The Heavy Duty Parts Report

Technician Retention and Safety in the Heavy-Duty Repair Industry

Jamie Irvine Season 7 Episode 327

Send us a text

Episode 327: Retaining skilled technicians in the heavy-duty repair industry is a challenge that many businesses face. High turnover rates can be costly and disruptive, impacting the overall efficiency and productivity of repair shops. Our host, Jamie Irvine, starts out this episode with a list of 7 things that owners and managers can do to improve their retention rates.

Our featured guest in this episode is Brett Delp, National Account Manager for Fleets at Stertil Koni. Brett tells us about their lifts for heavy-duty trucks. He explains how using these lifts keeps technicians safer and prevents many of the aches and pains associated with doing repair work by traditional methods. Technicians who feel safe and who are not wrecking their body on the job are more likely to stay longer at your company. Using these lifts also benefits the bottom line and results in better quality repairs so it is a win-win all the way.

Show Notes: Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com for complete show notes of this episode and to subscribe to all our content.

Sponsors of this Episode

Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation:
Find out how many “fault codes” your heavy-duty parts business has. Meet with us today. Visit HeavyDutyConsulting.com

Hengst Filtration:
There's a new premium filter option for fleets. If you're responsible for a fleet, you won't believe how much using Hengst filters will save you. But you've got to go to HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/Hengst to find out how much.

Diesel Laptops: Diesel Laptops is so much more than just a provider of diagnostic tools. They’re your shop efficiency solution company. Learn more about everything Diesel Laptops can do for you today by visiting DieselLaptops.com today.

HDA Truck Pride: They’re the heart of the independent parts and service channel. They have 750 parts stores and 450 service centers conveniently located across the US and Canada. Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/HDATruckPride today to find a location near you.

Disclaimer: This content and description may contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, The Heavy Duty Parts Report may receive a commission. 


Sign up for our weekly email so you never miss out on an episode: Follow the Show

Jamie Irvine:

You're listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, jamie Irvin, and this is the place where we have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. Welcome to another episode of the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, jamie Irvin. When you have good employees, especially technicians, either on the part side or on the repair shop side, it is so important that you hang on to those good people. It is so hard to find replacements when they leave your company. In this episode, we are going to talk about some specific strategies that you can use to retain good people in your business. A little later on in our interview, we're going to also share with you a very specific type of strategy that you can use in the shop to try to improve the retention rates for technicians. Let's get started. As I said, retention is so important when you have good employees. What can you do to keep good employees At the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation? Keep good employees At the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation.

Jamie Irvine:

We work with our clients all the time on developing their retention strategies, on improving those retention rates and helping them with their recruiting. Part of the work that we do with our clients involves a lot of training, and we have developed a learning management program where our clients can log in and get access to training that will help them with the various aspects of the business that we help them with. Therefore, because we do so much work with businesses and helping them with their people, we've developed an entire program dedicated to people and organization. Now, in one of the lessons inside of this program that is exclusively available to our clients, we provide seven steps to improve retention, and I'm going to share those with you today. Step number one you need to know what your retention rates are over time. If you don't measure things, it's really hard to manage them. If you don't know where you are, it's really hard to know whether you're getting better or getting worse. Oftentimes, without this data available to us, if it starts to go the wrong way, by the time we recognize there's a problem, it's too late. So the first step is to get those retention rates. So the first step is to get those retention rates. The second step is, once you have the numbers, it's really important that you identify key problem areas that are causing people to leave your organization. The third step is that you proactively try to address these problems one at a time. If you change too many things all at once, you can actually make things worse. Even if you make them better, you don't really know what is making it better or worse. So I really always recommend that, although you be proactive, you do this in a methodical way.

