It’s risky to open a discussion with a broad, sweeping assertion, but I feel pretty comfortable with this one: nobody likes personnel turnover. It’s costly, the results are often unsatisfactory, and it detracts from tasks most fleet managers would rather deal with –– fixing trucks. On the other hand, turnover is inevitable –– that’s a fairly safe assumption, also.

The technician population is aging. I recall reading recently that the average age of truck technicians in the United States is close to 40. That fact implies that currently there are a lot of technicians in the workforce (from the population segment know as the baby boomers) who will be leaving (retirement, disability, etc.) in the near term. Their replacements, from the career and technical education system, will come from that part of the population segment often referred to as Genera-tion Y. The good news is, because of advances in truck technology, the replacement may not need to be one-for-one. But, characteristically and collectively, we are told that the “new” generation of technicians is likely more impatient than those they will be replacing. For instance, they are used to instant gratification and will likely look for employment where they see opportunity to advance and make a contribution. In other words, they are not likely to be content being technicians for the duration of their careers, and if you can’t provide the growth opportunities they want, they will seek them elsewhere.

Maybe it is time for a little attitude adjustment!

I suspect the typical fleet manager looks at staffing from the perspective of current workload –– what type and frequency of maintenance and repair operations need to accomplished and what are the technician job skills necessary to accomplish them. From this point it is fairly easy to predict how many inspectors, preventive maintenance, and diagnosis and repair technicians are needed to get the job done and another small step to put together a technician development plan –– what training is needed for ‘C’ techs to move to ‘B’ techs, ‘A’ techs, etc. But this thinking implies that there is little development opportunity for technicians beyond the highest pay grade. There is nothing wrong with this approach; it has withstood the test of time and deserves its place in today’s fleet operation, but is it the only approach that is right for the times? Will it work to attract, motivate and retain the new generation of technicians we are seeking?

Your business goes beyond just maintaining vehicles. Typically, fleets exist to support another, core business –– moving goods, services, or people. Why limit your technician development activities to the shop floor? Finding good employees is difficult and expensive; why risk losing productive people because of perceived limited advancement when they may be able to continue to contribute to the company’s performance, even it isn’t from the shop floor? From a recruiting and retention perspective, that is a value proposition.

One implication of adopting such an approach is that you may need to increase your recruiting activities. Instead of looking at recruiting as an activity undertaken in the event of a vacancy, maybe it would be better to look at it as an ongoing activity. Not only will you be better positioned to identify qualified job candidates, but in doing so, you’ll diminish the lost productivity effects when a vacancy does occur.