2026 Training Benchmarks Survey: Are you getting the training you need?

Training is a top priority for automotive shops, but knowing what to teach, how to deliver it, and where to find the right resources remains a challenge. In this episode, host Andrew Ross speaks with Matt Shepanek, President of the Automotive Training Managers Council (ATMC), about the findings from the newly released 2026 Training Benchmarks Survey. Drawing on nearly 3,000 responses from across the automotive industry, Matt discusses barriers to training, emerging disconnects and opportunities to deliver more, and what the data reveals about the future of technician development. 

A video edition of this podcast with the survey presentation is available on our Youtube Channel here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Okay, everyone, it's your host, Andrew Ross. Now, the issue of training is one that is top of mind for anybody at the shop level. Uh, but uh what to train, how to train, uh, what do your folks need that are working in the bays, and uh where to get it are uh constant questions that dog everybody who's running shops and also of uh great interest to those who are directly involved uh with the training uh for our trade. Uh with me today is uh Matt Chapanik, who is the uh president of the Automotive Training Managers Council, uh part of a community of uh ASE, is that fair to say? And uh uh they have uh very recently released their uh 2026 training benchmarks uh survey results. Uh and so he's here with me on the podcast to talk about what the key findings are and and uh maybe what we can learn to help direct our efforts uh on the training front. Uh welcome to the podcast, Matt.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Hey, I appreciate it, Andrew. Thanks for having me. Um I'd like to just if I could set up um just a little bit about what we do with the ASE Training Managers Council. So we've got about 100, 120 members um that are mostly training managers from across the industry. So we'll have OEM representation on it. We'll have uh some aftermarket representation, a little from the collision industry. Uh, and we get together uh on calls uh every once in a while, but we we also do every April, we do an in-person meeting uh where we talk about you know different trends that are happening in the industry. I present the results of this benchmarking survey that we'll go over here in a minute. Um but it's a it's a great way for folks to kind of get familiar with what what's happening uh as far as delivery technologies, different topics that are happening. We've really focused the last couple of years on AI and also on augmented reality and virtual reality training initiatives that are that are happening out there. And uh there's a lot of really cool stuff that's that's happening. So if anybody's interested in taking a look about uh what we do with the ATMC, uh our website is www.atmc.org. And uh you can certainly become a member or or just take a look at the information that we have on the website.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Right, right. Yeah, uh, it's it's super interesting to me to to find out what there what what it what is is being said. Now, for whatever reason, it's decided to just feature me as a uh presenter here, um which is kind of too bad. Um but uh let's uh let's just take a quick look at at we have here. Uh for those who are following along on uh on uh the uh video, you should be seeing uh the uh uh the the uh survey now.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Um if you if you yeah if you go up a couple slides, the first one I really want to show is just um kind of the history and the responses uh that we've had on this survey. Yeah uh so we've been doing this for actually m more years than uh it started before 2012. Uh but you can kind of get a sense of uh the participation that we get in this survey. So it it basically peaked in 2020, 2021. Uh, and if you remember, that was obviously the uh pandemic. So I always say that, oh, there are a lot of people sitting at home and they were willing to do surveys. So uh our numbers numbers went way up, and then you can see they kind of went flat for a while after that. Uh, but was it what was exciting about this year is that those numbers came up quite a bit. Uh they actually uh they're a little bit higher than what's currently reflected on the screen. It's about 3,000 responses, uh, which is a good number because it really uh anything over 2,000 responses, uh, we know it's gonna be valid statistically. So we had a a real good representation from across the industry.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Yeah, no, that that that that that that's excellent. So just kind of, you know, we we we you know, you ask uh obviously uh some sort of demographic questions, you know, how do you feel about your workplace?

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Uh, you know, and this one right here. So what we do, um the way we do this is we kind of um we we try to differentiate what folks are working on. So really we kind of bucket them into three different areas. Are you an automotive uh technician? Are you a truck technician, or are you a collision repair technician? Uh you can see on this slide, I mean, we also cover service advisors, shop managers, instructors, parts distribution. Um, so we can capture that, but we use this data so we can filter it. Because once I have it in the tool, I can kind of drill into each of those areas. But we're we're mostly focused on automotive techs, truck techs, and collision technicians.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Right, right. And I'll note that this year, uh, you know, participation uh uh proportion of automotive repair technicians is very high at 71%. So they're really driving the results uh this year. Uh you know, previously last year was 47%, and the rest divided up uh between managers and trucker truck people and truck kind of conversely though, we went down on the truck side a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