Jamie Irvine:

Number four all too often companies give a lot of attention to their problem employees and sometimes they have a tendency to ignore the superstars. In our training course, we talk about specific strategies on how to really stop that from happening, where you give the appropriate amount of attention to each group of employees. In this training program that we provide our clients, we do a lot of work with them to develop job models for each position in the company. A job model is different than a job description. It is more about the personality traits required for high performance in that role. And because our clients have already set all of these up, when they start to look at their retention strategies, they need to be looking at updating those job models as time goes on, because what you need to do is you need to ensure that the original job model you created, the reality of the job and the employees in that job are all matching and over time, sometimes adjustments are needed. The sixth step that I encourage my clients to take is that the leadership work directly with the middle managers who work with the frontline employees to ensure that there is a consistent application of all of the methodologies that we've been discussing for leadership to get it and set it all up, but by the time it makes it to the frontline employees it's been watered down or it's been changed and the approaches and strategies just won't be as effective. So it's really important for everybody leadership, management and frontline employees to all be operating inside the same system, for everybody to understand what's important and why the company's doing things the way they're doing it. This in itself will improve the retention rates at your company. And finally, there are specific steps that must be taken to ensure that not only each individual job is optimized, but the entire team is optimized.

Jamie Irvine:

I'm not going to tell you how to do that. That one I'm going to hold back. If you're interested in learning those strategies from us, you'll have to become one of our clients. If you'd like to work with us, head over to heavydutypartsreportcom and go in the top menu, click the consulting button and you can book an appointment with us to discuss how you can learn these strategies and so much more to help improve the people and organization of your business. Now, these strategies that I've just been discussing are really something that can be used in any business, whether it's manufacturing heavy-duty parts, whether you're a distributor or a dealership that sells all makes, or you're a repair shop that has a parts department. All of those businesses can apply the strategies we just discussed.

Jamie Irvine:

But let's now talk specifically about those that run a repair shop. So maybe this is in the dealership environment. This could be an independent repair shop, or this could be a fleet that has their own repair shop. In any case, repair technicians are an important, integral piece of the business, and it has been notoriously difficult to find good people to come into the industry and to fill those technician roles. And it has been notoriously difficult to find good people to come into the industry and to fill those technician roles. And, of course, we've got a lot of really experienced, good technicians who are either leaving the industry for one reason or another, or perhaps they're just reaching retirement age and they're exiting the workforce altogether. In any case, hanging on to good repair technicians is an essential part of running a repair shop.

Jamie Irvine:

In our upcoming interview, we are going to talk to someone who specifically provides tools that will help repair shops to hang on to their employees and get an excellent return on investment for those tools. We're going to take a quick break and we'll talk about that when we get back. Are you deferring maintenance because of filter cost or availability? Or, worse yet, are you trading down to no-name filters to try to save a few bucks? Either way, you're rolling the dice. The good news there's a new premium filter option for fleets Hanks Filtration. If you're responsible for a fleet, you won't believe how much using Hanks filters will save you. But you've got to go to heavydutypartsreportcom slash Hanks to find out more. That's heavydutypartsreportcom. Slash H-E-N-G-S-T Head there now At Diesel Laptops.

Jamie Irvine:

They go way beyond diagnostic tools. They are your complete shop efficiency partner, from diesel technician training to complete repair information, parts lookup tools and robust technical support. They are there to support you every step of the way. Learn more and download your free starter pack today by visiting diesellaptopscom. That's diesellaptopscom.

Jamie Irvine:

We're back from our break and it is now time for our weekly interview. Now this week's guest provides repair shops with lifts for commercial vehicles. This really does help retain repair technicians because it makes the work easier on their body and repair technicians really appreciate that. In In addition to that, it is surprising how quickly there can be a positive return on investment when purchasing these lifts for your repair shop. Listen in to my interview with Sturtle Coney. My guest today is Brett Delp, national Account Manager for Fleets at Sturtle Coney Now. Brett grew up in the heavy-duty parts industry and the service side of the industry right from the time he was about 20 years old. He started out as a technician and he worked his way through product management, sales and he's been really focused his entire career on helping the industry grow and thrive. Brett, welcome back to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.

