Marinucci: Personal traits compliment technical skills

Savvy bosses hire people who, among other qualities, are likely to be reliable, long-term employees.

Keeping capable people reduces employee turnover at any business, including an automotive service facility. Losing workers hurts because bosses must spend time and money to recruit replacements.

At a glance, recruiting and hiring may appear to be a breeze. In reality, these tasks always cost the company a certain amount of time and money — particularly time.

The less time company personnel spend replacing lost workers — especially technicians — the more time they can invest in urgent obligations such as selling tires and service.

Experience has shown that a friendlier rather than harsher work atmosphere helps retain desirable employees. Typically, a warmer work environment fosters worker loyalty as well as teamwork.

Capable workers who do the job and do it well need not be callous competitors. Ultimately, considerate cooperation outlasts cutthroat competition inside a tire dealership or service shop.

Meanwhile, shrewd bosses often have an innate talent or learned skill enabling them to identify strong job candidates. This intuition helps them hire more successful new hires more often. In this context, successful denotes diligent, loyal techs.

Owners and managers have told me that their "sixth sense" has spurred them to weigh a job seeker's personal traits as much as technical skills and work experience.

I will return to these traits momentarily. For the moment, remember that clues indicating a preferable candidate may be more subtle than observers realize.

Please note that hiring good techs is a broad topic that reaches far beyond the normal scope of this column. Here, I only want to highlight a few observations culled from my travels throughout the auto repair industry.

In previous columns, I have discussed the alleged scarcity of work ethic. Over the last 20 years or so, tire dealers and service shop operators repeatedly have cited this concern.

This issue may poison the outlook of some owners and managers. They approach the recruiting and hiring tasks expecting the absolute worst results.

Owner and managers sometimes lament that the hiring process is a migraine headache in the making.

Some of the sharpest bosses watch for applicants who exude enthusiasm as well as a passion for the work. They want prospects who look forward to work rather than those who look for ways to avoid it.

Another reason, they emphasized, is that old-fashioned enthusiasm usually goes hand-in-hand with desirable traits such as work ethic and cooperation.

Admittedly, there may be fewer of these go-getters applying to your business. But eager beavers are available; their eagerness and enthusiasm are conspicuous and infectious.

Diligence and cheerfulness are long-term contagions you want circulating throughout your business. These feelings often bolster co-worker's spirits during tough troubleshooting tasks as well as disheartening workdays marred by mistakes.

Sadly, some managers overlook or ignore how challenging — sometimes frustrating — auto repair may be. They don't grasp that techs may look emotionally spent because the job has taken an emotional toll.

I am not alone in recognizing the value of traits such as enthusiasm, eagerness and cooperation to successful service departments. For example, I have found a common thread among career techs that I highly respect. These techs recalled the impact of a diligent, enthusiastic co-worker who encouraged and motivated them when they needed it the most.

These long-tenured techs described how a co-worker's selfless boost meant the difference between fixing a vehicle correctly the first time and having elusive vehicle symptoms haunt them for days.

Furthermore, they said that a cool co-worker's cooperation convinced them to remain in the auto repair industry instead of changing careers.

How can you place a dollar value on these inspiring outcomes?

Surely technical knowledge and mechanical skills are vitally important. But in these instances, enthusiasm and cooperation were far more consequential than tech skills alone.

Savvy sources stated that personal qualities such as maturity and humility also impact hiring decisions. Years of experience with successful new hires have shown that level-headed, long-tenured techs usually have these traits.

Perhaps it's no surprise that maturity and humility go hand in hand like enthusiasm and work ethic. These desirable traits may be so subtle that an interviewer completely overlooks them during an interview.

However, these qualities will be very conspicuous by their absence when tire dealer or service shop personnel must deal with these techs daily. Shortcomings such as immaturity and arrogance tend to make people very prickly — perhaps impatient and argument-prone.

Level-headed techs have said that tiptoeing around an arrogant coworker's insecurities and bloated ego are more challenging than fixing cars — consider that.

Sharp owners and managers said they associate this ego with older techs who have kicked around the auto repair world for a while. Initially, this job applicant may impress an interviewer with solid credentials and an extensive work history.

Instead of arrogance, their "knowing" demeanor may project confidence during an interview.

In previous columns, I have discussed service shop owners who require job applicants to pass interviews with their existing techs. They found that their rank-and-file techs sense these shortcomings the way sharks sense blood in the water.

Mind you, arrogant job seekers may be able to spin wrenches very well and churn out labor hours like there's no tomorrow, but they can be irritable, unpleasant colleagues at the same time.

Mature, capable techs have learned that a service department rises or falls as a group. The best auto-repair job on earth still requires give and take among co-worker's.

Teamwork reduces stress and improves job security.

Owners and managers also associate maturity with humility. Level-headed techs know that one person cannot and does not know it all. They recognize that there's always something new to learn in this fast-paced industry.

Some bosses obsess over technical knowledge and skill, overlooking personal traits. At best, that's a risky approach.