And some of this I'll take the blame on because you know we have some partners that uh that help help us distribute distribute the link for the survey. Uh and uh I think we we did pretty good on the automotive side, but we probably didn't do such a great job on the truck side. So definitely gonna work on that next year, and then also on the collision side of the business, uh our participation was very low. Uh, but I've been working with um uh some folks at ICAR, and uh they're gonna help me uh I think uh get some more participation on the uh collision side of the business.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Fair, all fair, yeah, yeah. I mean, uh certainly for our uh uh you know constituencies, as it were, you know, uh the there'd be pretty pure results that should reflect their realities in in the you know the independent repair shops, right? As a result of uh, I guess the shortfalls in the other areas, but uh it kind of helps us a little bit, right? Um and and uh uh I do find interesting that that the uh the participation in the OE dealership is very high.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Uh yeah, like I said, this was probably because I I think we had um some big OE partners like Toyota uh and I think GM maybe got it out to their technicians. Um so so that that definitely helps when they send the link out.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Yeah, they yeah, it's well, you know, it's it's a little tougher, a little more fragmented in the aftermarket, right? So it's it's I will say that uh to for listeners and viewers, uh, you know, Matt and I did talk before, and and this is you know North American-wide uh participation. It's it's not exclusively US, although uh you know ASC is obviously based in the US. Um uh so that there is very likely some Canadian participation in there, uh though obviously one needs to look at uh proportions.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah, we just don't differentiate. I don't I don't ask a question about that, but um I do suspect that we are getting uh some Canadian responses in there as well. Sure, and you see the this the split for the truck uh uh truck segment uh participation here too is you know very high on the fleet side and uh independence and so if you if you uh so this is truck and then the next one will be collision, uh, and then go forward uh another one here. And so we start off, we kind of we we ask um the ages of the technicians, and then I could kind of do a side-by-side comparison. So if you're looking at the slide, you'll see we compare the auto, the responses that we get from the auto text, the truck text, and the collision text. Right. And um you you can see kind of the sweet spot for the age of most are you know on the uh collision side of the business. Um, it definitely looks like it's trending a little bit on the older side. You can see 55 to 64, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

They're the collision is the golden or greenish colored uh bar line.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Right. And then the red side is for the truck, and you can see on the truck side of the business the majority of them are on the 55 to 64 and also 40 to 45 to 54. Right. Uh on the auto side, it definitely trends a little bit younger. Um, so you see that on the auto text, um, it kind of caps out at um, you know, the 45 to 54, but also there's a lot of representation in that 35 to 44 uh area. So this is always kind of a good indicator of you know what the age of the overall workforce is looking like. Um and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Yeah, yeah. That's that's I find that kind of interesting and maybe a little surprising, uh, you know, that that the the kind of the the the automotive service technicians uh are are trending a bit younger than other segments uh you know in in uh the industry, but you know, it is what it is, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Uh right. And then what we do, we also do a year over year comparison since we've been doing the survey for you know a long time. Uh we can kind of see if there's any trends, you know, if anything really stands out to you, um, you know, comparing it year over year. And uh uh there wasn't really anything that was a a huge uh diff, you know, difference between uh between the four years that we captured here.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Right. Not not any big shifts or anything there. Um, I I I do always find this interesting because uh uh when we talk about experience, uh you know, it's all up here, all up in the top. More than 10, less than 20, more than 20, less than 30, and big numbers uh up in the 30 years or more. Obviously, somebody who's you know in the 25 to 34 group doesn't have more than 30 years, not likely. But I do find it super interesting.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

So yeah, I mean, uh yeah, I think these kind of speak for themselves. I mean, you can see that you know, we've got a lot of folks out there with you know between 10 and 30 years of experience in the industry. So a lot of experience out there.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Right, right, right. And I know it's often a concern that we don't have a lot down in the lower uh age groups coming in, you know, filling the funnel as it as it were, but uh but there's certainly some there, you know, and and uh uh I don't know. I find it, I find it, I find it pretty interesting always.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Well, I can speak, you know, for on the ASC side of the business, we've also got I we're talking about the ASC training managers council, but we also have something else that falls under the ASE umbrella, and that's our uh education foundation. Right. And so our education foundation group works with schools um, you know, in the United States, uh, but they help um they help these schools um make sure that they're um they are uh um meeting set standards, and they also offer accreditation for those schools as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I mean obviously uh you know in Canada we have a little different situation with our apprenticeship uh rules being uh run by the provinces and and uh and all that, but you know, better training at the schools and uh is always a better thing, right? So uh the number of employers, uh explain this slide to me.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

