Perhaps the worst time to look to hire a technician, is when we lose one.  At that point we go into “Crisis Hire” mode.  We most often settle for anyone, rather than taking our time to find the right person.

We need to take a lesson from large organizations and sports teams. Their strategy? They continually recruit.  I did not say continually hire, I said continually recruit.

You need to be on the lookout for the talent in your community. Find where the best of the best are working now. Reach out to these people, get to know them.

Make it part of your overall business plan to stay in touch with trade schools, the military for returning vets, and any other employment agencies.  Identify key people in your local auto community and ask questions: Where are the best technicians? How can I contact this person?  Who knows this superstar tech?

In other words, allocate a significant portion of your time to recruiting. Your goal is to have people in the pipeline, so when you lose an employee, you have a list of contacts to reach out to.

In “Work Rules,” a book about Google and its employee strategies, the author states that Google follows this rule: “Hiring is the single most important activity in any organization”

This article was contributed by Joe Marconi. Joe is one of the 1-on-1 business coaches who helps shop owners through the Elite Coaching Program, and is the co-founder of autoshopowner.com.