Brett Delp:

Thanks, Jamie. Happy welcome back to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.

Jamie Irvine:

Thanks, Jamie, Happy to be back Looking forward to doing another episode with you, right? So in this episode it's a new role and a new company, and I'm really excited to talk to you about this. We talk about heavy-duty parts on this podcast, obviously, where the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. But where do those parts go? They go to a shop and somebody has to install them. Walk me through the traditional way. Technicians lift trucks and trailers so that they can install these heavy-duty parts.

Brett Delp:

Yeah, absolutely. I think today it's still very much done low to the ground. So you know, your pneumatic bottle jack lifts, your hydraulic lifts are just lifting them up enough to get them stable on a jack stand and you're still doing service very much bent over closer to the ground. You know taking wheels off, things like that, but it's very much, you know, only a few inches to maybe a foot off the ground today.

Jamie Irvine:

Yeah, and I saw that all the time as a sales account manager, when I was working for distribution companies and I was going in and walking into shops and you know you saw mechanics and technicians who, let's just face it, they weren't 20 years old anymore and they were laying down on the concrete, they were on creepers, they were crawling all over these trucks and you know that definitely has some wear and tear. So let's talk about the negative impacts of this traditional way of working on heavy equipment.

Brett Delp:

Yeah, absolutely. You kind of alluded to it and said it already. You know, even though you're able to lift the trucks up to do the services of repairs that are needed, the technician still is having to get on a creeper. They're still having to be punched over and not fully upright. So the toll it takes on the body, the number of times you know, during even a PM service, that you're getting up and down on a creeper, certainly it's not an efficient way, it's not an efficient process to do the repair and it just takes additional time and additional wear and tear on the technician itself.

Jamie Irvine:

Right, so you did the job at one time. Tell us how it felt when you were doing the job and you were working on those trucks and you had to crawl all over them and you were up and down like, walk me through. What was that like on your body?

Brett Delp:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, like you said, when you're young and you're 20 and you're, you know, throwing around 100 pound brake drums and 200 pound tires, it seems like a good exercise in theory, but when you, you know, think about the compounding effect on your body of doing that every day, five, six days a week for 10, 20, 30 plus years. It's really just not sustainable. So, you know, I mentioned PM service. Obviously, coming out of WyoTech, that was the primary thing I came into when I was working at Ryder and you know, you're doing PMs every day and you think about two, three hour PM service per truck.

Brett Delp:

So you're doing a couple a day and you're just getting up and down on that creeper multiple times, whether it's to change the oil, to inspect the brakes, to lubricate the driveline and the S-cams and everything else, and you are just constantly up and down. You're working in a dark setting because, even though the shops are well lit, you're under a vehicle that's blocked. So you're having your flashlight, you have your safety glasses, you have your lube, you have everything and it's just it's not a really efficient way to be working. And not to mention, you know it's easy to miss things. Right, it's not the most detail, you can't see everything you want to see because of that kind of restriction of light and visibility.

Jamie Irvine:

Yeah, for those of you that's never experienced it firsthand, I want you to think about strain on your neck, uh, strain in your shoulders and your back, your upper back, strain on your mid back as you're hunched, strain on your lower back as you lift, strain on your knees, on your elbows, on your wrists like every part of your body is impacted and this has an impact on retention. I you know, brett, I was recently talking to a family member of ours that is a heavy duty mechanic. He's in his early forties and I was.

Jamie Irvine:

I was surveying a number of people because I wanted to really understand kind of what was the things that were impacting or driving people out of the industry, and that was one of the things he said. Look, I'm in my early 40s and I see guys who are in their 50s, mid 50s and their bodies are wrecked, and I don't want that for me. I want to be able to play with my kids and grandkids when I'm that age, and so he's contemplating leaving the industry. I think that personifies one of the heaviest costs, because you mentioned inefficiency. So in the shop there's obviously the dollars and cents and profit and getting utilization of those bays, but to me, the retention issue is the one that's even more devastating to the industry. What do you think about that?

