When we conducted our October technician training and retention webinar (still available to watch for free here) we wanted to also use it as a way of gaining some information about our audience and their own training needs. So, we included a short survey that all participants were invited to invited to take afterwards.
You can see the results for yourself, but we thought we'd take a moment to look at the responses and talk about a few things that stood out.
Question 1: What audience(s) are you looking to support with your training program?
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of respondents - 85% - are looking to train their own employees, with a fair number also training students (39%) and their dealers/distributors (22%).
One interesting insight is that less than one in five respondents are looking to make their customers part of their training program. We'd suggest looking into that possibility. Making training materials available to customers is a good PR move as "right to repair" initiatives are gaining ground. Also, if the materials are shared on public platforms such as YouTube, they can potentially boost your social media and SEO marketing.
Question 2: How would you rate the effectiveness of your technician recruitment process?
We got quite the range of responses here, with every answer from 1-10 receiving at least one vote, aside from 10. Most put their effectiveness somewhere in the middle, with 7, 5, and 8 receiving the most votes. The average was 6.1.
So it seems most companies are aware they could do better with recruitment. Look to the younger generations! Outreach and recruitment among high school and college students will probably be your best source of new workers.
Question 3: How would you rate the effectiveness of your ability to train & certify service technicians?
There was another spread of responses here, although it seems most of our viewers are more confident in their ability to conduct training. 8 and 7 were the top responses, with an overall average of 6.9.
If you're happy with the results of your training program, then keep it up! However, be careful not to become complacent. Training should undergo a constant review-analyze-revise process to ensure it's always up-to-date.
Question 4: How would you rate the effectiveness of your ability to retain service technicians?
Another 6.9 average here, with 7 and 8 tied for first. However, 22% of respondents indicated their effectiveness was a 5 or less - meaning they're having problems with retention.
Our advice here is to focus on morale and incentives. Give your technicians a clear career path, and a sense that they can advance without having to job-hop to do it. Add incentives to your educational programs to encourage personal development. Keep them happy; retaining workers is far less expensive than hiring new ones.
Question 5: How do you intend to deliver training?
There's plenty of diversity here, with in-person/instructor-led training, web-based training, and virtual training like webinars all being embraced by the majority of participants. That said, we'd suggest trying to move away from in-person training as much as is feasible. It's difficult, expensive, and puts an additional burden on staff who may not have time to take lengthy seminars.
Also, only about 30% of respondents are using video. Use more video! It's cheap and easy to make today, and can be repurposed in numerous ways as online content, as well as training materials.
Question 6: How do you create learning content?
Roughly half of respondents use a mix of in-house and outsourced content, with 24% doing everything themselves, and 16% outsourcing everything. There's no 'right' answer for this one. However you're creating your content, all that really matters is that the content is high-quality and produces good results. Keep evaluating its effectiveness to ensure you stay on-track!
That about wraps it up for the webinar survey responses. As always, if you're looking to improve training, communications, and collaboration within your business ecosystem, LogicBay is here to help! Contact us to learn more about our services.
