Successful employees are developed through smart training.
There are several components to an effective onboarding program for quick lube shops, from setting expectations to helping new hires become familiar with their surroundings and tools.
Chad Weisbeck, the owner of Bronco Lube, a South Carolina-based Jiffy Lube franchisee with 15 locations, recently spoke with NOLN about how his company’s training processes have evolved as its network of shops has grown. He also shared some tips for operators to help their new employees get started on the right foot, as well as some common questions he receives from new hires.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
NOLN: What are the essential topics that a training program for new quick lube employees should cover?
Chad Weisbeck: The first is making sure you lay out very clear expectations. I don't think any training program you do is going to succeed if you don't make that abundantly clear when laying it out with your new hires. And for us, training begins even before they start working with us. As part of our onboarding, new hires have training modules that must be completed before they actually start work. They'll get paid for those when they start. But that's a prerequisite for us, and I think it helps just lay down the expectation that training is important.
NOLN: Beyond the modules you mentioned, what does your full onboarding process for new hires entail?
Chad Weisbeck: For Bronco Lube, we have 15 locations now. Our personnel has changed over the years as we've grown, and we have an HR director now who does a lot with the hiring process. A big part of onboarding (is reviewing) the handbook and our standards of conduct, the explanation of benefits, the work week, and a little bit of our history. (We explain) what the training schedule looks like and then their work schedule. And, it helps to get (new employees) set up in the system. We handle a lot of that from the administrative side with an employee before they ever make it out into the field.
But the handoff probably is the most important thing between that. The HR director takes on the duty of handing off the employee to the district manager or regional manager for an onboarding at the store. We call it a first day store tour. That really is the time where people do better with hands-on training. … (New hires) get to walk the site, know what it's about and know where things are, know where cleaning lists are and evacuation plans. … We also establish what the uniform should look like. … (We list the tools employees) must have when they begin with us. We require you to have a flashlight, a pocket screwdriver, a pen or Sharpie, and a tread depth cage. (We establish) from day one that those are requirements for us.
NOLN: Do you cross-train employees on multiple functions from the start or do you tend to focus on a few core tasks and get employees comfortable with those at the start and then add responsibilities later on?
Chad Weisbeck: We cross-train pretty early. It does depend on the employee themselves. If their learning curve isn't quite as fast, we may delay them moving on to the next task. If they're working in a courtesy technician role, in their next role, we're going to move them to upper bay. That takes days, but not months. It is a pretty rapid process.
NOLN: Do you find that there's certain questions that you get from new hires frequently?
Chad Weisbeck: You know, I laughed when I thought you might ask that question because the one that comes to mind is when is lunch? (Laughs) Just kidding. The more obvious questions are asking what they're going to learn and when (they can begin servicing vehicles)—especially if they're doing a job like documenting floors and they've come to work with us because they want to work on cars. A common question would be when can I do that? Or when will I have your job? You know, that's a funny one that is sometimes asked. People typically want to learn, so they want to know what's next. Do I learn? When will I learn? What do I do when we're slow? Those would be questions I get asked.
NOLN: Are there any other best practices that you would recommend for training new employees?
Chad Weisbeck: Be a good example. There’s probably no better trainer than you demonstrating a task and how to do it. The key thing is that we practice the four steps of training: Trainer does, trainer explains. Trainer does, trainee explains. Trainee does, trainer explains. And then the last one being trainee does and trainee explains. If you follow that process through in every task you train on, there's a significantly higher likelihood that they're going to be able to do the job that you've trained them to do. Too often we think because we tell them once that it's going to stick. That doesn’t always work.