So so yeah, this we asked the uh participants is basically to to let us know how many employers uh they've had during their career. Um and um I don't know, it's always this one's always kind of interesting, and we compare it year over year between uh 2023 all the way to 2026, and you can see that you know there's a lot of folks that um you know have have bounced around a little bit. Um, you know, you look at that very top line, that's more than seven employers over over their career. Um you know, it seems like the sweet spot is more down in the three and four. Um, but it's a good you know overall comparison, and you can kind of see what the trends are uh year over year as well.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Yeah, yeah, it's it's uh I mean there seems to be some degree of uh stability down in that, as you say, the threes, but and you look the more than sevens, you've got uh uh there's a lot of folks who who who don't stay anywhere very long, it looks like so uh yeah, but you gotta keep in mind though, too, is that um you know in the previous slide we saw that hey, some of these people have been around for 30 years, so you might wind up at a couple different places.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Of course, of course. Yeah, again, it's all just part of getting a strong uh picture. Um uh, you know, I think the you know, obviously English on the languages and Spanish uh and you know, other is uh right.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

So just uh on the ASE side, so we offer all of our tests um, you know, are obviously available in English. The A series of tests that are that's our automotive series, uh, we also offer those in Spanish as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

So so we asked this question because we kind of want to see um, you know, is that stable? How many people are saying they're using Spanish, or are there any other other languages that are they're coming up that we need to be aware of? And and what we've typically seen is about five percent um Spanish participation is what is what we typically see on this question over here.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Yeah, that makes that make that makes sense, right? So uh for training language, basically reflection of that. Uh right.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Uh uh, and so then this is just a question that we ask on how your pay is structured. We try to stay out of all the pay questions on this survey, but yeah, we we do kind of want to know like, hey, are you being paid flat rate? Is it hourly, salary? Uh, and and so we kind of break that down. Uh, you know, in this case, it was the um, you know, by OE uh folks that are working at dealerships primarily. Uh and you could see 73% of those people are flat rate.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Uh and then uh on the aftermarket side, it's um it's kind of split a little bit more. So it's kind of split between salary, hourly, and flat rate. Yeah. Um, and then some type of other, which is probably depending on how their pay pens plans are structured. Uh, and then on the fleet side, you know, it's mostly hourly, mostly hourly. Um, which I don't think anybody was really surprised. I mean, that's kind of the difference between these these different uh sectors.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Right, right. I mean, this this this uh uh you know 73% at the dealer level uh being at flat rate is often uh kind of ill illustrative or viewed as an illustration of of uh you know an issue that technicians want to get away from, you know, um uh which brings them which brings them to the aftermarket, which are more fair uh viewed often as a more fair uh compensation structure, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Uh yeah, I think on the next one we'll see a year over year comparison. I don't know, I I didn't have that one in there. So uh it's uh some some data that I have so I could kind of take a look at at um sure you know what that looks like year over year. And I think what what it did show is that um you know we're starting to see a little bit of a shift on that OE side, and that you know, more and more are going to some type of an hourly uh or a salary um you know position. But flat rate is still uh the most popular.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

It's still the kind of the bench the the the the standard uh for for the uh you know fixed ops, as it were, right? So yeah, interestingly enough for the aftermarket, it's a very kind of even split between uh uh hourly and flat rate um here. Uh and and uh you know, salary is not too far behind, and then another, which I mean we're we're catching uh, you know, other folks, so uh who knows, they might have uh bit of a structure or bonus structure in there, who knows, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:50

So and this is just a question that we have on um, did you know, do you did you have any vocational training, you know, before you got into the industry? And and you can see this question's been relatively flat for the last four years. So uh basically about 70 percent uh tell us that they had some prior uh vocational training uh before entering the industry, and roughly around 30 percent in each of these years, like I said, it's been pretty pretty flat say that they have not had any uh vocational training.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

unknown 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

So they've come in, even if they've had come in later on. I mean, they've they're they're you know, obviously uh folks who have uh come into the industry with some interest and or experience in training and desire to get training and and something in in the trades, as it were. Uh one of a trade of some kind, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:38

