Developing new technicians needed by one of this country’s oldest and largest manufacturers of agricultural and heavy equipment is comparable to building a three-legged stool.
The first leg is a group of 23 colleges across the U.S. and Canada.
The second is made up of the more than 2,000 dealership locations providing sales and service.
The third is the company itself, which supports the colleges and the dealership sponsored students.
Combined, they make up the John Deere TECH Program, which ensures a stream of new well-trained technicians are in the dealership’s talent pipeline to meet the growing demand for skilled technicians to work on John Deere products.
Jason Kinzey is one of John Deere’s Service Development Managers. He and two colleagues coordinate the program, which began in 1989.
Kinzey explains the basics of the John Deere TECH program:
“The way our program works is a split between John Deere, the company, our dealers, who are independently owned businesses, and our partner colleges. Without all three partners working together, we’re not successful because we require a dealer sponsor for on the job training during the program.”
Kinzey said students become involved with the John Deere TECH program generally in one of several ways. He said some will learn of it after having visited a local dealership. Many find the website online, while others, according to Kinzey may have found out about it through a school visit or career event.
No matter how they find out, Kinzey said the potential technicians wind up in a college program focused on John Deere products..
“So we have a mix of classroom theory learning, and then we have hands-on shop learning to reinforce the theory, and then we send you to your dealership to actually get real world experience on live equipment.”
And, of course, like so many learning options today, John Deere TECH also has a new virtual program. It allows students to work full-time at dealerships while taking online classes. This helps address the geographical challenges some students may face.
Kinzey adds that students can choose to transfer high school dual credit classes to the college they are attending and then earn their associate’s degree.
Regardless of the college they enroll in, Kinzey says students in the company’s TECH program will go through training specific to John Deere equipment and systems.
What students learn is, in part, driven by the needs of the dealerships. Kinzey says every institution has an advisory board that helps ensure students are learning skills to be successful and also meet the needs of the supporting dealerships.
“Dealers are advising our schools on their specific needs and curriculum updates and revisions based on industry changes.”
Kinzey says that when students are doing their internship while not on campus, the dealership can reinforce what they learn in their classes with work assignments.
“The expectation is then when you’re back at the dealership, the service manager knows, ‘a student just completed basic electrical and basic hydraulics, so they assign that student jobs with a senior technician, that are electrical and hydraulic issues and reinforce what they learned at school on live work.
Most dealers have a tuition reimbursement program for the students they hire following graduation, according to Kinzey.
The John Deere TECH Program also ensures that college instructors are well versed in the company’s systems and equipment.
“We provide training, and training aids to those instructors,” says Kinzey. He and his two counterparts bring them together for an annual training event for continuing education. They also provide new equipment that rolls in and out of the school each year for instructors to use.
And, is the John Deere TECH program being successful? Kinzey says the program has a fill rate of about 90%.
But there are also other ways to measure the program’s success.
Kinzey explains:
“I see several students that as a junior in high school or a sophomore they decided, ‘Hey, I want to be a technician and I want to work on John Deere tractors,’ and they get a part-time job at the dealership.
“They’ve worked there for a couple years before we ever get them in the classroom, and they’re excited and they complete the program and hit the ground running.”
