diagnosticsupplement1022 - 15

TECHNICIAN Q&A
Fleet Maintenance: What's a day
in the life of an average diagnostic technician
look like?
Talon Thomas: Often, places I
worked had 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. operating
hours where the first shift worked until
3:30 p.m., then the second shift came in
at 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Some shops offer
10-hour days so they only have to work
four days a week, which would have
workers coming in at 7:30 a.m., then
clocking out at 5:30 p.m.
Typically, you'd have a selected set
of work orders curated by the shop
foreman and the other supervisors.
Once you get those, the first step is
to verify the customer complaint.
Sometimes that's a straightforward
ordeal; other times it requires getting
a hold of the customer and talking either
with the customer directly or with
the driver to try to get a better understanding
of what may be going on with
Photo: Noregon
Talon Thomas,
product management
technical engineer,
Noregon
Diagnostic technician
retention tips
A former technician and current technical engineer for
Noregon discusses ways to retain your best technicians.
by Alex Keenan, associate editor, Fleet Maintenance
T
o thrive, a company must hold
on to its best assets, and in the
modern transportation industry,
which is filled with ever-evolving, highly
complex equipment, technicians with
diagnostic expertise are among a fleet's
most valuable resources. Who else can
troubleshoot those phantom engine
fault codes and get commercial vehicles
back on the road?
But holding onto techs may become
an issue. According to a 2022 survey by
WrenchWay, a company dedicated to
promoting technical schools and connecting
technicians with shops, 80%
of technicians have considered leaving
the industry, with 70% of them experiencing
job burnout, and more than 50%
considering leaving due to problems
with a manager.
These are grim statistics, but your fleet
doesn't have to add to them. To find out
how to prevent your diagnostic techs
from reconsidering their employment,
you need to know how to troubleshoot
their on-the-job issues. That's why we
spoke to Talon Thomas, product management
technical engineer for diagnostic
tool provider Noregon Systems and a former
diesel technician.
the vehicle. Verifying the customer concern
is very important because you don't
want to waste your time and you don't
want to waste the customer's time, either.
Getting any kind of tips or tricks that
the driver is aware of that may not be
mentioned on the work order could also
go a long way to duplicating a concern.
And then, using the resources that you
have available to the shop as well as inside
your own mental toolbox, you typically
have two to four hours to try to connect
the dots to take the root issue and
repair it, whether that be physically repairing
it or presenting a case of why you
may need to replace certain components.
FM: You've told us before when you
were a diagnostician, it was really hard
to find a laptop because there were not
enough in the shop. What kind of tools
today do techs really need to do their job
and to get the best uptime?
Thomas: Resources are absolutely
critical. There are certain resources
that technicians are expected to have,
like hard tools, and certain diagnostic
tools, like multimeters and even oscilloscopes.
The things that a diagnostic tech
may not have are usually furnished by
the shop, like scan tools, service tools,
diagnostic tools, access to work orders,
and reporting systems' data to look at repair
histories. If you're a dealer, having
all of the dealer-level uptime resources
available to the tech right when they
need access to it is critical.
October 2022 * Fleet Diagnostics 15
diagnosticsupplement1022

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