By John Yoswick
Collision repair businesses of all sizes have a potential talent pool of new employees among those concluding their service in the U.S. military, according to a speaker at this past summer’s Collision Industry Conference in Indianapolis, Ind.
Roxann Griffith, with the U.S. Department of Labor’s employment and training services, pointed to Texas-based Service King as among the larger employers in the industry hiring veterans. She said Service King, which operates more than 340 shops in 24 states, has hired hundreds of veterans over four years. But she also shared a variety of tips and resources collision repair businesses of all sizes can use to hire and retain those who have exited the military.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Hiring Our Heroes” program (www.hiringourheroes.org), for example, offers free hiring fairs on military bases and at other locations around the country.
She suggested that those looking to hire veterans check out the advice and resources included in the free 22-page “Employer Guide to Hire Veterans” prepared by the Department of Labor (www.veterans.gov). The department also offers a webpage addressing frequently-asked questions about hiring and retaining veterans (www.employer.gov).
Griffith said many veterans transition jobs several times after leaving the military before finding their niche, but tend to stay in organizations that provide training opportunities, and that showcase “a military friendly” attitude or a “veteran culture.”
When a tornado hit near Service King’s headquarters in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2016, Griffith cited as one example, Service King touted the role that more than 100 members of it staff — including veterans — played in serving hot meals to those in the affected area. It also that year aired a 30-second ad that highlighted Jeremiah Kuehl, one of 100 veterans the company had already hired.
“He talked about feeling like he had transitioned from one family — the military — to another family,” Griffith said of the ad.
He said that Service King welcomed him, understood he had post-traumatic stress and worked around it.
“‘They found a job that was perfect for me,’” Griffith said Kuehl communicated in the ad. “Because of that one ad, I think Service King had about 400 or 500 applications immediately, all veterans.”
Griffith said one other key to successfully hiring and retaining veterans for your business is providing something that most young employees want: a clear career path.
“At the end of the day, most veterans want to help take your organization to another level,” Griffith said. “So if you tell them where they fit in, if you tell them why their job is important to your mission, they tend to want to stick with it. That’s one of the things that employers don’t do all the time; they don’t show them a growth potential in the organization, they don’t show them that pathway. In the military we do that. We give them a career path, and employers tend to fail to do that.”
One way businesses of any size can offer such a path, Griffith said, is through a Department of Labor (DOL) Registered Apprenticeship Program.
“If you take a chance on people through an apprentice program, they tend to want to stick with you,” she said.
Creating such a program doesn’t have to be complicated for the employer, Griffith said. Another entity, like a community college or for-profit program like Universal Technical Institute, can do the actual training. The program just has to have a structured system that involves both the training and paid, on-the-job experience. If the program is DOL-registered, any veteran completing it receives a nationally-accredited certification. That, and the fact that veterans can collect their GI benefits while going through the program, make it attractive to veterans, Griffith said.
A DOL website (www.apprenticeship.gov/employers) includes information to help employers with the process, and Griffith said there are also state-level consultants that can assist. She said last year alone she helped build 168 registered apprenticeship programs, at businesses of all sizes, and said she can be a contact for shops seeking to get started (Griffith.Roxann.S@dol.gov).
Data privacy concerns discussed
During discussion at CIC about new consumer data privacy laws being enacted by states around the country, Aaron Schulenburg of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) said he thinks many shop owners may be unaware of how much data they are actually sharing with other entities.
“Most of them don’t think about it as a sharing of data,” Schulenburg said. “What they think is: I’m ordering a part, or I’m extending a rental vehicle agreement for a customer, or using a CSI service. But in all of those interactions, if they are allowing pumps or programs on their computers from those companies to access [estimate data] files, all of those are in fact an exchange of data.”
While the state data privacy laws tend to apply only to larger companies than most collision repair businesses, Schulenburg pointed out that shops likely are sharing customer data with those types of larger business that come under the new requirements of the law.
As an example of how shops may be unaware of what data is being pumped from their servers or desktop computers, Schulenburg said the association has seen an increase in members reporting that estimates they have written — in some cases just “test estimates” on undamaged cars — have resulted in incidents showing up on vehicle history reports, such as CARFAX.
“We’ve talked about this before at CIC, but it’s always been kind of cast aside as a one-off situation, or something that could be explained away,” Schulenburg said, citing publicly-available police accident reports as one potential source. “I can tell you that the volume of inquiries that we as an association have fielded in the last 18 months to two years cannot be explained away by circumstance.”
He said as SCRS has researched the issue, he had member shops prepare test estimates on his personal vehicle.
“My vehicle now has a damage history on it as a result of an incident that never occurred,” Schulenburg said. “Somehow, someone is accessing this information from the desktops of our members’ businesses. It’s one thing if it’s real [accident] data. It’s another if it’s false data, test estimates, maybe a shop owner having a new estimator go out and write a sheet, to ‘show me what you can do,’ and that sheet ends up on a damage history report.”
He said SCRS is continuing to look into the issue.
“I’m disappointed that I can’t come up here and say, ‘This is how the information is getting there. This is what’s happening,’” Schulenburg said. “That is the intent of the research.” •
