The ASE Education Foundation and S/P2 have formed a partnership to develop and distribute a mentoring program for the automotive industry to address the technician shortage. The Workplace Mentoring System is designed to help shops identify and train service personnel to become mentors to students and entry-level employees.

This program will be available to the entire industry, including automotive service, medium/heavy truck, and collision repair and refinishing.

S/P2 created the Workplace Mentoring System, which offers online courses covering the roles of the three key players — the mentor, the mentee, and the manager. The courses explain the roles and responsibilities of a mentor and a mentee, as well as laying out the responsibilities of the manager who should oversee the mentor-mentee relationship. It includes content from choosing the mentor and hiring the mentee, to handling business decisions such as pay plans and tool issues.

“Mentoring is an essential component of a successful ‘grow your own’ employee process,” said Trish Serratore, president of the ASE Education Foundation. “S/P2 has created an online mentoring program that focuses on the mentor and the mentee. It also allows the instructor to be involved, to monitor, and to be a resource. We see this opportunity to team up with S/P2 as a way to help the industry grow the next generation of technicians, both in the classroom and in the shop.”

Next steps for the two groups are to fully integrate the ASE Education Foundation tasks into the Workplace Mentoring System and to develop a pricing model for accredited and non-accredited programs and ASE Education Foundation partners. In addition, the development of downloadable, customizable task lists, as well as mentoring tracking via computer, tablet, or phone, is underway.