Karl Hedlund, MSEM
Management Services Committee Member
AtlasElektro
As a small business owner employing skilled trade workers who are aging out of the workforce, sustainability is not just about the natural or political environment outside of our walls; it is increasingly becoming challenging in terms of sustaining the capabilities that our customers have come to expect from us.
When I purchased our Richmond, Virginia, based service center in 2018, the average age of our workforce was over 60, and the operational model was one of siloed skills. We ran into scenarios where our balance techician was out of the service center performing field service, and our remaining technicians were unable to wrap up a basic motor recondition because there was no one able to balance the rotor before reassembling the motor. It became necessary to change the culture of the existing team, and more importantly, set a clear expectation up front for new team members that diversified skills were necessary to sustain the business. It was no longer optional to learn core business functions. As new hires are currently brought on board, we identify the bottlenecks in our processes and ensure that we have redundancy in skills and equipment to eliminate, or dramatically reduce, bottlenecks.
While there are skills and services that can be outsourced, including winding, we must ask ourselves,
“What is our core competency and how will we sustain that into the foreseeable future regardless of the ever-changing economic and political landscape?” While many of us know and recognize the value of experienced team members, no one lives forever, and it is necessary for us to look into the foreseeable future (the next 3-5 years) and recognize the staffing changes that may naturally arise. I have seen motor service centers close their doors as key team members retire, and I recognize many of our smaller service centers are only a few key team members away from inviability.
In the last five years, we have lost more than a century worth of experience to aging-out. We are fortunate to have trained up just enough of the core competencies in our less experienced team to not only survive, but thrive as we hear more customers share that the motor service center they once used is either too busy to help them, or simply no longer around.
When was the last time you considered the core competencies and capabilities of your team, ensuring redundancy in key skill sets and a sustainable path forward? When was the last time you faced a bottleneck in your repair processes? Maybe we can all start there.
If you want to take it to the next level, consider generating a skills inventory to measure both the quantity and quality of your redundancy. Identify team members or roles that are more apt to fill the gaps with less time and effort and include training in your schedule.
At AtlasElektro, we have made the Electromechanical Repair Technician (ERT) Program a requirement for new hires to complete within 24 months, as we know the reality of our aging workforce and the value of the ERT Program. We also want team members with tenacity and grit, so setting the bar helps to weed out those who are not serious about the opportunity.
Knowing we are not in this alone and that we do not have to reinvent the wheel to successfully navigate this industry is due in large part to the vast resources available at EASA. From the highly competent technical support team to the Resource Library on easa.com and EASA’s Learning Center, we have all that we need to train and develop the next generation of talent and sustain our repair service centers for generations to come.
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