Most automotive dealerships don’t see recruitment as a cause of downtime. They usually think of it as just filling vacancies when someone leaves or when there’s more work. But in my experience, downtime often starts as a hiring problem long before it shows up as a service issue.

When workshops fall behind, KPIs drop and customer satisfaction suffers, people usually blame:

• workload.
• parts delays.
• staff shortages.

What often gets missed is whether the right roles are in place to keep things running smoothly.

Dealership Downtime Is a Hiring Problem: The Roles That Keep Workshops Moving

Dealership workshops can slow down if the wrong people are in key positions or if important support roles are understaffed or not clearly understood.

From a business perspective, uptime is crucial. Whether vehicles are off the road, bays are empty, technicians are waiting for parts, or there’s rework from poor diagnosis, the result is the same:

• lost revenue
• frustrated customers.

Parts Interpreters Are a Productivity Role, Not an Admin Function

Hiring decisions play a bigger role in that than most businesses realise.

Parts interpreters are productivity roles, not just administrative positions

Too often, parts interpreters’ roles are treated as an admin heavy position when honestly it’s a technical productivity role.

Bad parts advice will slow things down and kill workflow. A wrong part ordered, a delay in sourcing, or a lack of understanding around supersessions and alternatives can stall a job for hours or days. If you multiply that across multiple bays and the cost becomes hefty very quickly.

Good parts interpreters understand how workshops operate. They think in terms of urgency, job flow and technician time. They know which parts are priority path items and which can wait. They communicate clearly with service advisors and techs, not just suppliers.

When dealerships hire parts staff without technical understanding, they can create friction between parts and service. That friction shows up as downtime, rework and tension throughout departments. From a recruitment perspective, that’s not a personality issue it’s a mismatch between the role and the reality of the workshop.

Diesel mechanics and technicians drive revenue, or they can stall it

Diesel mechanics and technicians are the engine room of dealership service departments. Their productivity directly impacts, customer turnaround times and warranty recovery. But hiring for these roles can be rushed or focused on availability.

Not every technician performs well in a dealership environment. When the wrong hire is made, the impact is immediate. Jobs can take longer, returns increase, and supervisors spend more time managing problems than supporting performance.

From a commercial standpoint, hiring decisions can affect service KPIs. Missed targets aren’t always a workload issue they’re often a capability or fit issue that started at recruitment stage.

Workshop and field alignment keeps work moving

Dealerships that run efficiently tend to have strong alignment between workshop-based technicians and field or mobile service teams, because if alignment breaks down, downtime increases.

Field technicians who don’t understand dealership processes can create bottlenecks when work transitions back into the workshop and on the flip, workshop techs who lack exposure to field realities can battle with diagnostics or fault histories. The gap between the two slows decision making and parts flow.

When recruiters don’t understand workflow, they will focus on filling roles individually rather than building a functioning system. Dealerships need people who complement each other’s experience, not just meet job descriptions.

This is especially important in diesel heavy environments where vehicles, plant and equipment are often high value and time sensitive. One misaligned hire can create delays that flow through the entire service department.

Wrong hires cost more than vacant roles

One of the biggest delusions in dealership hiring is that a wrong hire is better than an empty seat. The opposite is:

A poor hire consumes management time, disrupts team dynamics and creates rework. They slow down others, increase supervision requirements and often contribute to higher turnover when good staff become frustrated.

From a service KPI perspective, wrong hires impact:

• average job turnaround time
• first time fix rates
• warranty claim accuracy
• customer satisfaction scores

When dealerships approach hiring reactively, they increase the likelihood of compromise. When they approach it commercially and proactively, with an understanding of workflow and dependencies, the outcome is different.

Why recruiters need to understand how workshops run

Dealership recruitment doesn’t work when it’s handled by people who don’t understand service departments. Job titles don’t tell the full story. Two diesel mechanics with identical qualifications can perform very differently depending on environment, support and workflow.

At TRS Resourcing, my focus specifically is on understanding how your dealership operates day to day. Such as: where delays typically occur or which roles protect uptime and which ones quietly create bottlenecks when they’re wrong.

Dealership Downtime Is a Hiring Problem: The Roles That Keep Workshops Moving

When hiring decisions are made with uptime in mind, workshops do run smoother, teams perform better and service departments stop operating in reactive mode. I understand, and from experience I know that dealership downtime isn’t inevitable. In many cases, it’s a hiring problem that can be fixed by putting the right people in the right roles, at the right time.

Automotive, Car & Truck Dealership Recruitment