So uh and then we just break it down again by um you know, fleet, aftermarket, and oe dealership. And again again, it's it's relatively um steady uh among all three of these, right around 70% yes and 30% no.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

I'm gonna zip through some of these because I don't want to uh we're we're gonna make this a available. Um uh you know, obviously uh a lot of folks uh something like uh more than two-thirds feel they have access to the training they need, uh, according to the results this year, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Uh well this one was a big shift though. If you look year over year, I mean we've been pretty steady at uh roughly around 56 to 59 percent from 2022 to 2025, where people were saying, you know, that uh that that almost 60 percent was saying, yeah, they have access. This year we saw a big jump, though. It went up to almost 70 percent where people are saying, yeah, I have access to it. So that I th I thought was a pretty positive uh move that happened in the data.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Pretty notable, yeah. And and and uh uh by workplace is similar uh you know I ideas here. Um now here we go. Now here's here we're getting to the meat of the thing here. Uh yeah for lack of the thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

So we asked the question, well, well, if you um if if you don't um have access to the training, what are the top reasons that you don't have access? And uh 53% said that the right topics weren't available for them. Uh 38% said quality of the training wasn't available, and then you got about 30% that said that they can't take time off of work. Um, so those were kind of the top top three of of why they uh don't have access to training.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Yeah, yeah. And the same way, I mean tr training costs too much, uh 22% and would have to travel too far at 17%, which can be kind of wrapped into also the cost, you know, and and and the time off work are all sort of related, can be very related to each other, right? If you if you have a shop uh owner who is not making uh time available uh during the the work days for training, um then all of these other factors and the cost uh can can really uh I mean I've I spent a majority of my career was in the learning and development side, technical training.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

And um I always say like if you're not a lifelong learner these days um as a technician, you know, it's gonna pass you by because the stuff changes so much quicker than it used to when I started off in the industry. And the cars are obviously a lot more complicated than when I started. So you you have to you you have to be committed to it, and otherwise you you won't be able to stay on top of it.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Sure, sure. And just say like you need to be committed both as the learner and both uh and you know as the shop owner who's got uh you know parabetical control over the learning journey for those who work in your bays, you know, you've got to be committed to it too, right? So uh now this one is is for me, this is is really uh really critical to success in the training uh managing and and being on the training journey is is how are we doing the training? I mean, you know, years and years ago um there was really only the option of hands-on training, or I guess you could read a book or you know, get a get a stack of VHS tapes, right? Um but but it's it's it's really classroom, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Um, I mean, I've in in my career, I've I've kind of technicians are generally um tactile learners, you know, they learn by doing and you know getting their hands on things, and that's a a lot of the reasons why a lot of us got into the industry is that's how we enjoy what we enjoyed doing, and that's how we learned. Um, so what we see here is this is uh uh we say training methods reality. So this is what they uh what they say they're receiving. So majority are saying, you know, 15%, uh classroom instructor led, uh, you know, some lab hands-on, 10%, uh virtual classroom 12%, uh self-paced e-learning 13.5%. If you flip over to the next slide, we'll see um uh reality versus wants. Um so even though that instructor led is at 15.5%, we had almost 20% of the people saying, give me more, you know, I want more. And and that goes with the lab or the hands-on uh portion of it. Uh and uh you know, so you could really see that um, you know, they they want more hands-on time and uh, you know, more time in the shop when they are in training. I know uh when I was a training manager, we always tried to build our classes so that you know 20% of it was in the classroom and then 80% of it was out on the shop doing doing exercises and applying that knowledge to different tasks.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Right, right. I mean, I I don't know that it will come as a shock to anybody that this is how it shakes out, but it's a really good reminder of how important it is uh for this hands-on aspect and whatever you're doing, even if you're uh you know a manufacturer's uh rep talking about product to make sure that you've got some options there to have some hands-on components in that kind of training, regardless, right? So it's it's just it's how the it's how the texts learn and how they're all gonna retain the information, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:52

