Rhino Charges Into New Yarrawonga Workshop

Rhino's Diesel Services might have moved just 12 kilometres along Darwin’s Stuart Highway from Winnellie to its new workshop in Yarrawonga - but it feels like a world away.

Gone is the dusty workshop floor and muddy yard, barely visible from the highway and with access anything but straight-forward.

In its place is a fully concreted, sealed and freshly painted shop floor, complete with overhead crane and a robotic floor scrubber and sweeper that keeps the new digs in pristine condition.

“You just walk behind it and it mops and does everything you need, so the floor’s always kept nice and clean. The team love it,” said workshop manager Darryl Blake.

“Our business was obviously booming, we were going ahead in leaps and bounds.

“But where we were located wasn’t really suited for the work we were doing.”

So part owners Ryan Higgins and Nicole Hughes made the decision to find a place they could call their own, which they opened in January.

Darryl, who joined Rhino two years ago after 14 years with Territoria Civil, deals with the mining companies that provide around half of their business.

He is also responsible for overseeing the running of the workshop, including quoting, invoicing and labour hire.

It’s the latter role which, to his frustration, occupies so much of his time.

FINDING STAFF

Finding and retaining accomplished diesel mechanics has evolved into a full-time job.

“It’s a captive market,” Blake said. “The mechanics really can dictate what they want.

“Australia wide, everyone is in the same boat. You’ve got to pay top dollar to get the staff.

“You’ve then got to be careful not to push your rates too high and push everyone away from you, so it’s a bit of a juggling act trying to keep everyone happy and keeping rates competitive to keep our work going at a decent rate.”

The demand for skilled diesel mechanics comes in part from the mining companies themselves but they pose only a minor threat.

A much bigger one comes in the guise of contracting companies.

“They are taking a lot of people from everyone because they are paying dollars that other people can’t pay because they don’t have the overheads,” Blake said.

“We’ve got a fleet of vehicles, we’ve got a hell of a lot of tooling that we’ve outlaid, all sorts of stuff that we’ve purchased and set up in the workshop to do the job and that all comes as an expense.

“So trying to keep our rate competitive - but also having the right gear to do the job properly - becomes a real juggling act.

“They are solely a labour hire company. It’s been a real issue for a lot of businesses.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’re competitive enough to keep our people.”

COMPETITION

But how does a small privately owned workshop compete with large companies that operates on a global scale?

“We have to try to entice them by offering them different incentives.

“We help them out where we can. Ryan will let them book some tools up and pay them off slowly.

“We also pay site allowances where they get a bonus to work on site.

“Not a day goes by where you’re not talking to someone, trying to convince them to stay.

“Just trying to keep people happy in the workforce is probably the biggest thing that you’ve got to do these days, otherwise you just lose people so quickly.

“When you get a good bloke, if he’s got the skills, you’ve really got to try to hang on to him.

“We do a lot of component rebuilds here and you’ve got to have the right person that can do that. It’s just not a general mechanic, it’s someone with a bit more skill.”

Hence finding and hopefully keeping skilled mechanics is very much a doit-yourself venture.

“We do a lot of training in-house as well and you’ve got to keep doing that, otherwise the tradesmen are just not going to be around in the future.

“We hope that when we spend the money and train them, they stay with us and gain some more experience and give something back to the company as well.

“I’ve been a mechanic for 38 years. You’ve got to hand that knowledge on to people, otherwise it falls by the wayside.”

THE RIGHT FIT

Despite a growing interest in the trade, finding the right fit for apprenticeships is a key part of the puzzle.

“It’s a big thing that we push but it is getting harder getting the right apprentice.

“At the end of the day, they have to have the right initiative and the right attitude to go through and want to come out a top quality tradespeople.

"In the last five years, there’s been probably a kick back to trades where there are a lot more people who want to become a mechanic.

“Obviously some of them get into the trade and don’t really understand what the trade is. When they get in here and see it’s dirty and it’s dusty and it’s hot and it’s sweaty, some of them don’t like it.

“But we do have some good apprentices. It’s getting the work ethic into them that’s the hard part these days - making sure that they understand that while you’re working, someone’s paying for that.

“You’ve got to make sure that you’re working as hard as you can and to the best of your knowledge to be able to give value for money - that’s the hard thing to get across to people these days.

“Time is money.”