How to Build a Technician Team: This developmental plan lays out a path for advancement as well as retention

摘要

The availability of equipment technicians continues to decline, rapidly intensifying the need to address recruitment, advancement, and retention of mechanically talented men and women to fill the void. Many journeyman technicians with decades of knowledge and experience are contemplating retirement or a transition to a position of lesser physical intensity. Simultaneously, younger generations are not entering the equipment maintenance industry as a primary career choice. Reacting to generational education choice, many institutions have adjusted curricula to focus on areas of study that have increased enrollment and demand rather than on equipment maintenance or mechanical careers. Labor forecasts and statistics concur that technician availability will continue to decline, increasing the competition for qualified technicians. Truck, bus, automotive, and equipment dealers, along with government and contractor fleets, all recruit from the same diminishing talent pool. Compounding the issue is the rapid advancement of equipment sophistication that requires highly trained technicians to properly service, repair, and maintain the high-technology machines utilized today.