Vickar Autobody in Winnipeg has what it takes to attract young talent.
By Mike Davey, Collision Repair Magazine
Walk into the production area at Vickar Autobody & Glass in Winnipeg, and you're sure to notice something unusual; a lot of young faces. In an industry where it seems like the median age of technicians is creeping steadily upwards, the majority of staff at Vickar Autobody & Glass are young.
It might have something to do with the facility's general manager, Nathan Balzer. At 34-years-old, he's not exactly a kid. He is considerably younger than many others occupying similar positions, though.
"We've got a lot of young people in the shop, so I don't feel as young as I should,"" says Balzer. I'm certainly one of the youngest people in the room at PCE meetings."
Building and maintaining a process centred environment is one of the major undertakings Balzer has been concentrating on since joining the facility two years ago.
"The first of June was our two year anniversary, says Balzer. "It's crazy the amount of change we've managed to put in place in the last two years. We've experienced huge growth in that time, but we're also doing more work with fewer people. I think the environment is a million times better.""
The production staff at Vickar Autbody & Glass currently consists of 19 people. That's a significant decrease from two years ago, but it isn't because the work isn't there.
"When I started we were at 22 people on the production floor, but we were doing about 40 percent less work than what we're targeting now," says Balzer. "The growth is great, but more importantly our process has really improved. We're doing a better job for our customers than ever before."
Balzer notes that simply because the facility has experienced significant growth does not mean that the facility has reached the end of the line.
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“It’s a journey, and we’ve still got a long way to go. Nobody around here thinks we’ve made it or that we’ve arrived,” says Balzer. “Our goal every single day is fix the cars quicker, and fix them better. That’s the way to deliver a world class experience.”
The first steps on that journey didn’t come without pain. There are always people who will refuse to adapt to change. Very often it’s the ones who are already doing well who see no reason to improve or alter the way things are done.
“The beginning was really, really hard,” says Balzer. “We had a lot of people who were comfortable doing w h at t h e y w e re doing, and we lost some of them. We lost some high producing techs that had been here for quite a while, but I still knew we were doing the right thing.”
Balzer tends to be self effacing about his own accomplishments. He doesn’t try to extend this same modesty when it comes to talking about his technicians.
“I’m pretty arrogant when it comes to my young guys. Our apprentices are rock stars. It would be really tough for me to think of one that isn’t going to be a huge success. Right now we’ve got three apprentices who started in the wash bay, and they’re doing awesome on the floor.” The quest to find young employees is on the minds of many in the collision repair industry. After all, younger body techs are rare, and have their whole careers ahead of them. This makes them attractive to shops from a longevity standpoint. But Nathan Balzer has other reasons for hiring young.
“They don’t have preconceived notions,” says Balzer. “They’re a lot more open to new things and are willing to say ‘We’ll do whatever we need to do to get better.’”
You might think that Nathan Balzer -- given that he’s only 34 -- might not necessarily know too much about the old-fashioned body shop business. However, it’s a business he literally grew up in. His parents owned a shop for 21 years and he worked for them throughout school. If there’s one thing he has, it’s the insider’s perspective.
Nathan’s brother, Dylan Balzer, is the shop’s assistant manager. He shares some of that insider’s perspective as well, having also grown up in the collision repair industry. “The facility had already started on the process journey when I came on board, so I didn’t see the very beginning,” says Dylan. “But it’s been a drastic change since then. It’s really like the differece between night and day.”
When it comes to lean processes and building a PCE, Balzer is only too happy to share the credit not just with staff, but suppliers as well.
“Bob Dubreuil at AkzoNobel has absolutely been a huge help in designing our pay plan, designing the layout and really putting in some serious work,” says Balzer. “AkzoNobel sent their own people to PCE boot camp so we’re not out their on our own. The other shops in the vision group are great too. We visit them, they visit us, and we all come away seeing what we can do better.”
For his part, DuBreuil notes that there are sometimes location based challenges when it comes to new processes.
“He’s got a lot of guts,” says DuBreiul. “The journey to a PCE can be a little tougher in a public insurance market. It takes a lot of courage to get on that road and stay on it. As a whole, Vickar has done what it needs to do: invest in training, and invest in people.”
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