Mike Black has been trying to move all of Valet Car Wash’s training online for some time. For one reason or another the project just couldn’t get done.

“As your company grows and you have multiple operations with a lot of employees, the training becomes really important,” Black said. “We had been trying to develop our own online training system. But it kept getting pushed to the back burner.”

The project jumped to the front of the list when Black learned about a new car wash-specific online training platform developed by International Carwash Association. “I jumped right on it,” he said. “It’s a great platform for us to have consistency among our network to make sure our employees are all being trained the same.”

Leadership Education And Development (LEAD™) is a new car wash training program for car wash managers from ICA. “We built LEAD to give our industry consistent, high-quality, and car wash specific training,” said Chief Content Officer Claire Moore. “The goal is to help car wash managers, teams and organizations succeed.”

At Valet Car Wash, Black is looking forward to empowering his team to take the training anytime, anywhere, on any device. “Being able to complete the training when it works for them helps make sure the training gets completed,” he said.

For Black, employees being able to see actual car wash scenarios in the training is a key element. “You can take a lot of different courses online, but this is car wash specific,” he said. “I think that’s really important.”

IDENTIFYING A NEED, FINDING THE SOLUTION

Creating car wash specific training wasn’t easy. LEAD’s launch in January was the culmination of 18 months of work. Program development included a rigorous validation and testing process with leading car wash organizations to ensure that the knowledge needed for managers to succeed is reflected in the content.

“We studied the jobs, tasks and competencies of a car wash manager and built a program based on those findings,” Moore said. “While the principals are universal, this is a program that is 100% customized for the car wash industry.”

Built on a proven learning management platform that has been successful at more than 20,000 retail operations like Culver’s and TGI Fridays, ICA has developed a solution to help track consistent employee training across all locations.

For Julie Petty, at H2WOW in Colorado, trackability was key. “One of the key features we were looking for was the Learning Management System,” Petty said. “With LEAD we can see what employees have taken, setup the learning program in advance, task it to a person in advance and see where everyone is in a single snapshot in the dashboard. It’s a great way to manage it in a central place.”

“It was important to build this platform with the long-term in mind,” said ICA CEO Eric Wulf. “We’ve been intentional in resourcing LEAD by building an on-staff educational competency and dedicated resources to sustaining and continuously improving this important industry program.”

ESTABLISHING THE 5 CORE DOMAINS

LEAD was created with five domains at the core, Talent Management, Leadership, Sales and Marketing, Communication and Service, and Finance and Operations.

It launched with the full Talent Management domain available, organized into five content categories: Recruiting & Hiring Practices, Onboarding & Training, Coaching, Performance Management and Workplace Management. Each course contains dynamic learning modules and interactive assignments.

“This is just the first step toward the larger vision,” Moore said. “There is a need to recognize our managers for their achievements in the wash. Building this curriculum allows us to formally recognize their contributions to their organization and the industry. It helps to create a career path within the car wash industry that helps retain top talent.”

When a trainee passes the final exam in the domain, they earn an official ICA credential. This credentialing and certification marks an industry first. Credentials are easily shareable within social networks to recognize achievement.

“Store managers have never been more important to the success of this industry,” Moore said. “This gives owners another way to recognize and incentivize achievement and development in their people.”

RECOGNIZING ITS VALUE FOR THE LONG TERM

Studies show that employee recognition is a key element to retaining top talent, increasing employee engagement, and encouraging high performance. And the current employee talent pool is as competitive as it has ever been.

According to Petty, LEAD will play an important role in helping H2WOW’s overall efforts to retain talent and help employees grow with the company. “It’s not nuts and bolts, which is specific to our operation, but it’s more about leadership,” she said. “How do I communicate feedback on a regular basis? How can we do regular review programs where we can assign training? That helps our people grow their skillsets and leadership base to be more effective.”

Moore said retention and engagement are exactly what LEAD is meant to improve. “Attracting and retaining top talent is more important than ever,” Moore said. “LEAD helps you increase employee engagement, invest in your people, and spend more time focusing on your business, and less time dealing with labor challenges.”

For more information on the LEAD training program, go to carwash.org/lead.