Brett Delp:

more devastating to the industry. What do you think about that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you go to all these trade shows and the number one and number two problems in the industry are driver shortage and technician shortage.

Brett Delp:

And part of the technician shortage is, to your point, technicians that are just exiting the industry far sooner than they were before. And not to mention, you have the guys that are so well experienced and have all the knowledge that you want to share with the younger technicians, but they can't get up and down on the creepers as well as they once did. So you know it really allows them. You know this kind of technology allows them to be in the industry longer to properly train the younger technicians. And the younger technicians aren't exactly the ones that are considering their health first, but they probably should be when they're thinking of the longevity of, you know, being able to work, you know, in the shop and be able to do the job that they are passionate about. And you know they spend all the time learning and they have all the tools, but you know, if they don't have the proper equipment to increase their longevity, uh, they're going to be out of the industry sooner than later.

Jamie Irvine:

Right, Right. So you alluded to uh, a solution to this and technology. Let's talk about that. What does your company manufacture and bring to the trucking industry?

Brett Delp:

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, in know, to keep it simple in a nutshell, it's heavy duty lifts. Right, it's everything. You can see some stuff in my background here from mobile column lifts is probably the most flexible, cost-effective solutions for a lot of shops that don't have lifts today. And then there's the more elaborate telescoping piston lifts, scissor lifts and drive-on platform lifts and your standard, you know two-post, four-post lifts that you see in a lot of shops, automotive shops today, and you know we kind of mentioned it. You go into these shops, automotive shops. It's pretty standard to see a two-post, a four-post lift. It's been that way for years and the heavy-duty industry is typically 10 to 15 years behind and it's just, you know, slow going to get these lifts in the shop. And you know I understand there is some skepticism when you think about lifting a 30 to 50,000 pound truck, or you know, even north of that with some of these cranes and other equipment.

Jamie Irvine:

So we ran into each other at the Mid-America Truck Show and I walked by your booth and first of all, I recognized you right away. I was so happy to see you. And then I look what's behind you and we have a dump truck up on a lift and it is just something to see If you've never seen it before. It's something to see. If you're listening to the audio version of our podcast right now, you might want to consider going over to youtube and checking out the video version, because we're going to have images of these huge pieces of equipment, you know, securely and safely up in the air and you really get the sense of like how much of a difference that's going to make for the technician. Talk about that yeah, absolutely.

Brett Delp:

You mentioned the you the strain on the neck and the back, and you know I talked about getting up and down on a creeper versus having this truck, you know, locked out safely up in the air at.

Brett Delp:

You know heights ranging from 50 to 65 inches up in the air. So you know for me I'm a shorter technician so it would be easy for me to get under a truck like that. But even the taller technicians when you have these trucks up in the air and you're working at a comfortable space and you're able to see everything you need to see and get to every grease fitting and you know expect every brake line and brake shoe and you can see things and work things better vertical and upright. You can see things and work things better vertical and upright. You're going to do a better job on that PM service because you're able to see maybe that crack in the brake line you didn't see with your flashlight. You can take a little bit more time while that vehicle's in the air and you're looking at it eye level and you're not looking up and down and getting the dirt and grease and grime on you. When these vehicles are in the air it's much more efficient, much more safe and much more effective to do it that way.

Jamie Irvine:

Okay, so I got a couple of questions. One when you bring the truck onto the lift, do most of these lifts have the ability to put it at any height within that range, or is it like ground and all the way up?

Brett Delp:

Yeah, no great question. So I'll take our most popular, the mobile wheel engaging lifts. Basically, they'll lock from six inches off the ground all the way to 65 inches, every inch and three eighths. So it is a low locking.

