Service Opportunities Learning Days (SOLD) will tackle the trucking industry’s enormous technician shortage during a panel at the fourth annual event preceding Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week 2016 next January in Las Vegas.
Organizers say the questions below are just some of the topics that will be addressed during the Jan. 25, 2016, discussion:
- Where will the next generation of technicians, service writers, parts locators, sales representatives, and service managers come from?
- What are you doing to fill these positions?
- Are you satisfied with your efforts?
- What stumbling blocks are you running up against?
- Do you feel that the mega dealers, municipalities, large truck fleets, OEM manufacturers, and lease fleets have an advantage over you to attract the younger candidates?
- What are the advantages that the fleets, dealers and OEM have to offer that you don’t?
- What if any efforts are being made on the aftermarket vendor side to help alleviate this problem?
- What efforts are being made by the vocational schools, trade schools and community colleges to provide candidates to fill the openings?
- What efforts are being made by the associations that represent the heavy duty after market service providers?
- Could, and should, a committee be formed of representatives of all heavy duty after market service provider associations to study this problem, and formulate a plan to help our industry?
- Can we forego the fact that we are all independent businesses and unite to attack this problem?
Event organizers says their panel will consist of educators, aftermarket component manufacturers, and representatives of all relevant heavy-duty service provider associations. For more information on SOLD ’16 and to register, please check out http://acofas.com/sold/.
