Kansas City, Mo. — Workforce development has become an increasingly important topic for the farm equipment industry in recent years. While a lot of attention has been given to the challenge of finding and retaining qualified service technicians, the workforce development issue is much larger than that. Developing employees to fill future senior and mid-level management and leadership roles is a challenge for dealers. 

For the past two years, NAEDA has conducted a workforce development survey to gauge the extent of the challenge and to determine where the pain points are. The survey also addressed the type of training that is preferred, and the training topics that need to be addressed in creating a high-performing dealership. NAEDA is pleased to announce the 2022 survey is now available and we are asking dealers once again to provide us with their input. 

"As we look across the landscape of our dealer channels, we see because of consolidation, as well as growth, retirement, the evolution of the business, new customer demands and a variety of other things, having the right people doing the right job is vital to our success,” says Michael Piercy, vice president of dealer development with NAEDA’s Dealer Institute. “And I would go a little further and say today, it’s not just having the right person doing the right job, it’s also making sure the right person has access to the right training to do the job right.”

For the second consecutive year, NAEDA is partnering with Farm Equipment Magazine on the distribution of the survey. NAEDA is also working with Texas Christian University (TCU) on the tabulation of the results. The survey is arranged in 5 parts: Overall training needs; a dealership’s financial commitment to workforce development; specific technical and people skills training topics; demographic information and an opportunity for survey participants to provide comments on their workforce development challenges.

The survey can be accessed through this link. Results of the survey will be made available in early 2023.

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