Brett Delp:

So you can set that. If you want to do, say, you're doing a DPF and it's, you know, in that mid range and you only want to lift it, you know 24 inches off the ground, obviously you have the height difference where the DPF's at you can do that. Or if, hey, you're doing a transmission, you want to get all this stuff underneath taken care of, you can lift it all the way up and then, when you're ready, you can lower a little bit to a comfortable height to meet that transmission jack. But again, you're working more in a comfortable vertical upright setting and you're not on the ground on your knees, kind of bent over, trying to get all the nuts and bolts. So yeah, to answer your question, you can adjust those, you know, on the fly as you're doing the job for whatever you need.

Jamie Irvine:

Okay, so if I was to set up in a shop one bay where we're going to do it the traditional way and one bay with one of your lifts, and we put a stopwatch on it and rolled both trucks in at the exact same time and got them into position, yeah, how much of a time gain would you get with the lift versus the traditional side.

Brett Delp:

Yeah, great question. So you know, roi is obviously a topic of conversation of what you're going to save and the efficiencies spot. So we'll take PMs, for example, because that's probably the most popular and most common repair. That's going on day in and day out. These shops and you think about fleets with thousands of trucks it can compound pretty quickly. So a shop doing it on the ground versus a shop doing a lift, you're going to save about 20 to 30 minutes depending on technician dependent on that repair. And then the other cost that you're not really thinking about, that I alluded to, is the visibility and the quality of that inspection. Right, you don't want a truck to have any debt. You know you want to increase uptime and reduce downtime. So if the PM service is a lot better, you're going to have a lot less trucks coming back for a missed track brake shoe or a cracked air hose or an S cam that's out of alignment, things of that nature.

Jamie Irvine:

Yeah, so I mean, admittedly, this kind of equipment for the shop requires capital expenditure or capex, so you're going to have to budget for it. How can shops get their head around? Okay, I have to put this cash out, but on the back end, here's where it's going to make me all of that money back and put me into a profit position. And how long does it usually take to get into that profit position?

Brett Delp:

Yeah, absolutely. The ROI is a big thing. So it is typically around a year, year and a half, depending on the jobs that the shops are doing. If you're doing transmission repairs and other things like that, you can really start shaving time off. So when you think about the compounding effect of how much shop money they're saving on doing those jobs efficiently, along with the PMs things of that nature, and then you talk about the technician retention, the health and safety of the technicians, they're not just investing in that capital expense once. This is an investment for their current existing techs, for their future techs. You know their safety, the efficiency, everything like that, but you know the money they are investing. You can see and calculate that with the ROI tool with the time they are saving on doing the jobs from PM transmission. You know rear differentials, driveline etc.

Jamie Irvine:

Yeah, and you talked about also like the quality of the repair in addition to all of that. So for the fleet, of course that's important, but even for the independent repair shop that's providing this as a service, the more equipment they can get through, the better, sure, but the better quality of the repair, the more loyalty they're going to have with their customers and that's going to be a differentiator for them against other shops who maybe are pressed for money and time and are cutting corners. So that's good. How long does these lifts last? And is there a certification required in the US versus Canada? Is there a difference there?

Brett Delp:

As far as the length life of service really depends on. You know use and abuse cases. Obviously, you know the weight of the truck you're lifting. You know each lift has capacities and we have lifts from 30,000 pounds up to 120,000 pounds. You really want to make sure that you're lifting within that capacity realm and you don't want to be running at that top capacity within that capacity realm and you don't want to be running at that top capacity.

Brett Delp:

But you know we have lifts out there that are in shops for 15, 20 years and they're going through their annual ALI inspections. So it is. You know there is a cost associated up front but if you really use the equipment and treat it properly and do your annual ALI inspections, they do last a long time. So it's not just you know, like you're buying a hydraulic jack or pneumatic jack and oh, I got to replace this every two, three years or five years, whatever. It is an investment for the long term but they do last a long time. To answer your question about US versus Canada, I believe it's the same. The ALI Automotive Lift Institute recommends an annual inspection and that's something our exclusive distributor network. They have ALI certified technicians and they handle that.

