Bodyworx: Start Early

Lucas Chang, Founder and Director, Programming Y2 Entrepreneurship Labs.The collision repair industry has a workforce challenge. But if we want to understand why it exists, I think we need to look much earlier in the pipeline.

One of the factors behind the technician shortage is when students start deciding whether a trade is right for them. For many, those decisions are being made while they are still in high school -- and sometimes even earlier. Students need to start putting their post-secondary plans into action as early as Grade 10. Working backwards, that means taking the Grade 11 prerequisites they need for the Grade 12 courses required by their program and school of choice. By the beginning of the second semester of Grade 10, many students have already started making decisions about what comes next.

That makes Grade 11 a difficult time to first introduce someone to a career in automotive. By then, they may have already made up their mind. I think we have an opportunity to get in front of that by introducing students to automotive and the trades much earlier, particularly in Grades 6-8. Simple repair, building and assembly activities can give students a chance to figure out what they enjoy and what they are good at before they are thinking about post-secondary applications.

Teachers are an important part of that process, too. Teachers who have experience in the trades can help students understand what those career paths actually look like. But many teachers have never worked in a trade themselves. They may not know what the path to becoming an apprentice looks like or what students can expect from trade school. Giving teachers better access to industry information could help. That could be as simple as providing information about developments in EVs, new technology or what a typical day looks like for someone working in a particular trade. The more teachers know, the better equipped they are to have those conversations with students.

It also ties into something I think will become even more important in the workforce: problem solving. Technology, including AI, is changing the nature of work. Some jobs will change dramatically and some may disappear. At the same time, new problems will continue to emerge. The technical skills needed to address those problems will change, but the ability to solve problems will remain valuable.

This is where design thinking can be useful. At its simplest, design thinking is a way of approaching a problem by putting the person affected by it at the centre. Instead of assuming you already know the answer, you start by understanding the person, identifying what they actually need and then developing possible solutions. You then test those solutions. That might mean creating a prototype, drawing, model or something else, showing it to the people you are trying to help, getting their feedback and making changes based on what you learn.

That approach applies to almost any business. Shops have customers. Doctors have patients. Lawyers have clients. Software developers have users. If your business exists to solve a problem for someone, understanding that person and what they actually need should be part of the process. I think the same way of thinking can be useful when it comes to recruitment.

Two parts of a design-thinking mindset are curiosity and pragmatism. Curiosity means asking questions and trying to understand how a problem actually affects someone. It also means figuring out whether what you are seeing is a real need or simply an assumption. Pragmatism is about finding out whether your idea actually works. It is easy to come up with a solution. It is harder to build something, put it in front of the people you are trying to help, listen to what they say, make changes and try again.

Those are qualities employers can look for when hiring. Technical knowledge will always matter for many positions, but it is also worth looking at how someone approaches a problem, whether they can turn an idea into something tangible and what they do when their first attempt does not work. Those skills can be developed, too. They can come through classroom work, hands-on training and simply giving people opportunities to try things.

When we talk about attracting younger workers, I also think we should be careful about assuming their expectations are completely different from those of previous generations. Young people want meaningful work. They want recognition for what they do. They want opportunities to learn and grow, a fair and safe workplace, people they enjoy working with and a manager they can respect and learn from. What has changed, in many cases, is how those needs are met.

Young people now have access to an incredible amount of information through YouTube, Khan Academy and AI. Technical information is often only a few clicks away. That can make a good mentor even more valuable. Someone who understands the organization or industry and is willing to share their experience can offer something that a video or online course cannot.

Many companies have developed around the expectations of their leaders and more experienced employees. Sometimes they simply have not had the time, opportunity or reason to rethink how they work for a newer generation of employees. I am not suggesting companies should cater to Gen Z at the expense of everyone else. I think it is more useful to recognize that young workers are not fundamentally different from everyone who came before them. They have many of the same basic needs. We just need to understand how those needs are showing up now.

If we do that, we can also make better use of the skills new workers bring with them, including their comfort with technology and their approach to problem solving. For collision repair, I think meaningful engagement with potential workers has to start well before post-secondary education.

When I think about students in Grades 6-10, I tend to put them into three groups: the “In” group, the “Out” group and the “Maybe” group. The “In” group is already interested in automotive or collision repair. The “Out” group has already decided on another career. The “Maybe” group is interested but needs more information before deciding whether the industry is right for them.

For the “In” group, give them more opportunities. Let them learn good techniques, introduce them to the theory behind the work and give them more hands-on experience. They are already interested, so there is an opportunity to build on that. For the “Out” group, there may not be much reason to try to change their minds. They have chosen another direction.

The “Maybe” group is where I see the biggest opportunity. We need to show these students what collision repair actually looks like today. A student’s impression of the industry may come from a parent, relative or other adult whose experience with collision repair dates back to the 1980s or 1990s. That is a very different industry from the one students would walk into today.

Show them the modern repair process. Let them see what happens from the initial intake through the repair and eventually to customer pickup. Show them the physical and digital tools technicians use. Let them talk to the people doing the work. That can change the way they see the industry.

The engagement should also be hands-on. A company could bring in a Grade 8 class, for example, give students a tour of safe areas such as the front office and service area and then have them take part in an activity related to the business. After lunch, students could present what they learned to staff before taking part in a short career panel with people working in three or four different areas of the company. That gives students a much better sense of what the business is actually like than a guest speaker coming into the classroom for an hour.

Schools and school boards have an important role to play in making these opportunities happen. They are the gatekeepers to students, and their willingness to work with industry can make these kinds of experiences much easier -- or much harder -- to organize.

There are also real limitations on the education side. Teachers have to work within the curriculum, the space available to them and their own experience. Schools and school boards also have to work with the number of teachers available and their skill sets. When a school has qualified automotive technology teachers, appropriate space and the equipment needed to teach the subject, students benefit. But not every school has those resources.

Some schools have difficulty finding qualified auto-tech teachers. Others do not have the space or equipment. And even when those resources are available, teachers may not have an opportunity to stay current with what is happening in the industry. Not every student is going to have the same access to automotive education or exposure to the modern collision repair industry.

Ultimately, I think addressing the workforce challenge means looking beyond the question of how we recruit more technicians. We need to give young people opportunities to figure out what they enjoy and what they are good at early enough for those experiences to influence their decisions. We also need to show them what collision repair looks like today -- and that the industry is about much more than repairing vehicles.

Someone who likes cars but does not want to fix them can still find a place in collision repair. There are opportunities in customer service, human resources, IT, facilities management, marketing, sales and many other areas. The goal is not to convince every student to become a collision repair technician. It is to help young people see where they might fit, give them a chance to experience the industry for themselves and let them make an informed decision about whether it is right for them.

The earlier we start that conversation, the more opportunity we have to reach the students who might otherwise never consider collision repair at all.