So if we flip over to the next one here, um so this is just um it's basically the same slide, but uh we we basically look over it from 2024 versus 2025 versus 2026. And uh you can see that uh that classroom instructor led, uh it just uh it's it's always been one of the um uh one of the most wanted.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Right, right. Although, you know, I should note also uh that there, although it's a little up and down, um, you know, the virtual classroom online instructor led is is in there, and that's something that that maybe you know wasn't certainly uh you know at least as easily accessible. It was very expensive to to have these kinds of things uh, you know, 15, 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Um, but but still, you know, uh definitely not in you know, some ways behind uh you know I I think that um you know on that note, um the one thing that the pandemic did do is it forced everybody to figure out how to do a better job delivering the virtual uh type stuff, you know. So whether it's a webinar, whatever, because you had no choice, right? people weren't coming to instructor-led classes. So I think the result was that it got a whole lot better and more engaging. And it forced a lot of instructors to, you know, figure out how to present uh you know using that that method. You know, so so I think the the good thing was it got a lot better than than what it used to be before.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Sure. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

And obviously there's there's advantages with it too, because you you don't have to travel when you're doing it virtual. And I was going to say it can be recorded and all that stuff. Yeah it it's definitely something that for um uh for somebody who you know is a life wants to be a lifelong learner uh is important to have as a component of your of your learning journey for sure uh because of its accessibility and the flexibility uh whether it's instructor led or whether it's uh you know uh live or if it's even if it's not live um you know e learning um is is a tool for learning that that we didn't used to have as accessibility the accessibility to and and uh should should be considered part of your mix right your your learning soup if it were so absolutely yeah super interesting you know um what else and and and what do we need this is this is this is super interesting uh right so we broke this question so we asked them you know what topics uh do you need the most and then we broke it up by auto and by truck and all that so on the auto side um we had 63 percent saying we need more hybrid EV system training you know obviously you know everybody went all in on EVs a couple years ago and then the industry kind of shifted back to hybrids um so I think maybe some maybe that's caused uh some of this is people want to make sure that they they feel like they're still up to speed with the uh hybrids and EVs. Oh sure um electrical electronics that's always uh a hot topic you know because it's one of the things that technicians I think struggle with the most you know so so these guys realize that they they might not want to but they they've got to be up to speed on on that stuff because it's in every system that that's out there now. Right. And you see it on the ASE side all of our tests all we'll get this feedback sometimes they said well I thought I was taking a brakes test but there were a lot of electrical questions in there. Well I mean you know with it with ABS systems and traction control and all the ADAS stuff I mean it's all interconnected so you have to know the electrical electronics.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Right it's been interesting to me in our recent just recent discussions uh you know on other topics uh you know uh folks who are looking at getting trained on the hybrid E V systems are finding out also that that these things are really uh uh applicable to any vehicle on the road in a lot of cases because the systems are so interconnected now so it's it's uh no no you know no learning is really standalone and siloed in the in the way that it maybe used to be uh years ago.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

