A survey of more than 100 vehicle repairers who attended this year’s Enterprise Rent-A-Car Repair Partner Event has revealed that almost half (47%) think work volumes are the biggest challenge for the repair industry.
This was closely followed by skilled labour shortages, with a third (32%) of respondents saying this is their second biggest concern.
The rising cost of repairs coupled with policyholders choosing higher excesses to keep premium costs down, has led to reduced work volumes as people delay insurance claims and repairs, creating excess capacity in the industry.
While being part of the Enterprise Repair Network helps in terms of guaranteed work volumes (76% of survey respondents said that guaranteed work volumes are the most important part of their partnership with Enterprise), finding and retaining skilled people is a more difficult problem to solve.
Respondents said attracting candidates is by far the biggest employee challenge (58%), followed by training and developing appropriate skills (18%) and retention (13%).
Making the industry more appealing to women could be one way to ease the recruitment crisis. Most respondents (93%) said less than 10% of their current productive workforce are female but 89% would like to employ more women.
Other solutions to the recruitment challenge include looking at how apprenticeships can help fill some of the recruitment gaps and provide the future generation of trained technicians. Less than half of those surveyed (46%) had apprentices, and almost a fifth (19%) currently have no apprentices at all.
Making the industry more appealing to the younger generation (those aged 20-30) is also a priority as this age group currently only makes up 10% of the workforce from those surveyed, suggesting the pipeline of skilled labour is insufficient to sustain current staffing levels and replace those who are ageing out of the profession.
Nick Sweetman, AVP Vehicle Repair and Service Operations UK and Ireland for Enterprise Mobility, said, “We want to lead by listening and our Repair Partner event gave us a great opportunity to understand the challenges faced by our repairer network. It’s clear from our survey that labour continues to be a key challenge not just for day-to-day operations but also as a barrier to growth.”
Repairers said that labour shortages are preventing some businesses from growing according to plan. Nearly two thirds (60%) said they were planning to expand their business with additional locations, however 67% of those said labour shortages were the main barrier to their expansion plans.
Nick added, “Our industry is exciting, technology-led and continuously innovating and evolving to keep pace with constant change. It’s vital that we highlight the many opportunities available in this sector to show young recruits that they can enjoy a long and varied career that will grow with them.
“We are already working in partnership with our repair network to improve access to training and, as an organisation, we’re looking at ways to encourage more people into a long-term career in this industry.”
