult. So I was just saying this, you know, right?

Like those 3 trades, they're simple. Yeah, like I've done plumbing, pretty straight. I've done electrician. Like, yeah, is it 110, 220, right? And it, you know, like you connect this wire to this wire and you run it and you're doing the same over and over and over again. You know, HVAC gets a little bit more complex, but not significantly so, right? Uh, you know, like you're dealing with pressures and gases and things like that. But you think about it, what's the difference between those three in automotive? Automotive does all three. Yes, right? Because in order to be a really good technician, you have to be good at HVAC.

Yes.

And maybe less so plumbing, but you know, radiator is just another form of plumbing.

Sure.

And then you've got electrical all over the place. All over the place now, right? And then you've got the ECU and voltage and it's like, it's complex. It's not simple 110 and 220. Nope. Like you've got 12-volt systems, 24-volt systems. You have different voltage on the meters and the sensors all have different voltage.

Yeah.

It's crazy, right? Because it's using the different voltages to drive the sensor readings. Yes. It's like, oh, you've got a voltage drop there. Well, that's what triggers the O2 sensor.

Right.

It's not that it wasn't 12-volt. No, no, no. Like 5-volt means something different than 9-volt.

Yeah.

It's crazy. It is.

And in a fleet setting, you may not do the same job all week or month. Forget— unless you're the PM specialist, right?

Right.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah. So there's definitely some routine and repetitiveness to it that you just don't see. So like, those jobs are simpler. They seem easier.

Yes.

There's another aspect to it that I don't think is— is talked about as often. Right. And it's this idea of entrepreneurship. We're seeing this a lot with Gen Z as they want— they desire kind of to be their own boss. Right. And I will tell you, as an entrepreneur myself, it's beautiful.

It is.

It's really nice, right? Like, to, to be your own person, uh, to not have people that, you know— and in this case, it's the solopreneurs that they're doing into, right? And so they're starting up their own plumbing firm and their own electrical. And the barrier to entry to being your own plumber, you got to buy a van, right? And some equipment. Exactly. Uh, to be an HVAC tech, same thing. To be an electrician, same thing, right?

Exactly.

It's super easy. You just go and it's a mobile shop. You want to try to be a mobile mechanic?

Tough.

It's way tough. Like, you still got, like, the tooling alone is a huge investment. Yep. But it's a very different world than, because now you're competing against the shops.

Yeah.

That are dedicated brick-and-mortar buildings. And so, okay, you want to go set up your own independent repair shop? Well, now you got to buy a dedicated brick-and-mortar building, and now you're geographically tied to that area.

And your risk-reward paradigm completely shifts.

Huge. It flips completely, right? And so the barrier to entry for somebody to start their own thing in, as an automotive tech, completely different than starting your own thing as a plumber, electrician, HVAC tech. So I think that's also an element of it.

It's a great point. And it's funny because we're talking about the complexity, and yet— and this is like what blows my mind— you know, generally speaking, those other trades get paid more. And you can go check this out on Indeed and other ones, and it's like, wait a minute, this dramatically more complex thing gets paid less is behind the glass. I need a shop. You can— no one's recruiting me. No one's changed the training to make it so that it's a way that I learn. Like, there's, there's just a lot to overcome. And that's why we're seeing, you know, yeah, we started with the whole white-collar, blue-collar conversation, and not everyone necessarily needs to go to college. But now even on that front, as blue-collar is making inroads, we're losing relative to the other trades. And When we, when we talk a little bit about these things, it's kind of like, now that I'm thinking about it, it makes sense. You know, like we're having these struggles for a reason. We need to fix this as an industry. We really do.

So I hate to say that it comes down to pay, but here we are. Yeah.

Right.

Like, and it's definitely, we need to get the pay commensurate with the work that's being done.

It does.

The supply and demand is going to require us to do it.

Yes.

You know, it's coming.

Yes.

Simple economics. Yes. We know it's coming. We can keep fighting it against all we want it. Right. But at some point, like it's got to shift. It has to.

Exactly. You're going to get to a point where there's just not enough qualified people out there to do it.

There isn't. And yet we're like, I don't know how long we can keep fighting this battle.

Correct. Right. And they're going to name their price, you know. Yeah, that's a— it's a great point. Or you'll continue to have, you know, month-long waits to get an oil change. Maybe there'll be some— maybe there'll be some return to the time when people change their own oil in their driveway. But that's only going to mitigate— first off, I don't expect that. But if it did happen, it would only mitigate so, so little of it really, you know.

