A Nanaimo company that “embraces” its apprentices has been embraced by judges for the Small Business B.C. Awards.
The Small Business B.C. Awards is the province’s largest annual small business competition and recognizes contributions businesses registered in B.C. with 50 or fewer employees make to their communities and the economy.
Harbourview Autohaus, celebrating its 34th year in business, is also celebrating its shot at the awards finals.
The competition announced last month that Harbourview Autohaus was selected among the Top 5 companies in B.C. with the best apprenticeship programs. This year’s finalists were selected from a field of about 700 competitors in 10 categories.
Mike Johnson, the dealership’s resource manager, said one of the factors distinguishing its apprenticeship program is how it “embraces” its apprentices and brings them into the fold by setting them up with a mentor and providing a wide range of on-the-job technical experience. The company currently has two apprentices.
“When we start an apprentice, we start off with a mentor program where they’re being mentored by our senior Red Seal technicians,” Johnson said.
Apprentices are taken on based on their personality and ability to work within a broad range of technical disciplines in a field seeing rapid advances in electronic controls and hybrid and electric drive systems.
“It’s technical and it’s computers and it’s diagnostics, so we need somebody who has a real sharp brain for diagnosis versus somebody who’s just good at changing spark plugs,” Johnson said.
Volkswagen has more than 24 training programs their technicians take online and at the company’s training centre in Richmond, B.C., to attain their master mechanic certification.
Another benefit of apprenticing with a smaller automotive shop is that apprentices get to see and experience all of the various kinds of day-to-day repair work, which ranges from changing tires to transmission repair.
“They spend about 75 per cent of their time working on things that they’re capable of working on and 25 per cent of the time they’re viewing and working with their mentor and the other people in the shop to ensure that they’re learning things that they’ve not worked with,” Johnson said.
The next step toward nailing the awards competition is for Johnson to pitch the dealership’s apprenticeship program before a Dragon’s Den-style panel of experts from the Industry Training Authority of B.C. and Kwantlen Polytechnic University next week (Feb. 6-14).
The winners will be announced at the 14th annual Small Business B.C. Awards Ceremony in Vancouver Feb. 23.