Jamie Irvine:

They'll do the inspections, they'll do the service, the parts, anything needed to, you know, maintain these lifts and keep them in proper working order. When they're spec'd correctly and not abused and maintained, they can last 15 to 20 years. Okay, we'll use the low side. So high side on ROI, low side on length of service, one and a half years to get your money back and then 15 years of service at least that means for 13 and a half years. You're making nothing but money on this lift. That is something worth considering, absolutely absolutely. Brett. Thank you so much for but money on this lift. That is something worth considering, absolutely Absolutely. Brett. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. I love to hear stories of people who are having success with your product. Can you tell us a story? What was the circumstance before, how did the lifts change everything and what was the outcome?

Brett Delp:

Yeah, absolutely One. You know, kind of would be my first let's call it sale with the company. Actually, a good friend of mine, still a technician in the industry, same age as me, we went to WyoTech together. He's working in Hagerstown, maryland, at a company called CCS. They have a few locations. He maintains a few hundred vehicles from light up to heavy duty dump trucks and things of that nature. Currently, you know, huge, nice shops with a lot of equipment, plenty of ceiling height, you know good, clean floors. But he's doing every service, every transmission, everything on the ground.

Brett Delp:

And you know, when I told him I started working for the company he had, you know, talked about a previous company that had lifts and he was interested. So I said, hey, let's, you know, we'll bring a set out, we'll do a demo, we'll, you know, walk you through how to use the mobile column lifts, make sure you're comfortable and then we'll leave them with you for a week. You know he had a couple of jobs lined up. He had a valve body. He week, you know, he had a couple jobs lined up, he had a valve body, he had a transmission bell housing he had to do and a couple things. So we left the lifts with him. He utilized it, he was calm. He's like, oh man, these lifts are great. You know, I'm using it for this. He did all the jobs you know.

Brett Delp:

And before the weekend and he was done with the demo, he was was, you know, he was sold. He told his boss I'm going to use these. You know, cut the check, we're good. So, yeah, it's just a. You know a shop that had plenty of space, it was clean, had plenty of ceiling height, we had plenty of lift for the capacity for their heaviest, biggest vehicle. We had no problem lifting. And now he, you know, we still stay in touch all the time and he's just, you know, looking for excuses to use the lift. And he talked about exactly what we talked about. He was, you know, getting tired, getting run down. Hey, my back hurts, I have sciatic issues. Now he's, you know, working on correcting those things, because he doesn't have to be hunched over and bent over doing all these jobs and getting up and down a bunch of times on a creeper. He can lift the vehicle, work more comfortably, work more safety and efficiently.

Jamie Irvine:

Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. Okay. So if you just want people to remember one thing about our conversation today, what's that one thing?

Brett Delp:

Yeah, I would think it's the focus on tech retention and the health and safety of the technician In the long run. This industry there's a lot of heavy parts and a lot of ways to get injured, and if you can invest the capital to lift these vehicles and have these technicians working in a proper safety, safe environment, I think that's the biggest thing and the biggest takeaway it's you know, I'm not getting caught up on the price of the investment. The ROI is there, we can walk through that, but it's more, you know, for the technicians and for the increased efficiency and safety for them.

Jamie Irvine:

You've been listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, Jamie Irvin, and I've been speaking with Brett Delp, National Account Manager for Fleets at Sturtle Coney. If you would like to learn more, go to sturtle-coneycom. Links are in the show notes on the website. So if you are listening on your podcast player, you just have to click the link that takes you through to the website and then you will be able to get access to all the links that we talked about in this episode. Brett, thank you so much for being on the heavy duty parts report. It was great to speak to you again thank you, jamie.

Brett Delp:

I appreciate it and look forward to the next one.