So I agree with the oil changes easily. Like you drop it off and like later that day you go pick it up. Yeah, right. It's the routine is, you know, because you schedule it, you drop it off. It's not a big deal. It's when it's the unplanned maintenance that you don't get to schedule it and then you got to go drop this thing off and you don't know when you get to get back again. Right. It's going to take 2 weeks for this thing to get back to you.

Yeah.

And it just drags and it drags and they keep telling you, oh yeah, we'll get to it. It's like, you know, next thing on our list. You just don't know that the list is 2 weeks long. Right.

Exactly. And that's the thing about people like, well, I can't get a mechanic. So, you know, for the fleets out there who are saying, well, I'll just outsource it. Well, yeah, but this is the world you're out, you know, you're entering when you're thinking of going that route. Okay, great. You thought you had problems before. Your availability is going to tank. You're going to increase the size of your fleet because you got to count on vehicles being out a month every time they need new tires, you know. And we're seeing this, you know, we have customers who are who are struggling with their, with their outsourced vendors, just like you're talking about. You know, we have some FMIS customers who are very dependent on outsourced work, some of the large customers, which is natural, right? When you're, when you're all over a large, let's say, footprint from a geography perspective, you know, you're just naturally going to be more dependent. And they have this exact issue. And these vehicles, you know, what am I trying to get at? It gets to a point where the, the, the situation is like made worse because the operator doesn't want to bring it in, right? You know what I'm saying? Because they know if they bring it in, they're going to lose it for such a period of time. And then that has this—

it's the inverse square rule, right? We talk about that all the time, you know, is that that $225 repair suddenly turns into a $2,000 repair, right? And that turns into something bigger because then it causes an accident, right? Like it's the inverse square rule.

Yes.

Just it extrapolates exponentially.

Yeah. So it's a, it's really amazing.

But so what do you do? Like, okay, Mr. Fleet Manager, you're out there, you're running your shop, you're like, what do I do about it? Like, I'm hitting the, I'm feeling the impact, I'm feeling the pinch.

Yeah.

So you hit one thing, which is you've got to figure out how to fight for a higher wage for your technicians.

Yeah, for sure.

You've got to get more competitive there.

Yeah.

Okay, so, you know, going in, talking to HR, bringing HR into the, you know, room, letting them see all the different work that you're doing and being like, look, He's doing electrical and plumbing and HVAC. Oh, and by the way, he also has all this mechanical stuff that he has to do, right? You know, with the actual engine itself and the drivetrain. And these guys are making, right, an electrical— you could go to some of the other positions in your company, right? How much do we pay our electricians? How much do we pay your HVAC techs?

Right.

I'd be curious to see if that's comparable.

Yeah.

And then from there you can say, and by the way, the dealer next door, right? And this is the thing that really chaps me about public sector. 'Cause they love doing this and it drives me batty. I wish I could get into like a room with all the HR professionals in government somewhere and just like shake them awake. Like, come on guys, think about this. When they're going out and doing wage studies, all they're doing is this weird little circle jerk of, hey, what's this city paying their technicians? And what's that city paying their technicians? And they always ignore the direct threats, which is what's the dealership literally a quarter block away paying their technicians? What's the independent repair shop paying their techs? Because those are the ones that your techs are going to, right? Right. They're not looking at all the substitutes. Yeah. And this is something like as a private company we're constantly taught how to do is evaluate the threats and evaluate the substitutes. What would they use if they're not using your product?

Right.

Well, guess what? You have a company, you have a job. Your job is the product.

Yeah.

What would they use? Because what's the product that you're trying to do is the product is their wage. Where else could they substitute getting a wage from you? Well, they're going to go somewhere else to get a wage. What are the substitutes? What are the threats? And so, you have to get HR to think about it that way as, hey, don't just look at the other cities and think that your pension benefit is somehow this magical piece of paper.

Especially to a 24-year-old, right?

Because they just don't care about that stuff, right? Oh, man. Gordon Bethune, he was the CEO of Continental Airlines. Continental? One of those airlines that you don't even hear of anymore. I think they got merged with somebody from US Air, but he talked about all the time, like, how do you motivate people? And he's like, man, you're sitting there, you're out in your boat fishing, and all you want is the fish to jump in your boat. Well, let me tell you what, the fish don't give a shit about you, right? They're swimming in their ocean and they're totally happy doing their own thing, right? It's like you got to convince them. You've got to have the right kind of bait.