So yeah I I agree. Uh and then we also have it was followed up by advanced uh engine performance ADAS and then automatic transmission uh and and also an engine performance uh so that was all on the auto side the the next one I think will give us a breakdown on the truck side the truck side yeah so uh yeah and you can see number number one was at electrical electronics so you know they they they all realize this but then automatic transmissions which I I'm not a hundred percent sure why that that one uh was so important on the truck side of the business but it was uh it it was up there at about 50 percent and then engine uh you know at 47 percent uh advanced engine performance uh at 44 and then uh hybrid EVs at 39s and and 8 ass at 36.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Yeah yeah obviously in keeping with kind of the structure of the fleet and and there are probably responsibilities too right so uh right it's good stuff uh collision which we don't really look at too much but 8 as not a big surprise paint and refinish obviously hybrid and EV systems uh uh and and structural repair all kind of at the same level at 44.4 and then electronical and electronic and uh collision estimating 22 percent so these are all you know not really many surprises there I I don't yeah not not a big surprise as I mentioned uh you know up front the um collision representation on this survey was was kind of on the low side this year it was mostly truck and automotive yeah so I mean and we have you know participation in structured training hours per year um well this this is the one that I always find interesting because you know what concerns me is when I see uh that that bar to the far left that says none and and we have a just over seven percent of all the technicians that responded to this survey so close to 3,000 technicians um saying that they don't they don't get anything yeah uh which I I find appalling because it's like like I said you know lifelong learners and you you need to be uh to be part of this industry now. I mean even right up to you know a little you know uh quick math here is is uh you know that's 20 35 plus percent have kind of like an hour a month or less maybe you know nine to sixteen hours per year is is not a lot of training time.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Uh and and uh but then you see you see on the far right you see that 17% of all the respondents came in and said they get more than 46 hours right or 56 hours I'm sorry. And this this is probably um on the automotive side you know we we had a lot of um OE participation and I know uh because that was that was my background uh when I was a training manager and um you know we would have a lot of classes that were a week long so you could basically get 40 hours by just attending one one week of uh you know a class so yeah yeah you get two one of those a year plus some other pickup training on through year you very easily get up to the 56 hours right but it again it is pretty interesting i mean there's a big middle ground here with the 70 to 24 up to you know 40 but then there's this dip 41 to 48 49 to 56 where they're just not getting it's it's it's interesting to me that that it's not kind of a progressive slide up the up the range it's it's uh kind of a I mean yeah the the sweet spot seems to really be be you know somewhere between you know uh that one to eight hours and then the 33 to 40 hours you know that that's where a majority of the respondents came in at yeah yeah yeah pretty interesting pretty interesting uh training uh and then we just kind of grouped it so we compared uh year over year so 26 versus 25 so you could see if there was any big jump um it relatively flat uh we had in 2025 we had about 19 that said that they had between one and eight and then this year you know we came into that 16 but most of most of the year over year stuff's about the same about the same yeah yeah yeah uh I mean yeah yeah again this is basically uh well we we asked them how how much how much have you received versus how much you feel you need yeah um and so this one kind of had one uh one of the brackets kind of jumped out and that was the 33 to 40. So we had people saying that in the 33 to 40 only 12% of the respondents said that's what they've received. 22% almost 23% said that's what they need. So they they feel like somewhere in between that 33 to 40 hours is uh probably the sweet spot for them.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's super interesting uh my workplace uh so uh you know we same question we just broke it down by OEs aftermarkets and fleet sure sure similar similar kind of idea um and that's that for for that so I'll just leave this one kind of up here because we we're before we kind of time out here so you know uh from your standpoint and having done this for a number of years Matt uh you know what what's the what are maybe a couple of the key takeaways for somebody who's uh either on the receiving end of training uh you know and trying to arrange it for their shop uh uh team uh or somebody who's a training manager who's who's really looking to make sure they put together good a good plan for for the year.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

I mean what are what are the couple of the things that they should really uh take from something like this benchmarking survey sure I um you know obviously the one that really stands out to me is that the techs are they want more hands-on training you know more instructor led more hands-on they love that um but I I don't think that discounts the the timeliness and the cost effectiveness of the virtual and the remote stuff and and like I said earlier um I think we've come as an industry we've come a long way with that since the pandemic everybody had to get better at that that delivery method um you know during that period because that's all there was right um so I I mean from a management perspective I would say you know just be aware as you're developing training that that's the your folks want you know hands-on exercises the ability to go ahead and you know do stuff on a vehicle use a scan tool um you know run different test plants all of that kind of stuff um and um I think that uh that was one of the things when I was a training manager I always took away I I really tried to pay attention to what are the technicians telling us and then I would also look at what are the topics what are they saying that they need more of uh versus what they're getting uh those to me are the key takeaways uh and and we make this information this is available to um everybody right on our website if you go to atmc.org uh you can download it i think i usually keep a couple years worth of this data too um so so you can you can download that i also um upload the different presentations that we go through in our April conference and you might find some interest in there so definitely uh take a look at the website and if you're interested in becoming a member uh you can join right right there on the website and we'd love to have you uh come to come to one of our uh conferences in in April sure and we'll put all we'll put some information in the show notes on on on those things too of course um matt uh this has been great super interesting uh you know for for training managers or you know for techs you know obviously techs speak up uh you know tell tell those who are responsible for scheduling your training what you're looking for make sure they know the topics that you're looking for so they can be communicated upstream and not uh you know be intentional about it so our theme for this year is being intentional about what you're doing uh not just taking uh what comes uh and and uh you'll end up with a better result uh you get the training you need in the format that you're looking for it uh but don't be afraid to kind of reach out and and uh mix in some of that other uh you know virtual learning too because it's so accessible and it's much much better than it used to be.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

Uh Matt, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Thank you everyone else for uh for listening and watching uh if you're listening uh this will be available on video as well so uh take a look we got all those slides we were talking about uh for your viewing pleasure uh we'll put a a link into the study too so uh awesome everyone thanks very much for listening and we'll catch you next time on the podcast thanks to you're listening to the great Canadian After American podcast brought to you by the publishers of Indie Garage and Jobbernation connect with us online at indiegarage.ca and jobbernation.ca a brand of chat integrated media