Jamie Irvine:

Well, I thought that was a great interview. I certainly really enjoyed seeing those lifts in person when I was at the mid-america truck show and and that was really cool to see these big, huge commercial trucks up in the air on these lifts. I think it's a great product and if you're running a repair shop, I hope you take advantage of this equipment. It's time now for that's Not Heavy Duty. In this edition of that's Not Heavy Duty, I wanted to talk about having an unhealthy or unsafe work environment, because that's definitely not heavy duty.

Jamie Irvine:

This is actually a very serious issue. Did you know? Every year, approximately 125,000 workers in the United States alone are either killed or disabled by a hazardous work environment? 5,000 of those are from traumatic injuries and up to 120,000 of them are from occupational diseases. Now this is, like I said, a very serious issue and certainly in the trucking industry and the heavy-duty parts industry, we want to play our role to try to eliminate these kinds of serious threats to employees. Obviously, we're going to put a lot of work into retaining our employees, investing in them, buying tools and equipment for them. We got to make sure that they have a safe work environment as well.

Jamie Irvine:

So on the one side of the equation, we have unsafe work environments where you can be injured or you can get sick. On the other side of the equation, we also have the overall environment that you are working in, and really it's sad when you think about some of the toxic work environments that do exist, and sadly, even some of those exist in our industry. Now this is really interesting. In the American Psychological Association's 2023 Work in America Workforce Survey, 19% of respondents labeled their workplace as toxic. More than one in five respondents, or 22%, said their work environment had harmed their mental health. Now we know that truck drivers have a real struggle sometimes with mental health. I think this also applies to technicians, both on the repair shop side and those that work in the part side of the business.

Jamie Irvine:

We by no means, just because we're heavy duty people, are immune to the stress and strain of working in our jobs, and if we add to that a toxic work environment, it can push us too far. Now the Surgeon General has a framework that provides solid guidance for employers who want to foster a healthy work environment. The framework recommends that organizations minimize physical hazards, discrimination, bullying and harassment. So that's both taking care of the physical risks as well as the mental health risks, reducing long working hours when possible, trying to remove excessive workloads and resource deficiencies that hamper employees' ability to do the job. Now, we're not saying that employees shouldn't work hard, because I think that's a kind of a building block of being a heavy-duty person and working in this industry, but it's really difficult to do the job if you don't have the tools or if you're being stretched too thin, if you're having to cover for other people or the lack of people in general, and this can push employees too far. We also want to normalize mental health care as a resource for employees. You know, when someone gets sick, we're often quick to buy them a card, get them maybe, you know, send them well wishes, but when there's mental health challenges, we all tend to want to shy away from that, and we need to normalize the fact that that's a health issue, just like a physical health issue would be.

Jamie Irvine:

In addition to that, it is important to have policies in place that are really eliminating any biases in the way we operate the business. At the end of the day, we should be operating meritocracies. Those that come to work, regardless of who they are, that perform, should be rewarded. That's the way things should work and we want to engage employees in the operational goals, really getting them involved in the development of the culture of the business, of understanding why the mission and vision for the business is important, and getting them all involved in participating in that and seeing their pathway through your business so that they understand that if they contribute to all of this, they're going to benefit as well. I think this is a really well-rounded look at this problem. So creating a work environment where our people can flourish is the heavy duty way and we should all do our part, especially if we are leaders or managers in a business.

Jamie Irvine:

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I just wanted to conclude by encouraging you. If you haven't already taken this step, head over to heavydutypartsreportcom, click the follow button, sign up to our weekly email so you get one email a week, so you never miss out on our content. If you listen to the podcast player of your choice, hit that follow button and if you check out the show notes inside of the podcast player, there's the ability to text us. That's a brand new feature and we would love to hear from you. So go ahead and do that if you like watching the video version on youtube, why don't you hit that subscribe button and the follow icon, and that way you also won't miss out on any of our content. Thank you once again for listening to our program this week and, as always, I want to encourage you to be heavy duty.