Bait.

You've got to, you know, have the right kind of line, you've got to be fishing in the right waters, right conditions, in order to convince them to bite that hook and come into the boat. It's this great analogy, right? And so, but it's true, is like sometimes we're like, oh man, they would love this pension, but if they don't care about it, you're fishing with the wrong kind of bait. It's so true, you know. And so what do they care about? Well, give them a portable pension, something that they're like, I don't, you know, I'm not locked into the Arizona State Retirement Fund, right?

Right.

Like, I can only, I can go to the next city over That's— oh, I love that piece too, right? It's like, well, I can go to the next city over and that is totally portable to that city. So now I have no competitive advantage with the city next door.

At all. None.

Right? So, okay. So now take that off the table, but I can also go private and get a really nice 401(k) that outperforms your silly little pension and does it tax-free because I can do a Roth 401(k). And now all that growth is completely tax-free. Your pension doesn't do that for me.

Right.

So, I mean, there's just like a lot of things that we get a little bit myopic in public fleet.

Yes.

Especially on the HR side. Oh, yeah. We think that our comp package is just by far—

we know our salary is low, but when you look at everything else, we actually outcompensate well.

And it's BS.

Maybe it costs you more. I don't know. Yeah, but what's the value to the employees?

The question I will tell you, right, because we do this, we're, you know, we're a tech company. We have to battle engineers and you guys think mechanics are expensive.

That's true.

Go jump in a lake.

Let me tell you, when I learned more about this, I told my kids, you're all becoming engineers. Yes. Amazon's paying their engineers $350K.

Okay, right? Like insane level for like, yeah. And they're not entry level, they're good. But that's like some of their base level engineers, they've got engineers that are, you know, easily make half a million, a million dollars. That's the kind of wage war I'm in, right? And so I gotta compete with Microsoft and Netflix and Facebook and we call 'em the FAANG, right? Or I guess now it's Meta, MENG. They have a different, there's a different analogy for those guys, right? But there's, you know, it's like the mega corporations that we're fighting against.

Right.

When they're going out to market, like Microsoft does this for sure, is they don't tell you just what your base salary is. They tell you what the total value of all of your compensation is. So it's the value of a 401(k), the health insurance benefits that they give you, you know, because they don't just pay for your benefits, they pay for your family's benefits. And this is how much it would cost on the open market. And so like when you're— what they're doing is they're arming you so that when you go negotiate a salary somewhere else, you're not just negotiating a salary. You're also asking the question about, okay, well, tell me about benefit A, B, C, and D, and how much are you contributing to those? What do those cost? So I understand what the total compensation package I'm getting, right? And government fleet, we've tried to do this for years as we put together a total comp package. And man, we just hype up the value of our wages and our stability and all that. And I'm like, I don't know, Ford's not going anywhere. Yeah, GM's not going anywhere. They might have gone bankrupt, but they're too big to fail. Fed's going to bail them out no matter what, right?

So, and by the way, unlimited sick days, that does not help you or them, right? That kills the situation.

So I think just, you know, getting really clear about—

it's so true—

how competitive you are or are not, right? And, you know, hanging your hat on something that worked 10 to 15, 20 years ago, you got to stay up to date with what's competitive today, yeah. Um, and be looking at the actual substitutes. What are the people down the street paying not what are the people, you know, in the next city overpaying, right? Because especially if you're in a, you know, less suburban area and you're more rural, well, they're not going to drive to the next city, right? You know, like they're going to look next door for the next thing. And so you need to be a little bit more open-minded to the fact that you're competing against private industry, not just public entities.

Yeah. So you've hit a few things I just kind of want to sort of touch on and emphasize. Like one of the things you'll see a lot is averages. Yeah, you know, and it's like, great, this is the average, but do you know the top? Do you know, do you know what the top quartile are? Oh, you have to do percentiles, you know, you have to get into percentiles, right? And if I'm, if I'm in fleet, I'm aiming to be in that top 25 percentile at minimum, right? Because yeah, I want the best, and I want to be able to say, hey, we pay the best, and if you don't deserve to be paid the best, you don't belong here, right? And that's that intentional culture piece too. So, you know, the You know, I'll quickly tangent. There is more than salary. You know, we acknowledge that all the time. Having a great culture— and Tony talks all the time about there's, there's other kinds of rewards, right? There's acknowledgement, there's getting their family involved, there's doing these cool events and opportunities, and, and that's important too. So what you're talking about is— and not, you know, we're not saying don't do that stuff or in replacement of that stuff. You need both.

