I knew I was in for a good conversation when four different representatives from Checkered Flag excitedly hopped on a call to chat about how much they love their WrenchWay Top Shop pages. Let me tell you—they did not disappoint.
Checkered Flag has a centralized HR team that gets pulled in a lot of different directions. Recruiting has become a huge focus, and they are dedicated to making sure their dealerships—especially their service centers—are fully staffed with the best people.
Like every service center across the country, finding technicians at Checkered Flag is top priority. Thankfully, the Checkered Flag service managers are fully supported by their HR team. They have put a special focus on getting the right tools and resources in place to help their service managers recruit technicians.
About Checkered Flag
Checkered Flag has been family-owned for over 50 years by the Snyder family. Serving the Hampton Roads area, they represent 16 different brands at eight different dealerships.
Not only is Checkered Flag “Where Winners Buy,” but it’s also “Where Winners Work.” From day one, Checkered Flag invests in their employees’ training to ensure they provide a top level of service to their customers. In addition, Checkered Flag employees are dedicated to giving back to their community by participating on various projects like United Way Day of Caring, can drives, Clean the Bay Day, and much more.
Recruiting: Everybody’s Focus and Nobody’s Focus
While Checkered Flag is an amazing company to work for, finding technicians has always been very difficult. Like many shops, recruiting was everybody’s job, but also nobody’s job. When this happens and there’s no one championing recruiting in an organization, talent acquisition often suffers.
“We knew we had to pay more attention to recruiting. We were handling more and more tasks, and it was getting more challenging to give it the focus it needed.”
Libby Pidgeon, Vice President of Human Resources, Checkered Flag
Once Checkered Flag brought Sara Berteling, Talent Acquisition Specialist, onto the team, she got to work getting the right tools in place to help their service managers attract more technicians.
Helping Service Managers Successfully Attract Technicians
One of the first things Sara did was present the team with WrenchWay as a possible tool for their service managers to use to recruit technicians.
The team was very excited about WrenchWay and got to work getting their Top Shop pages set up for each of their eight dealerships. Each Top Shop page includes photos, videos, compensation ranges for all levels, benefits information, and frequently asked questions around work environment, career development, and hiring process. Once completed, the HR team was able to present their service managers with an incredibly valuable tool to attract techs.
We are really trying to make sure we have our people [service managers] getting the most they can out of their WrenchWay Top Shop pages. Recruiting is only a little part of their job, but it’s a critical one, so anything we can do as a support department to give them the tools that will make their job easier, we try and do.
Libby Pidgeon, Vice President of Human Resources, Checkered Flag
With their Top Shop pages set up, Sara now dedicates some time in each of their monthly meetings with their service managers to discuss their WrenchWay Top Shop Pages.
“In our monthly service meetings, I always have a slide about WrenchWay talking about how we can be using it and any new features that have come out. Something I really like about WrenchWay is that it’s very progressive. It’s a self-marketing tool, everything is online and easily accessible for technicians to look at everything we have to offer. WrenchWay is always growing the pages and adding things that can be really helpful.”
Sara Berteling, Talent Acquisition Specialist, Checkered Flag
The Checkered Flag team is very active in using their Top Shop pages by including links in their job postings and email signature, sharing their pages on social media, and pushing any and all applicants to their Top Shop pages regardless of where they applied.
Most recently, the Checkered Flag team started taking advantage of WrenchWay’s new Team Shares feature. With this tool, Checkered Flag started a competition between stores where whichever shop had the most employees share their Top Shop page on their personal social media pages got lunch catered in by HR.
“I definitely saw a change in technicians applying directly to our site which I’m sure Team Shares had something to do with it. As a recruiter, It’s the best thing in the world to see a qualified technician just apply for a job… That never happens!”
Sara Berteling, Talent Acquisition Specialist, Checkered Flag
Bringing in More Technician Applicants with WrenchWay Top Shop Pages
As a result of incorporating their WrenchWay Top Shop pages into their recruiting efforts, the ability to attract technicians to apply for jobs at their shops has greatly improved.
“There’s definitely been an uptick in our ability to recruit techs. It’s not just another job board. Everybody is over that. Being able to give our service managers a place to show off their shop to a candidate literally anywhere in the country helps get them better results.”
Libby Pidgeon, Vice President of Human Resources, Checkered Flag
Michela Reardon, Service Manager at Checkered Flag Toyota, agrees that their Top Shop page has been a great resource for their shop to help them continuously recruit technicians.
“I’m very thankful WrenchWay came into our world. It represents us well. It’s such a clean and informative website. I just can’t say enough nice things about it. It makes our lives as service managers so much easier. It’s recruiting that’s going on all the time. It has a very positive impact on our ability to attract technicians.”
Michaela Reardon, Service Manager, Checkered Flag Toyota
Interview Highlights
