It’s all about LT tires

he did not lay anyone o . But he reduced hours.

“Last year, I had too many employees and not enough customers. is year, we have way too many customers and not enough employees.”

He says business is up about 31% year-todate in both sales and “gross pro t dollars” versus 2019. And sales are up 41% over 2020 levels.

“We are gangbusters both in tire sales and auto service,” he says.

But the sta ng dilemma remains.

“We are desperately trying to hire employees,” he says. “I tell my store managers, ‘If you want to be up an additional 15%, hire four more guys in the shop.’ But they are nowhere to be found.”

Melvin, who has been in business for 37 years, says the current situation is way beyond

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the usual ebb and ow of the market. “I look at some of the help wanted sections, whether it’s online with Indeed.com or Craigslist or the Providence Journal classi eds. I just thought we needed to drop out and use other avenues of recruiting.”

Melvin also is not afraid to do some recruiting himself. He recently spotted a man at the local deli who was wearing another tire dealership’s shirt. Melvin hired him.

“We have resorted to some unusual tactics,” he says. “Failure is not an option.”

Employee retention has been another priority. Melvin makes sure he pays his employees well so he won’t lose them to someone else. “Leave no low-hanging fruit,” he says.

At Elk River Grove, Ill-based Tredroc Tire Services Inc., the search for employees involves “trying anything and everything we can,” says CEO Larry Je ries. at includes wage increases and $1,000 and $2,500 hiring bonuses.

It also means taking the search for workers to all kinds of platforms, from LinkedIn to Craigslist. And sometimes, it means trying to attract a good worker from another company.

“Never in my 30-plus years in this industry have I seen the hiring situation like this,” says Je ries.

“Good people are always hard to nd. You can’t even nd bad people right now.”

OTR tire service has always required a special skill set and Je ries says few of those trained or equipped for that job are searching job ads on LinkedIn.

He’s trying to ll Tredroc’s OTR tire technician pipeline with existing employees.

Je ries says the dealership will work with “a good service tech who wants to make this their career.”

It’s not always an automatic t, as he says comparing an OTR tire technician to an emergency roadside truck technician “is like comparing a brain surgeon to a foot doctor.”

But it can work.

Tredroc will pair a truck tire technician with an experienced OTR technician and pay that OTR-oriented employee a premium.

It’s not a quick process. Je ries says it takes no less than six months and can require a year of hands-on training, depending on the application.

“ e most di cult part is nding that person who wants this to be a career path. It’s a lucrative job. It’s a $100,000 job.”