Yeah, because what'll happen, and if you do this right, You know, if you're aiming for that 75th percentile, if you do it right with intentional culture, you could get a 90th percentile tech that will work for 70th percentile wages.

Correct.

Because the culture compensates for the rest of it.

Exactly.

So I've had to do that. I've had really top-tier talent take pay cuts to come work for me.

Right.

Because they're, you know, they're 90th percentile and they're okay with doing 75th because all the other stuff matters as much. It's intangible benefits.

Right.

But, like you're not doing that and like, oh, I'm hoping that a 50th percentile person is going to do it because they don't care about that, right? Right. Like you're looking for the top talent that that stuff matters to.

Exactly.

So exactly, that's a great point to call out the percentages and the impact of culture.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, you need to do that. And then to your point about the competition, you know, um, well, number one, don't be embarrassed to pay a little bit more than your neighbor. That's again, that's a good thing as long as you're maintaining that point of pride, honestly. Right, exactly.

Yeah, we, you know, like I'm over here in, uh, Anaheim, of course I should pay more than Garden Grove, right? Right. Like, you don't want Garden Grove to be paying more than you.

Yeah, exactly.

You're like, that's something you should say to yourself, right? Hey, we want to be, you know, or Santa Ana, like, we want to be competitive, we want to be better than those.

Everybody wants to work here, you know. When I was out in Long Island, Suffolk County wore it like a, like you said, like a badge, you know. Like, yeah, everyone knew that the public, you know, uh, you know, public servants there made more money than all of the other counties in the area, and everybody's desire If you were a police officer or a firefighter or a garbage— it did not matter, an administrator in the building, you wanted to go. Your goal was to somehow get to Suffolk County. You went from New York City to Nassau County. So that's what everybody did. So no, you know, no shame in that, you know, be proud of it. Um, but to your point about, you know, who are your competitors, right? Like, understand that where we're at, because the entire blue-collar world is trying very hard to get people, you know What I guess what I'm trying to get at is in those HR studies that you're talking about, what I have found is they get so specific and so perfectly to the point, or they try to, that they're able to tell the story that they want to tell themselves, right? Oh, we're not going to include the specialty motorcycle shop down the block because that's not really the same work. It's like, what, are you kidding me? That motorcycle shop would so gladly hire your mechanic in a heartbeat, and yes, they will pay more because that specialty, their customers will pay top dollar to keep those motorcycles running in tip-top condition, right? So you got— you have to include that. And for that matter, you may need to include what the plumbing shop down the block makes, to your point, because a lot of the skills are transferable. And if you're a small business owner and you're looking for a great plumber and you, you got— you're getting more jobs than you can fulfill, and this mechanic walks in and they say, yeah, well, I've worked with this and this, that's fine, you can be an apprentice, we'll teach you, in 2 weeks you'll be out doing your own work, and they will be.

And trust me, it's not that hard to go from being a tech to sweating copper.

Techs— one of the challenges that the construction industry had years ago, and maybe they're still having it, is it was so hard to keep techs in the shop because they were, they were shooting themselves in the foot because they could make more money by getting out in the field and going being a construction worker. And, you know, the foremen loved those guys because they could do so much different kinds of work, and they're hard workers, and they're hard workers, and they ate them up. And they couldn't keep people in the shop. I've seen that in so many places over the years. So yeah, you know, you got to know what your threat of substitutes are. Yes.

You know.

Yeah, it's a great call there. It's a great call.

So the other thing that I think, right, so fight for your wages, get your HR department in the shop, right? Have them like help them understand just how technical these jobs are. Changing this mindset. We talk about this all the time. You haven't heard me refer to them really as mechanics. They do mechanical work. But because of the nature of the work now, they're technicians.

They're technicians.

And just really getting that vernacular baked into your job descriptions, into the HR mindset, having them come be a part of the job, seeing the work that's being done, what's happening because we can't, you know, attract and recruit new talent, what's happening because we can't retain the talent we did have, and having them be a partner in that story, right, instead of, you know, the person that's always getting the blame, right? And then the other piece, I think, I really like this as a strategy, which is you need to get involved either at the local schools level, at the community college level. Like you individually, don't wait for the, I said this last week, right? Nobody's coming to save us. Nobody's coming to save you. So you individually getting into the high schools, getting into the community colleges, right? Here locally we have Westmac, we have the, you know, Maricopa Community College system. We have several local schools.

Yep.

Like, I know Peoria Unified does this. They have a school with a shop program. You better bet your ass I'd be in there.

Oh yeah.

Talking to those kids and just, you know, inviting them to come tour my shop so they can see what life is like in a fleet.

Absolutely. Yep.

Because, you know, the dealerships are going to be doing that and showing them what they could be doing as a dealer and really trying to contrast yourself because you were again in a war. You have to— oh man, there's so many overlaps with like business here because this is all about positioning. That's what you've got to— you've got to show yourself like, what's the brand promise that you're offering these kids? What's the positioning? Why are you different than the guy next door? Why are you different than the dealership?

Right.

Why is it better?

Right.

How is it worse? A big one, right?

We don't tell that story nearly well enough. It's not like we're better.

So you as a fleet manager got to learn how to sell the job.

Yes.

And start when they're young, get them in, get them trained up. Right. Do their thing as they go through WyoTech or go through UTI or some of these other trade schools. Let them finish their schooling, right? Because I know Bill Schenkel's talked to us about that as we try to establish— yeah, right, exactly. Don't take them early, otherwise they get pissed about that, rightfully so. Yeah, uh, but establish those partnerships, get in early, get your face in there, get your name in there. This is a brand exercise, right? So that when they're like— when they're ready to get out into the industry, they're like, you know what, I remember going and touring the shop over at City of Peoria, I remember going to tour the shop at Suffolk County, and how clean it was and how awesome it was. And as I've gone around and like applied to some of these other positions, I actually like, I want to go work for that guy, right? You know, he spoke to me, he cared about me, he showed me like this path. And they do. They want to go to bat for you.

Absolutely.

So I think that's the piece. Like, we have to individually get out and start recruiting at these spots when they're young.

I agree.

You know, and get that out there.

And I encourage people to be a little outside the box and expand it, man. Like, I'd walk right into that 4-year degree and fuck, where's the mechanical engineering department? Hey guys, you want to go get some real, real-world experience? Yeah, even if it is part-time, even if it is for your night shift or your Saturdays or whatever else, or the summer job. Yeah, you know, it helps, it exposes them, and it's something that they can do, right? You know, um, I'll tell you what, if I could do life over instead of doing college the traditional way, I would work in a blue-collar situation and maybe take a class or two per semester. And, and, and I still go to school, but I would handle it completely differently. And we're seeing that with diseases, you know, they're interested, they're willing to take that approach.

They don't want to take on all this student debt.

Correct.

They're like, yeah, I want to make money now.

Yeah, yeah. So, and, and there are so many— what's the word, you know, maybe it's disheartened or disenfranchised— or college students who are just kind of struggling, who, you know, they're going through the motions, they feel like they're supposed to go to school. And so I would, I would even encourage—

because they got degrees in underwater basket weaving.

Yeah, you know what I mean? But definitely walk into those departments departments, man, you know, the, the physics, and, and any of them really. It doesn't have to be something that's necessarily directly correlative or something like that. So I agree with you there. Um, and the other thing I would say is very important is you need a— really think about a career path. Like, have something in mind so that when you get them in the door, especially if you're getting the younger guys and the younger gals, like, they're not going to want to be the same thing forever. No one does. No human alive. We all want to progress. We all want to feel like we're growing. It's just a natural thing. So you need to have that, have that in your mind before. So do all the recruiting things that we're talking about here. But please, step 1, at least outline what might this look like? What might a career path be here for a mechanic I hire? Right. You know, maybe they're going to stay there, here their whole career. So maybe they go from, you know, a PM, maybe they go from a runner to a, you know, a PM mechanic to a light duty mechanic, media, etc., etc. And maybe in the latter parts of the years, We're going to teach them, teach them how to do inventory and they're going to be a parts tech, or maybe they're going to be a shop supervisor, whatever it may be. Outline a few different paths that people can take. Or maybe they're going to leave and they're going to graduate your shop into bigger and better things, and then they're going to come back and be your— replace you maybe, or an assistant fleet manager, whatever it may be. But, but have that and be able to articulate that to these potential prospects. I think that's so important and it gets It's always an afterthought. It's always an afterthought, and it, it shouldn't be. It should be, it should be right up front. Hey, look, do you like this stuff? Is this fun to— like, hey, give it a try, you might like it, and there's a career here for you. There's a path, you know. And put that on full display. As an industry, we need to do that much, much, much better, you know. We really do, pretty dramatically actually. And, and that's where you and I talk a lot about how there's no education, right? There's very little education, I'll say that way. For how do I go from being a mechanic to a shop supervisor? How do I go from being a shop supervisor to a fleet manager? Right. Well, guess what? That's where if you're, if you're, if you're, you know, halfway bright, let's say, well, maybe some of that stuff you learned in your degree can be applicable, right? Hey, I got this technical skill. I know how to turn a wrench. And maybe I did both. You know, maybe I was an operations manager or maybe, you know, those sorts of things. And, hey, you apply it and you can, you can, you can use those schools if there isn't the training out there for you. For you to make that, that path. So it doesn't need to be an either-or, it doesn't need to be black and white, right? It— gray is fine. You, you pointed out the, the entrepreneurial aspect of, of some of the other trades. I mean, it's so true, right? But you got to succeed at that, you do got to have some business sense. And so it's not like those other skills are going to hurt you having learned them, right? Um, you know, they, they're, they're always applicable, they're always useful, right? And I just think we need to think much bigger picture, you know, out there. And there's so many positions, you know, there's so— we have so much need and we're focused on techs right now. And certainly that's appropriate. But man, you know, there are so many positions where, where we could really benefit from those college degrees and some of those advanced degrees being in the industry.

Yeah. Like, we know we need more fleet analysts. We know we need more parts clerks.

Correct.

Right. We know we need more— I mean, heck, fleet managers.

Yeah.

We're seeing that brain drain and having some of that business acumen, having some of that advanced education is definitely helpful in those cases.

Right.

But even if you came up from the shop, like there's still plenty of educational resources to get you there.

Exactly. Yeah.

We love the CAFM, we love the CPFP, we love the CDME. Yeah. So I mean, there's definitely a lot of options to help, you know, fill in the blanks there. Yeah.

So yeah. And again, take, take a cue, you know, the logistics company, Josh. I mean, I was— I think some, some of our listeners might know I was a philosophy major as an undergrad, right? I had the most practical degree on the planet.

You know, it's right above underwater basket weaving.

And it was like, well, what the heck am I going to do now, right? And, and there was not a lot of paths. It was go to law school because they, you know, philosophy majors have a decent acceptance rate there. Um, uh, it was continue to study philosophy and become a professor, or what, you know? And it turns out that logistics companies, at least at that time, were interested in philosophy majors and math majors because they thought that they had the prerequisite skills and had kind of, you know, been taught to think a certain way, uh, to, to try to kind of find that efficiency. You know, we talk here sometimes about managing left to right instead of top to bottom, right? And so it turns out that they had a, they had a preference, uh, and so I got recruited by, uh, FedEx. I got recruited by UPS, by DHL, some of those other big companies, some of the big moving companies in New York City. And I thought, oh, that, that, that's cool. And that's interesting. And I ultimately, you know, took a job and stayed with Fordham. But, you know, why don't we think that way in fleet, right?

Like, you know, what are the non-traditional degrees or non-traditional candidates that we could be bringing into this industry?

Correct.

That's a fascinating take.

Yeah. You know, I know it's out there, right? Let's put our heads together and start doing some work there. Right. You know, because this is— let's be honest, most people, I mean, yeah, you get a few folks, they go to school, they study finance, they do finance and they're in finance the rest of their life. That is the minority of folks by a long shot, you know. So let's, let's figure that out. Let's— what are the skills we want? Who are we going to go recruit? You know, who are the ones who are maybe having a tough time getting a job in that real world? And go get them.

I was about to end the episode early. I'm glad I held off for just a second longer. Mark coming in with that gem right at the end, like Yankees in the wild card, sneaking one in there, right? All right. Well, that's going to wrap it up for us for this episode. Thanks. As always, it's been a pleasure and we will see you next time.

Take care, everybody.

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